“A mixture of wonderful experiences and parental
exhaustion,” is how another mother – with two children younger than mine – recently
described her family’s vacation. I feel as if that is a pretty accurate
description of nearly every family outing. And, many days, of raising kids, no
matter how old they are.
Growing is hard work. Learning new skills is hard work.
Figuring out all the different ways the world operates is hard work. It is sometimes
exhausting for the kids and the parents. It is sometimes exhilarating. Often,
it is both of these – exhausting and
exhilarating – nearly simultaneously.
Soon after the mini meltdown over the bike ride’s turn into
the woods, we came to the biggest beaver dam I have ever seen. The kids hopped
off their bikes and scampered over to check out the long, pointy-ended logs the
beavers had felled. They examined how the sticks went together to create the
dam and the section that had been breached, allowing water to flow through. We
found a wildflower we didn’t know and snapped a picture of it to remind us to
look it up later. (Bunchberry, it turns out.)
Riding over the roots was challenging. The complaining about
said roots – and working to keep my parental composure as a meltdown ensued –
was slightly exhausting. Discovering the beaver dam and checking it out was a
pretty wonderful experience, and hopefully one my kids will remember – and want
to relive on some future bike ride along the same trail.
I remember being on family hikes as a kid and feeling as if
they would never end, whether we were on a short jaunt or a hut-to-hut
overnight trek. But once we reached the top, the reward was great: a sense of
personal accomplishment, and amazing views of the lowlands from which we had
ascended, stretched out now far below.
What I remember most from those adventures are the stories we’ve told over and over: playing cribbage with other hikers, eating weird
green pasta in one of the huts, the thick clouds atop Mt. Lafayette that
obscured the rest of the world, the weight of my little brother’s backpack
after a day of collecting rocks along the trail.
From those outings (which I imagine included a good dose of
my own folks’ parental exhaustion) I gained a lasting appreciation of the
outdoors and exploring it, the realization that hard work often pays big
dividends, and the knowledge that the view from a mountaintop, from a height
attained by your own will and power, offers a vastly different perspective than
the one you had pre-climb.
After we left the beaver dam last weekend, the rest of the
ride included an ascent along a bumpy trail and a bit more complaining. But
also the downhill on the other side of the hill, time spent drawing with sticks
in the sand along the edge of a brook, scampering across the water over logs, and
stopping to look at swallowtail butterflies. On the final stretch of single
track, my youngest child slammed on her brakes and reached down to pick up the large
empty cocoon of a cecropia moth: a tangible treasure to take away from the
ride.
We emerged from the woods about a mile from where we’d
parked the car, and the mostly-downhill paved return was smooth sailing. There
was one final challenge at the end of the ride: a super-steep climb to reach
the car. My older daughter was in the lead and pedaled her way to the top, then
came back to cheer the others on. All three made it, pedal strokes gradually
slowing with the exertion as they neared the top, arriving tired but happy.
I hope they remember – as I do – the happy more than the
tired, that they take from these adventures more of the wonderful than the
exhausting. I hope these experiences provide my children the awareness that
often at the far side of a challenge is a big view, a thrilling rush of
adrenaline, lessons learned, and memories to hold through many more adventures.
Original content by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul, posted to her Blog: Writings From a Full Life. This essay also appears as Meghan's Close to Home column in the June 12, 2015 edition of the Littleton Record.
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