Babylune

Adventures with Baby

by kate baggott on May 20th, 2006

My three year-old thinks that boarding an airplane is as easy as getting on a bus.

We’re not jet-set, we’re just a bi-cultural family living in a third country. We live simply (by North American standards) and save money for trips to visit our families. Flying with a baby, and now two children, is something I just do. That said, I’ve gotten a lot of sympathy, and the odd dirty look, from fellow travelers. Still, I would rather have a stressful flight than the stress of loneliness and homesickness I would get if I didn’t take the kids home.

It surprises me when I talk to women who say things like, “I refuse to get on a plane with a baby,” as if taking a baby on a plane were like taking them to see a horror movie.

Yesterday, at playgroup, I was talking to another mother who just had her second child. With her first, she wouldn’t even take a long car trip for fear of damaging the baby’s back with a prolonged period in the car seat. Her second baby has already made a ten-hour transatlantic flight. Their lives just demanded it. So the mother adjusted and everything was fine for the whole family. Still, she seemed to believe that she had somehow failed the new baby by taking her on such a long trip.

I wondered if I shouldn’t feel guilty about flying or driving my little family around the world every time I get the chance. Instead, I feel guilty that my son had been to eight countries by the time he was the baby’s age and so far she has only been to two.

The term “settle down and raise a family” is very apt, don’t you think? Having children, I do believe, makes women protective and where there was once a sense of adventure, there is now fear for the safety of the child. Where there was once an entire world to explore, there is a routine that provides stability. Routine certainly helps both mother and child cope, but is developing a devotion to that routine especially good? I don’t mind, most of the time, losing the freedom I used to have in order to be a mother. What I really do fear, though, is becoming inflexible. And boring. I don’t think I could live with a boring version of myself.

I just lighted on a memory of meeting an American woman in the Sofia airport with her two children. The family was on a post with the Peace Corps in Bulgaria. Now, that, is an adventurous family. Adventurous and good. Makes me feel like an amateur traveler in contrast.

What about you? Would you rather stay at home in the safe, warm nest, or fly of to new destinations while the little one is most portable?

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POSTED IN: Mommy Extras