Vacation? Nope, Just Geography

Everyone loves vacations.  We all look forward to them during the year and can’t wait to get some well earned R&R!  Most people countdown the days, and then the hours, and then the minutes, and sometimes even the seconds until they are able to leave the office to go on a vacation. 

The definition for Vacation in the dictionary is as follows:

Va*ca*tion (noun):

1. break from work

    a period of time devoted to rest, travel, or recreation

2. fixed holiday period

    a scheduled period which the activities of courts, schools, or other regular businesses

    are suspended. 

When a mom packs up the kids, all the kids stuff, and all the stuff for the kids stuff, and all the things to put the stuff for the kids stuff in, and you’ve all but packed up the entire house and can’t imagine anything else fitting in the suitcases, or the car to head out for a family “vacation.” The only thing you are really doing is transporting your “work” to a different location for a set amount of time.  It’s simply Geography.

With a family “vacation” a mom brings her “work” with her.  There are still all the tasks you have to do from day to day for the kids at home while you are on vacation.  It is a work of love, but it is still our “work.”  If there isn’t any “period of time devoted to rest” at home, there certainly won’t be while on vacation and there is definitely no “scheduled period of time which activities...are suspended.”  In order for a stay at home mom to get a “vacation” it requires her being away from her children.  More often than not, that happens as often as England gets a new queen.  But when/if it does, we find ourselves thinking about our children, how they would like it wherever we are, and wondering how they are doing.  Our motherhood brains just never, EVER turn off. 

Don’t get me wrong family time away from the home is priceless.  It’s great to have a change of scenery with new things to explore and new situations and environments to expose your childrens young minds to.  The memories that are made are priceless and will stay with you forever.  It is definitely cherished time that you can never get back. 

But I think it should have a different name/definition.  Instead of saying “we’re going on a family vacation” change it to “we’re going on a family adventure.”  That, at least is a more adequate definition of what’s really happening!

I say the more family “adventures” the better….bring on the Geography, just don’t call it a vacation!