What I learned about myself traveling solo with my kid

I am not my kid, and my kid is not me. Traveling brings awareness on our inner child needs.

We’re returning to the US after the first of three solo trips with our kids. These trips are intended to be a coming-of-age milestone and a focused time for the traveling kid. No bickering on what to do, where to eat, when to stop, and what to wear.

First up was Iceland, the ancestral home of my wife.

After my trip back to Vietnam, it was important to me to acknowledge our path to where we are and where we came from.

This land formed by the spreading of the North American and Eurasian plates and the mantle plume surged hot rock up forming volcanos and rift valleys. The landscape was full of life, even though it was literally on volcanic rock.

Everything was covered in this green moss.

The water was the purist I’ve tasted as it all passed through carbon rock.

The heat of the Earth rose up, boiling the water it touched, creating geothermal pools. In a place where it was cold, the Earth provided the contrast.

It’s a uniquely dark country, with little light pollution in the wilderness. The clear skies at night illuminate the Northern Lights, when solar flares come in contact with the Earth’s electromagnetic field.

But this trip wasn’t for me.

It was for our oldest child, a self-led excursion.

A test of my parenting.

A test of my own inner child.

Don’t waste

I grew up with refugee parents. We didn’t waste anything because everything was life and death.

Icelandics also have a culture of not wasting anything. On an island of rock, everything is life and death. You need to consume, save, and hoard everything.

We wanted to raise our kid to live in a world of abundance, to be nurtured, and to be cared for. This also meant they didn’t eat everything on their plate, bought more than they needed, and drink half of every beverage.

It was hard to witness this without dying inside a bit.

But those are my values. Those were values of people surviving.

We’re beyond surviving. It’s time to thrive.

Make the most out of everything

I grew up in a world where we tried to get the maximum value out of everything. If we went to Disneyland, we’d be the first in and the last out. If we went to a buffet, you find the most expensive dish and ate until you barfed. If you went on a vacation, every moment was spent doing as much as you could.

Our kid wanted to relax.

They didn’t want to go out much, and when we did, it was pulling teeth to getting out the car.

Each location we stopped at was an exercise in are you sure you want to just sit in the car? In my head, we just dropped a crazy amount of money and flew thousands of miles just to sit in a rental car?

In the end, they were happy with what they saw in this country. Personally, I think we could’ve done more, but that’s my value.

Part of growing as a parent is to acknowledge and accept that our children are their own people. They’re not us. They’re not our inner child.

They get to form their own identity, supported and contained by their parents.

Get out of the hotel

Growing up, we were always outside exploring, rarely inside the house.

Our kids, all three of them, loooooove staying at home, or staying in the hotel.

We spent so much time in this hotel on this trip. One one hand, we paid a bit for the hotel so enjoy it. On the other hand, we paid a lot and spent a lot of time traveling so let’s go see what Iceland has to offer.

Instead, a lot of time was spent napping, watching movies (which we can do in the states), and dinking around in the mornings. Note my value judgments emerging here.

It’s a constant struggle to stay in the moment, be aware of my own inner voice, and truly listening to the voice of my child.

You deserve this

The hardest part of this trip for me was witnessing how fragile our kid’s sense of self is. They spend a lot of time saying:

• Is this okay?

• Are you okay?

• Am I allowed to do XYZ?

• Are you mad at me?

• I feel bad.

• I feel guilty.

I don’t know the source of all this broken sense of self. This kid grew up in a well-off household, with everything you can imagine for support, yet…

Being in Iceland, I got to witness the history, for a small part of this family tree.

I saw the faces of Icelanders, which sometimes appear to be dulled, dead, and emotionless. Maybe it was the Vikings smashing the heads of their enemies and drinking out of the cracked skulls. Maybe it was what they needed to do to survive on the ice rock. Maybe it was the culmination of the family line that needed to do what they needed to get here.

We’re here, we made it.

Yet, when I look at the face of this kid, they don’t believe it.

Like me, it’s a journey now to heal the wounds of the lineage, and to cry the cries of the ancestors, and to metabolize and let go of the grief.

I am 80

In traveling with a subsection of my family, I get to witness a narrow sliver of their upbringing. I can’t stop observing family dynamics, observing how a culture is formed, and how the trauma manifests itself.

I can’t help but to notice, to observe, and to accept that everything is the way it is because it is.

Next time you’re traveling, in the company of your family, or around other people, observe.