Since moving to DC, we've had a number of encounters with friends here on family vacations.
A woman I've been friends with since third grade was in town yesterday with her husband and three kids, and we had lunch together. It was very nice to see them, the family was absolutely lovely, and everyone else at Union Station for lunch at that time was reasonably polite and friendly.
But it's funny to me. The kids were clearly worn out and I could see that the idea of hiking up the road to look at paintings of dead people in yet another frigging museum would not have been in their top 10 -- not even top 100 -- choices for a fun afternoon. And it got me thinking about how none of the kids I've seen from out of town ever seem to have a lot of enthusiasm for DC visits. And as a kid who made an annual trek into DC with my Virginia-resident grandparents every summer, I can completely understand it. There's a lot of walking, a lot of standing around in museums where you don't really know enough to understand why it's a big deal that you're looking at this stuff, a lot of walking, not a lot of places to play, and oh, did I mention the walking?
(When I was a kid, this visit was always kicked off by getting up before sunrise so we could take the train to Union Station. Honestly? I still think my grandfather was a little insane for preferring that method. The train was sort of nice and all, and I remember -- this being the old and unsafe days -- standing outside on the platform of the last car and watching the track fly away behind us, and the water cooler was sort of neat -- but jeez, we could have gotten up two hours later and arrived at the same time. Except if we had done that, OMIGOD WE WOULD HAVE HAD TO PAY FOR PARKING!!)
Plus, some of the most pleasant memories I have of those DC tours are gone now. The old-fashioned ice cream parlor at the American History Museum? First they fired the waiters (this was the first place I ever saw waiters in black pants and starched white coats,) and made it a buffet, then they cut back on the menu, then they ditched it completely in the overhaul.
And you can't just blunder in and out of the Capitol anymore. There are stickers and mental detectors and I don't know what all. And it's shut down entirely on Sundays, even the visitor center. This strikes me as kind of dumb, to not allow people in to look around when there is no actual business being conducted. But I guess that lack of logic isn't too surprising; this is the seat of federal government. I loved roaming around that building as a kid because there was so much cool stuff to look at. Paintings, frescoes, statuary, really cool furniture. And I knew that Important Things went on there. Although I remember my grandmother took me in so we could watch a House floor session one time, and I was ready to pass out with boredom. I didn't know what issue they were talking about, I couldn't figure out how any of the speakers felt about it, and I had the distinct feeling that my grandmother couldn't have cared less so it didn't seem like it was worth trying to figure out.
I took Thomas to sit in on a session of the Senate when he was about 5. After about 10 minutes he said, "You watch this on CSPAN and it looks like court on TV too. Why are we here?"
It seems that the one enduring fascation for the under-12 set is the wildlife. I remember being astonished at the sheer number of pigeons in the city, and stomping after them to chase them off. Thomas is a big fan of the ducks in the reflecting pool. And pretty much every kid we've ushered through the city is way, WAY more interested in the squirrels than in the Hope diamond. So there's the welfare critters and the carousel, and once you've hit those, you might as well wander up to the Air and Space museum because they've got a McDonald's and you know the food will be what you expect.
Now, I'm pretty sure it isn't just DC that does this to kids. We went to New York and the YP was bored stiff with huge portions of our planned activities. He was far more interested in the M&M store than he was in the Met. He found room service far preferable to venturing out on yet another hike, even to find an ice cream place.
So why do we do this? Why do we take our kids places where we know they are going to whine that they are bored, complain that their feet hurt, and ask over and over and over and over and over when they can play their video games?
Mostly, I think we do it for ourselves. I know there have been plenty of cases where I dragged my kid places because I wanted to see them and couldn't really figure out a way to ditch him. There have been other times where I dragged him somewhere because I thought it was important for him to be exposed to something; even if he didn't have the faintest idea what was going on, there might be some tiny impression made so that in later years I could tell him, "you saw that, you remember any of it?" And of course, there have been other times when I thought our plans would go over like gangbusters and instead they were a big fat failure that left everyone miserable and mad at each other.
So is it worth it? Is it worth dragging your kid halfway across the continent so that five years later they can remember the pigeons? So they can say, 'Oh, I remember Mount Rushmore. I remember you made me eat a hot dog I didn't want because they were out of hamburgers."
I think the answer is yes. Because while I might remember the pigeons more clearly than the presidential exhibits, what really stuck with me was that everyone in my family cared enough about me to take me a whole bunch of different places and show me all kinds of strange stuff, and even put up with me when I was being a godawful brat about all the damn walking. That involvement isn't something you can just hand off to a coach or a teacher, and it's something you can't really try to play catch-up on at the end of a childhood.
So to all my relatives who took me places and showed me stuff, thank you. And thank you also to all you grownups out there who do this stuff for the kids in your sphere of influence. And finally, an extra big thank you to all the other people milling around the planet who have the kindness to keep their opinions to themselves and who graciously tolerate those kids being exposed to such things, even when the kids in question are resisting and kicking up an awful scene about how miserable they are.
(This weekend, though, we are going somewhere I know will be a big hit. We're driving up to Hershey tomorrow and spending the day at the park, then tooling around town the next day and Sunday-Driving home. Huzzah!)
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