When I was 14, I went on my first international trip…alone.
I flew from Newark, NJ to Athens, Greece. When I landed, there was no one to meet me because the friend I was going to visit was on the Saronic island of Hydra, an hour away by ferry.
On my own and with no knowledge of Greek, I had to locate a taxi from the airport to the harbor, buy a ticket for the Flying Dolphin hyrdrofoil to the islands and then travel out to Hydra, where my friend and her family were waiting for me.
I remember being nervous but also confident that I was capable of handling this on my own. Indeed, I made it to Hydra, where I stayed for three weeks with my French friend, Galaad, and her cosmopolitan parents. It was the trip that launched my love of travel: the adventure, the nuance, the challenge and the excitement.
Now that I am a parent, I marvel at the incredible faith and independence my father placed in me. As a parent in today’s world of heightened-security, helicopter-parenting and the Big-Brother atmosphere brought on by social media, I suspect the authorities would probably bring me in for questioning if I allotted my own 14 year old the same freedom.
Instead, many of today’s youth surf the web, connecting with “friends” in other parts of the world, learning about cultures through YouTube and becoming armchair tourists. No longer interacting face-to-face but rather screen-to-screen.
Gone are the days when global awareness required getting out into the world and exploring it. Nowadays, you can span the globe from the comfort of a desktop, laptop, iPad or even smartphone. The internet simultaneously has made our world smaller and created more distance between us.
My husband and I—like so many writers and readers of this blog—want to raise our children with our shared passion for travel and thirst to understand the world. When we met twelve years ago, the spark that ignited us was our extensive travel logs. We did not construct the foundation of our relationship with stones and mortar but rather with collapsible tent poles and a canvas covering; upholding our wishes to become nomadic.
We followed the paths we thought would lead us overseas. By this point, we were certain we’d be living abroad. But, life is funny, a constant series of schedule changes and delayed departures. We’ve taken myriad trips abroad but ten years in and we’re still firmly rooted in our native country with little prospect of moving overseas anytime soon.
So, rather than raising our kids internationally, we’ve shifted our focus to raise them with international outlooks instead. We understand that it is a round-trip ticket: we have to bring the world to them as well as bringing them out into the world.
Here in America, our agrarian school calendar provides more out-of-school-time than in it but the aggressive American corporate culture eliminates the ability of most working parents to take advantage of it. School children get a full 180 days of vacation each year while their parents and guardians only get 10-15 vacation days.
Europe, on the other hand, provides most of its workers with a mandatory four to six weeks of vacation per year. Compound that with the proximity and ease of traveling to a variety of nearby countries and the product is multilingual, culturally assimilated kids. Yielding the same product here in the US takes work.
But, without traveling very far, we’ve found local ways to expand our childrens’ horizons. We do this through foreign language schools, international festivals, exposing them to eclectic cuisine and reading many, many books from a variety of different cultures. Through multimedia and sensory exposure, we’re trying to not just tell our kids about the world but to expose all of their senses to it as well.
We will continue to plan and look forward to the trips abroad we can all take together but in between, we will look for the small opportunities that exist around us, bringing the world to our kids by just stepping outside our front door as well.
How do you expose your child/ren to the world? What ways do you have of expanding their global horizons and sharing your world views with them?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog from our Senior Editor and mother of two, Kyla P’an.
The photograph used in this post is credited to the author’s husband.
I really love this post. I suppose we are spoiled because we live abroad and we don’t have to work so hard at ensuring our children know about the world. I’ve probably actually gotten lazy in that department, but I really want to be more intentional about it. There is a Website with really terrific resources for raising global citizens that, if you don’t already know about it, I would HIGHLY recommend. It’s http://kidworldcitizen.org/
You also raise such interesting point about why Americans tend to be so insular. I thought it was mainly a result of our size, geographic isolation and colonial past. That’s all part of it. But, you’re right, we don’t really allow families the time off to explore the world, and that might just be why we tend to “fear” and misunderstand the rest of the world so much more than European nations.
Anyway, I really loved this post!
Thanks, Mama Mzungu! If I had been really intentional, I would have made the most of this post and listed a bunch of resources for people to consider so thanks for getting that ball rolling by listing a favorite site here. I did not know about it and will definitely check it out.
The American work culture gets me really down. Europe definitely is on to something with their better balance (and closer proximity) for travel and world culture. Though what Americans lack in getting out to see, we gin in bringing the cultures to our own front door; at least we’re not a homogenous nation.
Thanks for the love! (and link)
As an Italian who has spent most of her life in South Africa, I got to have “the best of both worlds”! 🙂
Although my husband and I haven’t really had much opportunity to travel (mainly due to financial constraints), we’re blessed to live in a city which is really a “cultural melting-pot”. We TRULY have the world in one country! 🙂
My son will be undertaking his first solo trip soon … he’s going to Germany to spend Easter with his girlfriend and her family. Said girlfriend spent 3 weeks with us last year. (They met online!)We also hosted a Rotary Exchange student from Reunion a couple of years ago.
As AWESOME as the Internet is, there’s nothing quite like getting out there irl!
That’s so neat, Simona, that your son not only met someone over the internet that he’s serious about in another country but that you were all enlightened enough to spend three weeks together. Wat a brave new world we live in indeed. But yes, though the internet is able to bring us on fingertip-travels, it is no replacement for the raw experience of being a stranger in a strange land.
Awesome post, Kyla! We do this for our children a few ways. My five and 1/2 year old has been learning French since she was 18 mos., and she’s been in Chinese school on the weekend since she was 3 years old. We decided as parents that we have to take the responsibility of bringing the culture to our children. I do French with my 22 mos. old, too.
New York City is an hour train trip away. My husband and I take the occasional trip in for an exhibition, and when we do, we bring the kids.
The other thing we do is travel with them. We take the kids to England every year to see their cousins, and this year we took them to the British Museum. We introduced them to the rosetta stone, the Elgin marbles and by request, showed them real Egyptian mummies! This trip is on our radar every year because we have family to see, but I’d like to take them to more places when the time and the money is there!
Oh! And, my oldest is beginning to have international pen pals, too. There’s a lot of fun stuff you can do at home, too. The key is finding the time to plan it all out!
Jen 🙂
I love about how you got the travel bug from a young age!
I admit I was alot better at doing the things you mention above with my 1st son to try and broaden his horizons, but since having my 2nd son, I haven’t kept up with this. I want to show them more about life around the world, and someday travel with them to see things first hand. In the meantime, I try to be mindful of talking about other cultures and celebrations whenever we have one of our own. For instance, we celebrate Christmas, but every year we also take out a wonderful activity book about festivals of light through the world. And on a recent trip to Hawaii, we took a break from boogie boarding to visit a Hindu monastery. My husband thought I was bonkers suggesting that we take our 7 year old and 2 year old boys to a monastery that had a very specific dress and conduct code, but it was one of the highlights of our trip. This kids enjoyed it, and my older son got a prayer bracelet as his souvenir.
Oops….my reply was supposed to say “I loved reading about how you got the travel bug….”
Thanks Tara, that’s how I read it 😉
What a great side-track in your travel itinerary. I’m glad that the experience at the monastery proved enlightening all-around!
Give yourself credit (and time). Having a 2yo is still early to be able to plan big excursions or family cultural outings; at 2, you’re still dealing with a big mid-afternoon nap which gets in the way of many activities. On the converse, having a 7yo may bring deeper exposure to your little guy earlier because he’ll get dragged along to.
Thanks for sharing your recent inspiration for cultural broadening.
Kyla it is amazing that you took that first trip on your own at 14! With the experience you and your husband have along with your global outlook you are bound to have kids who turn out to be global citizens. We traveled with our first two kids often as babies, but that came to a screeching halt once we had our third. We took our oldest two kids to France last year and they loved it, I felt like at 11 and 13 they could really appreciate international travel, and my 13 yr old definitely caught the travel bug!