The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Why we choose to go on holiday without our son
Annabel Chown reveals how the trips she and her husband take without their four-year-old keep the marriage strong
‘ It’s cheaper than divorce,” I halfjoked to my husband, Mark, as we calculated the cost of childcare so we could escape to Puglia for a week without our son.
We had taken him there the previous year, when he was three. I had envisaged days by the sea, Alexander digging in the sand with his toy spade, or paddling in the shallows. But he didn’t like the beach. Or the heat. What he liked was racing his toy trains across the stone floor in the cool of our room.
“We might as well be at home,” I had fumed, longing for the glittering blue of the nearby Adriatic. Back in London, we had Primrose Hill and Regent’s Park on our doorstep, plus a nearby square where all the children played. It was infinitely more fun for him – and for us.
It wasn’t as if Alexander could appreciate the hotel either; a 16th-century farmhouse, surrounded by ancient olive groves. No, he preferred the plastic swings in our local playground. So, we planned a return trip – only this time, we decided, we would come alone.
When I was pregnant, we had made a promise to each other that we wouldn’t let our eight-year love affair wither. Already in our 40s, we had seen friends’ relationships battered by the demands of parenthood. Only we hadn’t factored in quite how insidious the exhaustion and lack of time would be. And having a child who woke up at 5am without fail, and only slept for 10 hours, tops, didn’t help.
We tried weekly date nights, but soon admitted it wasn’t worth paying a babysitter only to slump across from each other in a restaurant, yawning and struggling to make conversation. Instead, we had become flatmates-cum-carers. “Where’s Alexander’s jumper?” Mark would ask, without saying good morning, as he rushed to get our son dressed before work. “Why are you in my way again?” I’d think as I walked into our narrow kitchen, starving, and he would be hogging the stove, making porridge. After Alexander’s bedtime, we sought solace in Netflix, not each other.
In an attempt to make good on our promise, we decided that what we really needed was to spend a decent chunk of time alone together. Alexander’s grandparents are too old to look after him, but we are lucky to have – and be able to pay for – a wonderful woman who is happy to take him.
“Freedom!” we exclaimed, one Sunday morning in November 2021 when we left our son for the first time. Having spent much of the past 20 months – thanks to lockdowns and isolations – in a one-and-a-half-bedroom flat, it was particularly sweet. We drove, exhilarated, through the quiet London streets, towards Kent. We ate lunch in a favourite restaurant, by Canterbury West Station, where on our previous visit, just before our third (and we agreed, final) round of IVF, I’d been anxious and low.
Now we had our adored son, but it was a relief not to have to race through our meal before he started screaming, or fret about repositioning all the glasses on the table to ensure they weren’t swept to the floor by his tiny hands.
I’ll admit that, during our 48 hours away, I didn’t miss him. I was too busy rediscovering how – behind our grumpiness and exhaustion – my husband and I still liked one another. We did the things we used to do: went for long walks, our hands entwined, not gripping a buggy handlebar or a child’s; enjoyed an early evening movie; sipped pre-dinner cocktails on a sofa by a log fire; took an afternoon nap; had sex.
It was the wake-up call we needed and we have since found a rhythm that works for us when it comes to holidays: a European break alone in early summer, followed by a weekend break in the UK each autumn. In between, we tailor our holidays to ensure that we take our son somewhere that he will really enjoy.
“Do you feel guilty leaving him?” I’m occasionally asked – almost always by mothers. I don’t. He is looked after by someone he adores and his parents get to remember that they actually like one another – something which must surely benefit Alexander, too.
On our return trip to Puglia, I lay by the pool, child-free, and watched a woman cuddle her young daughter. I longed for my son; that was until a few hours later, when I saw the same child flinging pasta with tomato sauce across a white tablecloth. It made me suddenly grateful once more for my week’s respite.
But our sojourns alone aren’t only to spend time with each other; we allow ourselves to indulge in the things we want to do for ourselves. During that week in Italy, I spent mornings at the beach reading and swimming, while Mark took photos in local towns. We would reunite for lunch with things to talk about: the huge Egyptian-inspired cemetery he had chanced upon, or my novel, about a married mother who escaped her suburban life for a London bedsit with her young lover.
“I hope we never split up,” I remember saying, thinking that it wasn’t inconceivable that the weight of parenting could, over time, erode our relationship. But luckily, our trips away always stitch together the cracks between us; for a while, at least.
A few weeks after returning from Puglia, the memories still crisp, we took Alexander to York where, each day, we trudged patiently round the cavernous shed of the National Rail Museum, looking at every engine and carriage.
Yet by autumn, the memories had faded. Just before our October break, we had a bust-up, fuelled by a deeper than normal exhaustion, thanks to our son’s newly-established habit of climbing into our bed at 2am, splaying his limbs and repeatedly kicking us awake.
Our fight was the same as always: who did more childcare. I had dared to go out three evenings that week while he had dared to swan off for a haircut on a Saturday afternoon, leaving me at a party full of sugar-high children. “Perhaps we should start keeping timesheets,” I snapped.
As we left for our weekend in Bath and waved goodbye to Alexander, I found myself questioning whether I even wanted to go away with him. Yet just a few hours later, we were strolling hand-in-hand across the twilit Pulteney Bridge. After descending the steps on its south side, we kissed by the banks of the Avon. “Next time we’re fed up with one another,” said Mark, “at least we know there’s a cure.”