S5E21 Family Vacations Aren’t Just for the Kids: Making Space for Everyone

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Transcript

Speaker 1 (0s): Okay, good morning bows and bow ties. I'm a little bit of a disaster this morning for those of you who are new to my channel. Welcome. I am Bo, also known as black and opinion native woman. And so I'm trying to get my life together. It's about five 10 in the morning as a drive to work. I wanted to be there by five, but I couldn't get it together. So I am just returning. I'm gonna come off camera because there's a lot going on. So I am just getting back from vacationing with the family over spring break.

And one of the things I wanted to talk about is when we go on vacation, as my kids have gotten older, I've had to impress upon them that this is a family vacation. It's not all about you. So what I explained to them is that like the family should get something out of it, right? So whether it's doing nothing or doing something, everybody has to get something out of it. And I'm also teaching my kids that it's okay to not always be doing something right.

And it's okay to have to compromise. Like it's not all about you. But anyway, during our vacation away, the kids wanted to like rip and run. And I did not. And let me just say this. Part of the reason why we went away is because it was to, to take it down a couple notches, right? You know, we're constantly doing things. I'm constantly running the kids around, both my husband and myself, but we're really busy with, with them.

And then we have to be very intentional with each other to make sure we see each other, that we date each other. And so when we went away, I was like, look, y'all, y'all not gonna like wear me out. I don't wanna go away to just, you know, watch, rinse, repeat and, and do the same things away. Like just be super busy. But they tried it, they tried it, and I completely shut that down. So one of the things they did was they wanted to go go-karting on one of the Grand Prix go-karts or whatever.

And I don't have an issue with that. I'm just not going. And my husband was willing to take them. And you know what happened? I went to a movie by myself. So my kids were like, are you okay? Are you okay? And I'm like, yes, I'm okay. I had been telling them since before we left, I'm gonna go catch a movie while I'm down here. Right down there. And they were like, what? What, what, what, what, what, what, what? I mean, but, but, but, but I'm like, no, no. That's what I wanna do.

I wanna go sit somewhere and actually have time to go catch a movie and do nothing. So we, when we get to where we were and the kids were like trying to just be themselves, I guess, and I was like, no, I'm not going go-karting. I don't wanna get on a go-kart driving around constantly have somebody trying to like bump me or whatever for whatever reasons. I don't know why I'm getting old. I'm not interested in doing that anymore now.

And I think they thought I was joking until my husband and I, we decided, you know what? Why don't you take the car and just come and pick us up when your movie's over? Let me tell you how glorious it was for me to go watch a movie. I sat there by myself. I had my really expensive hot dog and I enjoyed the movie. And my kids thought that, you know, it was just so sad. And I'm like, do you not understand how happy I was? I went to the movies by myself.

Didn didn't have to talk to anybody. Didn didn't have to worry about anybody's feelings. I didn't have to ask anybody, do you want something? Need something. Go get something. Go. You know, I didn't have to do any of that. All I had to do was care about myself. I enjoy going to the movies by myself. Where I'm going with this is like, I, I've come to the conclusion when, when going away with the family, like we all have to get something out of it. I actually was very intentional about just saying no.

Sometimes. Like, they're like, Hey, what about, I'm like, I'm not doing it. I just wanna sit here and just wanna sit here and do nothing. They're like, but can you come with this? I'm like, no. If you wanna go do it, do it yourself. But I wanna sit here and do nothing. 'cause when we get back, I have to do something. I have to do a lot of things. So here I am while my kids are home today. So I stay at about spring break. I, I am basically, you know, going to to work to take care of some things And they get to relax.

My whole thing is, it's like, just the way you wanna relax. We wanna do the same thing. And so when we go on vacation, part of what is appealing to me about vacation is just that I'm away from the shenanigans. I want to do nothing. So I implore all of you out there who have children, especially as they've gotten older, to basically you need to be intentional about what you want out of your vacation. How do you wanna spend your time?

You should be able to recover when you're on vacation. The one thing I don't like doing is when you're on vacation and then you pack everything in. I don't like that. I have learned to just take care of myself. And let me just say for the record, it's not that I'm sleeping the entire time. That's not it at all. 'cause I still tend to get up early, but I am resting my body. I don't feel like doing anything. I don't want to go anywhere. I don't wanna do anything.

I wanna sit, I want to watch television. I want to rest. I want to do nothing. Heck, sometimes I don't even want to eat. And I think that oftentimes as parents, we forget that during vacations. Like it's important for us to get something out of it too. Whatever that is. If you wanna rip and run, that's great. If you wanna rest, that's good too. So I remember when my daughter was asking me something and I said, Hey, you need to go figure it out.

Figure it out. You better go entertain yourself. I'm not here to entertain you. You could have brought things to entertain yourself. You, you limited that, that's fine. You need to go figure it out. And no, my job is not to entertain you. I had to tell my son that too. Now, I didn't mean didn didn't go do some things. Like apparently my twins in particular, like running along the beach in the, the cold water. I don't know why that's fun for them. I I, I don't like the beach. Even though my son says he doesn't like the beach, they like going to the beach.

Like I, I, I don't like sand. I don't know why people like going to the beach. Like, I hate the beach. I don't really care about the beach. The sand is dirty. It's, but I did go spend time with them for like an hour, hour and a half at dusk. You know, they liked just running along, getting in the water. They like go getting in the beach water. But I also made sure they understood, you will leave me alone. At one point my husband wanted to do nothing.

He's like, no, I just wanna sit here and I wanna watch some of these playoff games. I understood that. I'm like, and you should, you should do that. I'm like, we don't have to run all the time. But anyway, well, it was gone. I'm not, that's not to say I didn't do things, but I made sure I took it down a couple notches. When they went miniature golfing, I did not go, when they went go partying, I did not go. But then on the flip side, my, when my kids and my, my, my high schooler went one of the days when they wanted to go down towards the beach, I let my husband rest and I made sure they, I mean, I sent them second day by themselves and then I came down later.

But there was a little bit of a trade off. But let me just say for the record, as a family, we participated in an escape room. And let me just tell you, we are the worst family ever. Out of the all the escape rooms we've done, we've solved water, we are terrible. Now, I've solved like, escape rooms before, but this takes the cake. How bad we really are as a family.

But that's the kind of thing I'm just saying. Like, we went, we as a family, we did things together, we went out, we, some things we didn't really do together. Like, you pick the activities you wanna do, and that's it. Like my, my daughter and my son, the, the high schooler, they walked down to get some ice cream or something. You guys can do that. You're old enough. I don't need to go with you. My husband, same thing. Were like, we don't need to go with you. Figure it out. You know, if you wanna do some things, some things you can do alone.

All I'm saying is while I was on vacation, I made sure I took time away to do nothing. I'm like, if you wanna do those things, go get your own ice cream. You wanna go miniature golf, you go do that by yourself. If you want to go to the beach, you can walk down there. You guys wanna go, go-karting, go. Like, your dad will take you to that one. I'm not doing it as a family. We walked the boardwalk, we did those things, but I had to be very intentional about how I wanted to spend my time.

I hope that the rest of you who are taking your kids on vacation are very intentional about how you spend your time. It, it's not a vacation if you're constantly running around. If you wanna do that, that's fine, but I was like, I'm getting up there. I need to like not do these things. All right. That's all I've got to say. It's just a mini little rant. I don't even know if it's a rant, but I get that off my chest. All right, later, make sure you subscribe to my channel....