Trevails of two travelling teens

Twenty minutes from adventure. Twenty light years from appreciating it.

De Jongens have spent the last two and a half years living a twenty minute bus ride from one of the busiest airports in Europe.  Affordable flights to countless exotic destinations are theirs for the taking.  Furthermore, they have been blessed –yes, blessed - with parents who love to travel.  You would think this heady combination would provide untold opportunities for family adventure. 

"I simply can't look at another real life castle"

Yet instead it provides untold opportunities for juvenile complaining and associated parental incredulity.

“Do we have to go away AGAIN?”

“How long for?”

“WHY do we have to go away EVERY break? Can’t we just stay home for once?  We ALWAYS go away. None of my friends go away. EVER.”



Tolerating another pile of ancient bricks.
This time in Rome

“This family sucks.”

“I’m not going.”

Ned Nederlander and I cling desperately to our parental self-control.  Through gritted teeth we proffer calm reassurances and gentle counter-points.  “Yes, aren’t you lucky?” and “At least you won’t have to look at that silly old X-Box for a while; won’t that be a relief?”

And our favourite “It will be great.  You’ll see things you’ve never seen before, and which some people will never see in their lifetime. “



Hey, the graphics here are quite good really

“Great”, they huff. “How about you go and find those people and take them with you because maybe they’ll appreciate it more than we will.”

This exchange, I’ve come to realise, is the modern equivalent of my mother’s “Eat your dinner and be thankful you have food on your plate because there are children starving in Africa you know”. To which my siblings and I, and I suspect many of my esteemed readers with similarly compassionate parents, frequently retorted “Fine, put it in a box and send it to them.  But I doubt even they will eat THIS”.

That's nothing - we've seen moods all over Europe

Interestingly, the same children who so vehemently rail against the cruel travel regime we impose on them, spend many of their waking hours taking themselves off into various fantasy worlds, courtesy of a game controller, a mobile phone or a laptop, and frequently all three simultaneously. 

Exasperated, I demand to know why it is that they can spend hours each day cruising through digital worlds of other people’s making, yet not want to cruise through a perfectly fabulous real world right outside their own front door?

Their reply is loaded with teenage logic and no small amount of calculated provocation.

The Sahara, as seen by a person who was actually there

“Listen, we’ve already seen the place you want to take us – we looked it up online and we saw loads of pictures so we don’t need to go now”.

Cue: stomping, slumping, sighing, sarcasm, screeching and slamming of doors. 

By me; the supposedly mature, wise, adult.

Finally, happy with the response they have incited, one of them will ask, in a resigned tone of voice, “Does the place we’re staying at have wifi?”

That’s when we know we’ve got them, and realise they have been playing us all along.  Soon after that point we find ourselves skipping to Schiphol yet again.  On the way one or other of De Jongens is highly likely to say “Look, thanks for these amazing opportunities you are giving us. I know we sometimes appear like completely ungrateful little toads, but actually we realise how privileged we are and we are certain these trips are helping us put the world in context. You two are the best parents.  Ever.  Thanks for all the opportunities you are so selflessly giving us.”

Really.  They do.

Ok, no they don’t.  Ever.

Once at the airport, having overcome any issues arising from De Jongens’ plaintive claims to the Border Control officer that Ned and I are complete strangers intent on kidnapping them and stealing their kidneys, we start to relax.  Sometimes however we are subsequently called on to assist the security personnel remove the silver spoons that De Jongens have shoved down their socks (having taken them out of their privileged mouths) in an attempt to set off the metal detectors and have themselves evicted from the airport.  Once these and a variety of other unexpected traumas have been dealt with, Ned and I generally agree that we have earned a holiday.  It’s at that point that we can see clearly enough to remind each other that gratitude can’t be forced on people. Particularly your own offspring.  We then move on to acknowledge, with incredible maturity and wisdom, that appreciation for opportunities sometimes only comes with time and hindsight.  With luck, the value of the heady combination of a twenty minute bus ride to Schiphol and two wanderlust-stricken parents will one day dawn on De Jongens. 

For my part, I now realise that my own mother's heady combination of tuna bake with curried cabbage wasn’t as bad as I thought at the time, and I apologise for my lack of gratitude.  In fact, had I eaten it while it was hot, instead of complaining and resisting for the duration of the meal, I probably would have grown to love it and experienced a considerable increase in nutritional benefit in the process.

And by the way Mum, if you have some of it left over now, I’m happy to personally deliver a care package to Africa.  I can be at Schiphol in twenty minutes.