June 2006

Parent to parent: Family vacations change

By Mom Marion

Like most parents, my husband and I try to give equal gifts to our two children. Do three Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles equal one Rainbow Brite doll? This was an important question many years ago. At this moment, I face a similar dilemma.

When my daughter graduated from high school three years ago, our gift to her was a special family vacation, a weeklong boat ride in Holland. Together, the four of us traveled through the countryside, negotiating locks, feeding waterfowl and admiring the flowers.

Although we all remember it as a wonderful vacation, we do not seem to be able to repeat it, even though my son is graduating from high school and it should be his turn.

Schedules fill

The problem is my daughter's schedule. As a junior in college, she looks at summer as a time to earn money, secure a career-related internship and live with friends in another city.

I understand that she has her own life now, but traveling without her is like driving a car with three wheels. And our son does not relish the idea of a vacation alone with two parents.

This dilemma, unsolved at the moment, highlights one of the struggles of parenting that hits during the college years. The nest is not empty exactly, but the birds know how to fly, and they are coming and going on their own schedules.

You can still connect

I have discovered something important, however, as I talk with students on the Davis campus. They talk about their siblings. Freshmen go home, and little sister looks bigger and she has taken up tennis. Freshmen go home, and older brother seems less remote, and he knows something about how to get an internship. If the parents are away from the nest doing something, the kids might hang out there anyway, together.

Our big vacation may not happen this summer, but my children are asking about each other. Calendars are being mentioned. Family vacation may turn out to be a ball game in San Francisco, lunch with Grandma and a long weekend in the country.

Perhaps a lot of little vacations can equal a big one. When my son looked at his three Ninja Turtles, they weren't as tall as Rainbow Brite, but he was happy.

I can be too.

This column was first published in the May 2003 issue of the Aggie Family Pack newsletter.

Newspaper columnist Marion Franck is the mother of a second-year graduate student and a college junior. A former lecturer at UC Davis, she is co-author, with UC Davis Associate Chancellor Sally Springer, of Admission Matters: What Students and Parents Need to Know About Getting Into College.

Top of page

Return to previous page