Weekend Photo - Adventures With Our Children
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September 8th, 2007
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Mountain Bikes On Our Car At Gotland 2007
Canon Powershot SD800Is
I think this simple picture says a lot about what we're trying to accomplish as parents. It's our high end mountain bikes with Daniels little bike in front of the historic ruins of Visby during our latest vacation on Gotland 2007. We want to have fun, work out, travel, and experience adventures. We don't want to do it alone, we want to do it with our children.
Before our children became a part of our lives we had some amazing years. The 10 years pre-kids were filled with amazing vacations around the world. We lived like rock stars, especially since many of those years were spent in NYC. During this time we never had the urge to have kids but still talked about what we wanted to accomplish when, or if, the time came. Even though we both felt immature, deep inside we always knew we one day wanted to have children.
It was of course a luxury being able to think about children this way. To look at other parents and our parents and see mostly what we didn't want to do. We never wanted to give up friends, hobbies, workouts, travel, sex, and fun to have kids. We wanted to keep doing all this things but do it with our kids present (not the sex part though).
People laughed at us when we talked about our plans and expectations. But now, after two children, the same people are not laughing any longer. It's certainly possible to have kids and travel with the kids. On a lot of vacations. There is no need to give up a super stressful Wall Street job or 6 times a week sessions of running, tennis, spinning, yoga, mountain bike, and gym. And there is no need to miss out on friends, nice restaurants, romantic dinners, and crazy parties.
It does takes a lot more effort than before but it's all possible to do without taking time away from the family. Being a weekend parent spending no time with the kids is not an option for me. My current 6 months of paternity leave with my daughter, and my previous 5 months paternity leave with my older son, certainly makes that clear.
The huge benefit of integrating our kids with our lifestyles is that we're happy parents. And happy parents means happy kids.
I constantly shake my head when I see what happens to parents after having kids. Parents seem to completely forget about keeping some part of their lives post-kids and everything turns into diaper talk, arguments with the wife, no sex, and obesity. Relations with the spouse are completely forgotten despite once (hopefully) being the seen as a sex Goddess/God. No wonder many parents find it stressful and do little else but argue among themselves and with the kids.
Henric and I got the biggest grins on our faces when we saw his little bike on your car. Too damned cute. Great post, as always.
I subscribe to your view entirely and am helping my husband change his views because the moment one of the kids throw a tantrum or I seem overwhelmed with them he says stuff like “you are gone for the next two years” or some such stuff. Then I go off alone with the kids and manage to have a lovely time and seeing that he cautiously plans outings and does not trust the kids to behave themselves. I have seen that the babies are happiest when I take them out. Fresh air can cure any cranky baby. We have planned a short holiday about twelve days from now and are looking forward to it. It will be my little son’s first encounter with the sea. Though my husband and I are not as adventurous as you, we love travelling and I enjoy travelling with the kids.Your Gotland pictures were beautiful as is the one on this post.