New travel trend? Adults and olds
On our last family holiday we went to Disneyland, Alcatraz and hospital. It’s probably unsurprising that of the six weeks we spent in the States it’s the latter experience seared on our collective memories, that and the image of the partially severed big toe that sent us there.
So when, a few days and a $30k insurance claim later, we were back on the road, I promised the kids we’d come back one day to do all the things we’d planned for months. Things like water parks and walks; things like not being in agony.
But adults always say that sort of thing, and that was more than a decade ago.
Fortunately, for any similarly lying parent or just one who’s struggled to cut the apron strings, a recent development brings excellent news.
According to some trade publications, multigenerational holidays are one of the travel industry’s biggest post-pandemic trends, as adult children and their parents pack their bags and head away together.
That’s the sort of thing I’ve longed to do for ages and while I’m several tens of salary thousands from even contemplating an actual holiday, this weekend I organised an expedition.
Yes, admittedly it was only for brunch, but the cafe did have a surcharge, and it took military-style precision planning to get us all there. You know how modern life is – one day there’s no getting rid of the kids, the next they’re gone.
But on Monday, here they are. My mother has always said that gathering around a table forces families to engage and, as always, she’s right. Where normally our sporadic gettogethers are in lounges with plates on our knees and phones in our hands, today we face each other, and it’s bliss.
Maybe it’s because I’ve got them trapped, but sitting around the table they talk and laugh, spar and swear, indulge all my remember-whens.
Unfortunately for them, those remember-whens are constant, even when I try my hardest not to keep harping on. After all, my sons are in their twenties and busily discussing everything that involves, so don’t need to hear from a mother seemingly stuck in the past.
But although I keep trying, I just can’t help it. When the 26-year-old is choosing his food I pointlessly remind him how he’s always hated eggs. Remember that burger in San Fran? I ask. Yep, he says, of course I do.
Again, I start up when the 22-yearold says he’ll just have a glass of water, asking him what about a milkshake? You’ve always loved strawberry; remember the one in New Orleans?
Yep, he says, of course I do.
While they start eating, I keep going, managing to bring any topic of conversation back to the long-ago. Remember the Las Vegas travelator? Remember when we got lost in the Bronx? Remember the New York hotel we didn’t know was right above a fire station?
‘‘I remember Mum telling us off that night because we wouldn’t stop talking,’’ says my eldest son. Mostly, though, they just indulge me, despite having never come good on my holiday promise and now, even if I did, it being too late.
But while I’d give anything to go back to when they were little, looking at the adults they’ve grown into makes things feel a bit better. That’s because somewhere along the line they turned out alright, which means that somewhere, at some point, I must have done alright myself.
And though we’ll never holiday together again, they’ll still make time to meet and remember when we did. And let me pay for brunch, bless them.