Learning Grit and Gratitude — Seeing (the world) 2̶0̶2̶0̶ 2022!

A big goal for Mike and me on this trip was to help our kids appreciate how good their lives are at home. I know it doesn’t seem like that when we post pictures from cruise ships or beautiful beaches, but for each day like that, there are usually a few days of hard work to get there.

Le Palace Hotel, Tunis. We’re staying **next** to it. We’re fancy adjacent.

Today, for instance, we’re in Tunisia, right next to a gorgeous beach that we have mostly to ourselves. We’re also right next to a resort with the most gorgeous pool I’ve ever been in, so we spent a day there this week. But in every picture I take of the breathtaking beauty around us, all I have to do is zoom out or move the camera left by an inch, and you can see the other half of reality here. I take some pictures of “just the pretty,” not to hide the rest but because I can appreciate that on its own. But I also love capturing the less pretty side of things, because it’s all part of it.

The staircase down to the beautiful beach.

We love the place we’re staying in. The host is helpful and sweet. The apartment is very comfortable. But as with (seriously) every place we’ve stayed on the entire trip, we seem to get to choose two of the three: wifi, air conditioning, hot running water. I’m not sure we’ve had all three working at once since we left Colorado. I’m not calling that a major hardship, but it makes us all appreciate what we have in our cushy American home.

The signs of learning grit are subtle and harder to notice, but I’m seeing them. At the beginning of the trip, you’d think we were asking Story to walk on hot coals when we asked her to help with dishes or make her bed. Now, I’m not saying she loves it or never pushes back, but it’s smoother. Same with homeschool for both of the kids. The first month, I was pretty sure I was going to have send Story back to 4th grade when we get back. Teaching her anything was rough, and math was a nightmare. These days, she still has to say “no, no, no” when I say it’s time to do math. But it’s more like that’s her warmup routine. She actually gets to it and through it more quickly, and I’m feeling pretty good about where she’s at in the workbooks. Sagan has always been our compliant kid, but even he can passive-aggressively “forget” about schoolwork. That’s been improving, too.

On travel days and when entering new countries, that’s when I can really see the difference in the kids. They have always been good travelers, and that is one parenting skill for which I take full credit. We had each kid on planes and out in the country/world when they were very little. Sagan’s first flight was to Vegas at 5 weeks old, and he made it to Europe as a toddler. Only as it related to travel, I had very specific rules and routines for life with littles, and it paid off. I’m not saying we didn’t have our less smooth days, but I’m happy to say I was never the most frazzled mom with the loudest baby on a plane.

I’m not sure if schoolwork is easier or harder to do in paradise.

But anyway, the travel we’re doing now is easier in large part because we laid that groundwork. (*Anytime a person questions why you bother bringing a little kid on a trip and says “they won’t even remember it,” rest assured that the trip is still becoming a part of who they are as a person. It is worth it, just not in the same way as it might be for an older kid.) On this big adventure, we’ve required that our kids be able to carry whatever they bring, and it all has to fit in bags that can board a plane with us. They’ve had to keep track of their own items and to charge their own devices.

They’ve learned that delays can happen with planes, trains, or buses. That there may not always be a bathroom available (or a toilet seat, or toilet paper, or sinks). They’ve skipped meals or eaten only whatever weird leftovers or groceries we happen to have on hand. They’ve been hot and sweaty and still had to walk for miles carrying their bags to get to the next train station. They’ve worn dirty clothes or waited a day for their laundry to dry, because dryers are a very rare treat in most of the world. They’ve stood in long customs lines. They’ve watched their parents be as clueless as they are when someone is speaking Italian or Swedish or Arabic to them. They’ve shared beds and food and drinks. They’ve taken cold showers (or in Sagan’s case, he twice got screwed out a shower entirely because the water ran out). They’ve navigated public transit and restaurants on their own at times, in countries where they don’t speak the language. They’ve boiled water to drink. They’ve kept going when they were tired, hungry, or not feeling great.

None of us has suffered any major hardship. I’m not trying to make any of this sound dramatic and awful. It’s not. Overall, we’ve been safe and mostly comfortable the entire time, and sometimes it’s been downright luxurious. But I can see that the kids’ perspectives have shifted. Their standards are lower. Their grit is grittier, and gratitude for when things go right is increasing. When the hot water stopped working our first night here, there wasn’t a single complaint in the house. We all figured that maybe there just wasn’t ever hot water, so we just rolled with it. That would not have happened two months ago. (I’d have been the first to whine about that one!)

COVID actually did us a favor in this one way. I think collectively as a world, we all learned a little more of the “make do” attitude. We got less picky with our groceries. We learned that supply chain issues can be a thing. Amazon Prime doesn’t always make it in two days. (The horror!) Those of us who stayed healthy were thankful for it.

This travel is just carrying us along in that same direction. Hell, it’s literally doing that. We went from Northern Europe where everything is organized and runs on time, to the Mediterranean area where…well, not so much. And now we feel less intimidated by tackling Africa and then South America next.

Story is the best critter-finder I know.

I doubt either of our kids will opt to live in a third world country after this journey, but I love that they’re seeing that they could - and the many great things about places that are less sterile and tidy. I also know that, at least for some stretch, we’ll all be very, very content with simple pleasures back home. Just for fun, I asked everyone what little things they’re most excited to have back in our normal life. We all agree that missing Willie is the hardest part of this. Story says it’ll be her stuffies and her friends, in that order. (Haha.) Sagan looks forward to good wifi, people speaking his same language, and wearing his heaviest, bulkiest, most oversized skate clothes. (He did not word it that way, but my way is more accurate.) Mike misses Chipotle. I’m excited about seedless grapes and low humidity. Are we high maintenance or what?