Another Stressful Family Vacation

Vacations are a sort of ritual in our family. When I was still attending school, they happened twice a year with regularity: once during the summer, once during the winter. They were a luxury for our middle-class lives, and I had the good fortune to spend a lot of time traveling with my family before I graduated from college. We went on road trips to the Maritimes, California, Boston, New York, and Florida. We flew to China countless times to visit relatives in Shanghai and explore nearby Nanjing, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Ningbo, as well as distant Beijing and Xian. We went to Disney World twice, and to two more Disney Lands across the world. We had a cruise stint that brought us to the Bahamas, Alaska, and the Mediterranean. A week of uninterrupted family time somewhere as far away from home as possible.

During a moment of particularly high tension during our trip last week to the National Parks in Western Canada, my sister remarked: “another stressful family vacation”. If you’re reading this Mom, I’m sorry — you might want to stop reading here. That statement was undoubtedly true, despite what an absolute privilege and rarity they were. On most of our family vacations, there are times when I wish I could just go home, shower, and sleep in my own bed. Vacations are a sort of ordeal in our family, and these past ten days were no exception.

They always start with undiluted excitement that we were about to go on a vacation. Everyone always bought into the vacation and no one was ever conscripted against their will. There was a wild…