The Good, The Bad and the Ugly of Being with your Family 24/7

For the past 10 months the four of us have been together every single day. We spend so much time in each other’s company that we all vigorously oppose to taking posed family photos. Above are two of the very few shots on which the everyday coexistence of the four of us is documented and our legs are not cut off from the frame.

I know most of you are thinking ‘Oh, how sweet! It is awesome you guys can spend such quality time together!’, but if you stop for a minute, think about it and dwell on the words all the time, you might have a change of heart. Because all the time means you are in each other’s grill constantly. The only break is when we go to bed. But even then, quite often, when circumstances dictate, our personal space is limited. Like not long ago when the four of us shared two Indian train berths – we are talking about snuggling on 2′-6″ of swinging surface for hours in the heat. Two nights in a row!

Being together 24/7 has been a mixed bag of Good, Bad and Ugly. Of course the Good rules. But the Bad and the Ugly are always lurking in the shadows, ready to make a move.

The Good. At the beginning of the trip the Bad and the Ugly didn’t even make a squeak. The four of us were embarking on the adventure of a lifetime and we were all elated, drunk from the joy of tasting freedom and endless possibilities. Like children let loose in a candy shop we took in new sights with wide eyes and giggles. Sleeping in a tiny van with no heat in cold winter Japan? Bring it on!  It didn’t bother us that the kids were bouncing off the van’s walls and that in the morning we would wake up wet from condensation. We were too busy stuffing our faces with exotic foods and too involved in admiring the almighty Japanese toilets at 7/11. Food, high tech toilets and the cuteness of Japanese and all their stuff was pretty much all we talked about those first days.

Thailand brought new excitement to the table. Suddenly we were in tropical wonderland. And there was space around us. Lots of space! Ocean! Jungle! Palm trees!

Coconuts!!! Mountains of them! And beautiful beaches!

As we journeyed around in SE Asia the Good got even better as we learned how to deal with stressful situations, bargaining, questionable advice and staying away from tourist traps. Most of the Good is easy to predict. Yes, It is exciting to explore new cultures and landscapes as a family and slowly morph into a decent travel machine. Yes, every day the four of us are sharing experiences that are one of a kind. There is ease in living a life devoid of responsibilities and chores. We laugh together all the time at anything that is even remotely funny. Our inside jokes have morphed into a customized family tongue. We have also developed the ability to communicate with each other without words, but expressions only. As a bonus we get endless snuggle time, conversations that are deep and last for hours and the pleasure of seeing the world through each others eyes. And again, lots of snuggle time while having crazy adventures, which takes the cake as far as I am concerned.

There are other Good things that are coming out of hanging together all the time. We are constantly getting better at taking life at a slow pace as a family. Striking a balance between the four of us though is tricky and requires a lot of adjustments and compromises. We are all easygoing, but K & R more so. Kuba is a chill introvert and R is a sweet 9 year old who needs tons of free time to day dream and play imaginary games. B & I are very similar in a way that we need constant challenges to be content. Both of us would be miserable hanging out for a year observing the world going by. Gradually we got better at communicating clearly our personal wants and needs. We learned to listen and pay attention as ignoring each other and being selfish brought out the Bad.

The Bad. 290 days into our trip I can say that the honeymoon of the initial travel months is over. I don’t know if the heat and the intensity of India did us in, but we saw the Bad. More than a few times. At this point in our travels living on the road has officially become our mode of existence and not a temporary fun thing. We discovered that while traveling we are facing the same challenges we had back home.

The Bad in a nutshell ~You can’t pack a backpack, buy an airplane ticket and escape from yourself. Your issues will follow you. To the end of the world and back.

• Traveling full time is hard work. Constantly we have to make choices and take decisions, even after we adopted a somewhat “let’s not plan and see what happens” kind of approach. Kuba and I have found it necessary to divide responsibilities. That by itself is challenging and brings on conflict. I think and act quickly and don’t like to procrastinate. Moreover I have clear ideas of what I like and what I don’t like. Kuba, on the other hand, is chill enough to procrastinate till the last moment and he is less willing to ask locals for help and make phone calls. Often, he also has lower expectations than me. Sharing responsibilities thus has proven to be a difficult task. It wouldn’t work for us to alternate in planning as I would have to surrender fully my tendency to be involved in every decision and Kuba will have to push himself to be on top of things all the time and keep up with my speed of thinking, which is not his forte.

Solution: Recently we decided that he will be responsible for transportation only so now we trust him blindly on taking us from point A to point B. We will see how it goes. I am still struggling with not asking locals for directions or help when in transit:) The rest of the responsibilities are divided on first come first serve basis.

• We don’t fight or argue much but we spend SO much time in each other faces that short temper and claustrophobia have both joined our team. Kuba and I are pretty patient parents but when cramped in small spaces with our stuff scattered all over we both snap at the kids when they pretend to not hear or when they are plain annoying. B is still in the habit of whistling all the time. At the beginning of the trip we found the whistling amusing, now it drives us insane. He will stop when asked, only to resume a minute later.

Solution: We work on taking a step back before reacting. It is easy to lash out emotionally but it leads to no good, only to ugliness. Giving each other mental space has become essential. Kuba and I find ourselves needing quiet time often. So the four of us try to be in the same tiny room engaged with different activities in silence. It works most of the time. Long train/bus rides can be spend in silence as well, so by the time we arrive at a new place we are recharged. Parks or open spaces are awesome! Lifesavers, as kids can roam unsupervised. Big cities are difficult and can wear us out quickly. In developing countries they are usually noisy and tiresome and we just avoid them as much as we can. Having a light itinerary is essential.

• Travel has made our kids more shy. They have always been reserved, but on the road they have become professional observers. They are not the kind of children to jump into play and engage everyone around them. As a consequence they are not getting much play time with other children. This has made them much closer to each other but also better at pushing each others buttons. B excels at bossing R, she retaliates by aggravating him with petty things, we jump in her defense and the whole family is on fire.

Solution: We work on explaining to both of them than neither of us is interested in their individual happiness but solely in keeping the harmony of the family as a whole, so they both need to suck it up and make it work. B gets immediate punishments – no treats of any sort- for being rude to his sister. I know that this is not the best course of action, but we had to react to his bossiness in some way. In a twisted sort of way this works. He is more attuned to his behavior.

• R is not an angel herself. She is never willing to pack or help packing, one of our major activities. She always gets engrossed in a very important game right when we need to collect our scattered stuff. Solution that doesn’t involve nagging? Haven’t figured out one yet.

• Kuba and I found out that we can’t be parents all the time and mind our language and behavior constantly. Words slip. TMI slips. The kids are exposed to things that most children their age are still unaware about. We often stay in cheaper backpackers places and hang around travelers in their 20s. Their language and topics of conversation are often rated. That aside, our children have been exposed to the extreme poverty of India and Laos. They have witnessed the horror of the recent history of Cambodia by seeing the faces of all the victims of the Khmer Rouge regime in Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. In Cambodia they also saw little girls who don’t go to school in order to make money for their families by selling trinkets to foreigners. B&R know about the victims of bombs dropped by USA in Laos during the Vietnam war, most of them children like themselves, who die even today from unexploded cluster bombs. In Vietnam they learned about the Vietnam war. Nothing depicts suffering like an image of naked children running away alone and scared. In Bangkok we arrived at 5 am in the morning and the kids saw the night life of the city and got a hint of why so many male tourists visit. R is most of the time clueless but B observes the world with sharpness that doesn’t miss a thing.

Why am I putting this on the Bad list? Because it is an instinct of the parents to shield the innocence of their children, yet there is nothing we can do to prevent them from seeing.

Solution: For every ugliness, cruelty and unfairness they see we show them beauty and goodness that far exceeds the bad. We remind them that for the most part the world is safe and there is more kindness in it that they will ever know.

• Kids get so involved that they start owning the trip and that confuses the roles as to who is in charge. B is always on top of every conversation and is meddling in adult matters and decision taking with ease he didn’t possess before. Don’t get me wrong. Self confidence is a good thing, but when a child always joins his parents conversations or jumps in front and starts bargaining for tuk-tuk rides or shrugs off a hawkers or children trying to sell us stuff, it easily comes off as arrogant.

Solution: We constantly remind him to step back an enjoy his childhood. We also remind him that he is lucky to travel and other children don’t have the opportunities he has, so he needs to be kind and humble with everyone.

The Ugly. Thankfully there is not much ugliness yet besides the fact that having to do the heavy disciplining in front of each other can be exhausting. Sometimes it is impossible to break into groups and do the talk. We just deal with each situation the best we can. The four of us have already fully understood the concept that there is NO escape route! None of us can just run away for a few days. This by itself is also on the Good list as we are forced to find ways to make things work. Right on the spot.

So there, next time you see a photo on our feed that gives you a pang of jealousy just remember that this is a flat image that only captures a beautiful moment but not the complexity of our shared experiences.

~M