Off the Beaten Track
TRAVELLING WITH A CHILD IS A LOT MORE DIFFERENT AND FUN
Who says travelling with a child can’t be fun?
In the 1990s, when I was growing up in Delhi, my brother and I travelled often with our parents. International flights out of India back then were always at inconvenient times and I remember my parents making me and my brother sleep for a few hours so we wouldn’t get too tired at the airport. I would lie in bed, awake with anticipation, watching my parents’ footsteps under my bedroom door going up and down the hallway as they packed for the trip. Of course I thought about faraway lands and new foods and unfamiliar streets but I most vividly remember thinking about the journey and the airports and the airplanes and the small pouches filled with single-use toothbrushes and toothpastes and face cream. I thought about the foil covers on little trays of hot food and the tiny containers of salt and pepper that I would slip into my bag to bring back to Delhi to try and hold on to the holiday long after it was over. I never got any sleep during those hours when I was meant to be sleeping but excitement was sufficient to keep me awake and energised while we waited at the airport.
THE RISE OF TRAVELLING FAMILIES
I realise in retrospect that my parents probably knew my brother and I were wide awake in our rooms but encouraging us to sleep gave them the time and space they needed to pack. Packing when travelling with children, or even one child, looks very different from packing to travel alone or with just a partner. I now have an eightmonth old baby and my husband and I, both frequent and fond travellers, are determined to raise a little traveller ourselves.
Last month we were flying from Mumbai to Auckland,
New Zealand, to spend the holidays with my in-laws. Our flight was at 11 pm but we asked the nanny to please try and make the baby nap for as long as possible before we left home so she wouldn’t be tired and cranky at the airport but really so we could pack. Our daughter refused to sleep, perhaps sensing the upcoming adventure, but much like me years ago, was awake and energised at the airport, looking around at everyone from her spot in the baby carrier.
My husband and I, travel weary like most adults, were expecting to grumble our way through the airports but then our daughter caught the eye of another baby in her carrier on her mother and the two stared at each other from a distance. The mother and I exchanged smiles and they made their way over to us. The babies reached out to each other and held hands for nearly a minute with no other interaction. And then, for the rest of the long journey to New Zealand, seeing my daughter gaze up at the airport in wonder, smiling at the immigration official who rudely asked her to look at the camera, looking out
Like that Instagramable cliche, it turns out that it is about the journey as well, not just the destination
of the airplane window confused and perplexed, changed the way we saw the journey. Travelling with my daughter forced me to once again experience a little bit of that late night excitement of lying in bed waiting to leave for the airport. Like that very Instagramable cliché, it turns out that it is about the journey as well, not just the destination. The journey now looks quite different and requires a lot more luggage though.
CHILD AND BAGGAGE
Until eight months ago, we adhered to my paternal grandfather’s pre-travel advice which was simply to remember, as you left the house, “ticket, taka, passport.” He said that to us in Bengali before every trip and remembering just the ticket (now on phone), taka (money, now on card), and passport has always served me well. Pretty much everything else can be replaced, he reasoned, and using that tenet of travel has allowed me to travel light. After having the baby, we thought we’d modify my grandfather’s saying a little bit so it became, “ticket, taka, passport, diapers.”
“But with diapers, we need wipes and Aquaphor,” my husband added. So it became, “ticket, taka, passport, diapers, wipes, Aquaphor.” “Pacifiers,” I said. “Their ears hurt during take off and landing and pacifiers make that more comfortable for her.” Okay then. Ticket, taka, passport, diapers, wipes, Aquaphor, pacifiers.
It might be cold, her blanket. It might be sunny, her sunhat, we think she’s teething, her teething toys, what if she gets sick, her baby Tylenol, she’s eating solids now, her purees, her bowls, her spoons, her bibs, her sippy cups. Ticket, taka, passport was fast becoming the length of a novel and our backpacks had turned into two suitcases and a car seat for check-in, a stroller to be gate-checked, two small pull-alongs for hand luggage and then our trusty backpacks. How easily we turned into those people who annoyed us at airports and how perfectly happy we are to be them.
There’s no turning back now anyway. It turns out that taking care of the next generation never stops. A few weeks ago we went to Delhi for a formal event. I arrived and noticed I had brought seventeen onesies for my daughter for 48 hours but forgotten my heels for the formal dinner. All I had with me were the bright yellow sneakers I was wearing for the flight and they would not work with the black sari I had planned for the night. I called my mother who, of course, had an extra pair of heels with her so I took those and handed my daughter another clean onesie.