Have kids, will travel!, writes Priyanka Chaturvedi

After enough outings, I have reached the conclusion  that travelling with kids on a  holiday is the second most challenging part of parenting. What is the first, you ask? It is packing for the holiday, in which, as a parent you should be able to pre-empt and foresee all likely scenarios that could come up while travelling away from home. Thanks to which a four-day holiday packing list would look like one is permanently moving bag and baggage to the holiday destination. 

Thank God for luggage restrictions by airlines else for a week long holiday I wouldn’t hesitate packing bags with stuff to last us a year for all the ‘they might need this too...’ scenarios. I am guilty of having packed medicines for all contingencies, clothes packed to last a month and perhaps last a season, too. It is indeed telling of my packing skills that despite my best efforts my children end up asking for that one thing I have forgotten to pack! 

The kids are now grown up enough to realise my habit to overpack and as per them with clothes that aren’t cool enough for a holiday. So they have taken charge of packing on their own. But being the over-zealous  kind of mother, it is a task to stay away from interfering. It is a huge task to be able to conceal expressions of horror or resist a comment on the choice of clothes they pack to take along. 

During every holiday, it is difficult to keep kids from saying ‘I am bored’ every five minutes. Their attention span is limited to their electronic gadgets and God forbid if you try to keep the gaming gadgets away they ensure to be their uncooperative best.

Road trips are a lesson in patience for parents — right from ‘I am hungry’ to ‘I want to go to the washroom’ to ‘I am puke-y’ to ‘I am bored’ is the standard  list of complaints. I have had situations during air trips where I would have happily disowned them for causing much embarrassment while waiting to board the flight. The rail journeys have been full of running through the compartment, up and down the allotted berths with the ‘Are we there yet’ question.

Looking back at my childhood memories, I can’t help wonder how we managed to live without electronic gadgets to keep us occupied, with books or music as our travel companions. Not having anything to do was also an activity to do, chatting with fellow passengers on train and sharing food was the norm. Curiously gazing outside the window of car, plane and train journey, marvelling at the world around with several questions. Now, all it takes my son, is an app to log into, point at the sky and voila! He has all the information he needs at the tip of his hand. As they say, change is the only constant.