Teens and Family Vacations ... Then vs. Now

As I write this, I’m sitting on the back deck of my family’s rented home for the week in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. For the last ten years, my husband and I have vacationed with our extended family to a variety of places (Cape Cod, the Outer Banks, and Maine). Every year, the four of us - my husband, myself, my stepdaughter and my stepson - pack ourselves into a car and drive to “get away” for a week. 

Until this year. This year, my husband and I left on our own. We packed up the car and drove to Maine, kid-less. 

Our kids are now 19 and 21. They have their own lives, their own friends, partners, their own jobs, their own schedules. And for a variety of reasons, packing into the car as a family of four just didn’t quite work out this year. Our younger child did arrive a few days later, but the older one has her own life and her own agenda, and as difficult as it is to wrap my fully developed brain around, I recognize that as weird as this feels, it’s all very … normal.

Both of them are still teenagers (remember: a “teenager” is really anyone ages 10 to 25). They are developmentally moving away from my husband and I. And teens are supposed to do that - they are programmed to find other people they will survive and grow with. It’s why teens look to their peers for advice, acceptance, recognition, etc. before they look to us, the adults in their lives. It’s why they spend more time with their friends and partners than they spend with us. It’s why they choose others over their parents.

And although there are a lot of reasons why this vacation looks and feels very different this year, I know - even if it doesn’t feel good - that this is an absolutely normal part of life. As parents, it’s very, very hard to let go of the nostalgia of family traditions and it’s hard to let them figure things out for themselves. I say this both as a parent who’s living it, and as a school administrator who sympathizes with the parents in our school community - and the communities around the country - who are navigating the “tug ‘o war” between holding on and letting go. It’s a bittersweet balance for sure.