My Kids' First Trip to France v. Mine

One night we were at a late dessert and Claire Adele was surreptitiously looking at her phone. We didn't put kids on the international phone plan, so she would try to pick up up wifi where ever she could. What was up? We later learned she was SnapChatting a boy from her high school who was also in Paris at the same time with his family. He asked her if she wanted to meet up. At ten o'clock at night.

Claire Adele just turned sixteen. When I was sixteen, I went to France for three weeks with a school group and I stayed with a family. At the end of the home visit, the group spent three days in Paris. Throughout the whole trip, we had a tremendous amount of freedom. In Paris, my friend Elizabeth and I went shopping for racy underwear, and then went to a cafe and debated ordering champagne. We didn't, but we did have wine with dinner along with the rest of the group. It was standard practice to have wine with meals on the trip even though we were sixteen. We didn't have wine with every meal, but when in Rome... Elizabeth and I walked back to the hotel alone from the Eiffel Tower at ten at night.

Claire Adele was on vacation with her mom, dad and younger brother. Poor kid.

My first trip to France was when I was in seventh grade. My school had a field trip to Europe over Spring Break. My parents paid for half of the trip, and I saved all of my babysitting money and paid for the rest. I went again in eighth grade, this time on my own dime. There were thirty kids, two teacher chaperones, and a handful of parents loaded on a tour bus where we were guided around to all of the major sights. Every few days, we'd get a few hours to roam. It was a blast, but it was also very educational. It was as if we were in a lecture hall seven hours a day learning about history, culture and architecture. When we weren't on the bus, we were learning about the food of France and trying to communicate with waiters and shop clerks.

There was no whining or complaining or eye-rolling. These field trips were no obligatory family vacation. Every kid who was there had to beg their parents to let them go on the trip. Everyone was jazzed to be there. And the peer pressure was real. We went to restaurants where the menu was already planned and the food was served. Half of the time, we didn't know what we were eating. Rumor had it that at one restaurant, we ate horse meat. I doubt it, but no one complained and everyone ate what was in front of them, or they went hungry and later pigged out on Toblerone bars back at the hotel. No one bitched and said "I don't like mushrooms" or "Everything on the menu has meat" when there are clearly six items that are vegetarian but just not interesting enough or perhaps are too weird. No one complained that we spent too much time at the Louvre or not enough time at the catacombs. A few people grumbled when we had to get up at the crack of dawn to catch a bus or a train, but everyone moved along appropriately. It was what it was, and we were happy. In fact, the parents who accompanied us on the trip who complained the most. They had Paris Syndrome, and complained that the Metro and Montmartre smelled like piss and that the tour one year had missed the Louvre because we went on Easter and the Louvre was closed on Easter. Not one of the students cared about missing the Louvre because we were fat and happy seeing everything else and eating Toblerones. Life was good. No. Life was damn near perfect.

Overall, my kids held up well to being with their parents, not including the several times Claire Adele got lost on accident/purpose. She was would stop to take a selfie and then Jack, the Boy and I would have moved on. A regular picture takes like five seconds. Selfies take two minutes to get the right frame, lighting, angle, smile, etc. She got "lost" at Versailles, the Louvre, Sacre Coeur and the Montreal Airport.

Before the trip, I feared the kids might be snot bags. I remember an ancient skit from Saturday Night Live with Sara Gilbert rolling her eyes through a whole trip to Europe with her family. The trip was fabulous, but the teen was perfectly ungrateful. I saw this skit before I had kids, and it haunted me ever since: "Is this what it is like to take a family vacation with teens?"

Before the trip, I talked to three people who are younger than me and don't have kids. I expressed my fear of traveling with my kids, especially coupled with massive jet lag and culture shock. I am too far removed to recall the dynamics of my family vacations, but I am sure I was a happy, delightful camper. Mark said he had to join his parents and grandparents on a cruise to Mexico when he was sixteen. He was the only sixteen year old on the whole boat. Everyone was older and could drink and do the night club thing, or they were kids under ten who hung out in the kiddie lounge with supervised activities. He said except for the island of Catalina, the vacation kind of sucked. Evan said he was kind of dick at times when his family went to Japan for a month. Anita said her family had to separate her and her sister on vacations, and mom and dad would take turns spending time with each kid.

While I can't remember being a jerk on vacations, I can remember unpleasant thoughts rolling through my head. I don't remember if I articulated them or not, like the time we drove from Ohio to visit New Jersey to see my uncle when I was in high school. The trip was planned about three days before we left. My dad had scheduled vacation, but my parents didn't have a plan, which was highly unusual for them. So, we drove through Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey in August. I remember thinking Hershey, PA was the most boring place on the earth and we ate at an IHOP or Denny's for dinner. Dinner. This was two years after I went to France. Sure, I could eat what might have been horse meat in France but fucking A I wasn't going to eat at a knock-off Denny's in the vast wasteland between Pittsburgh and Philly. In New Jersey, we visited my uncle's family and their dobermans, one of which snapped at me, which was scary as that dog was trained to attack intruders.

I didn't tell anyone about the pleasant thoughts, either. My uncle lived on a hill in a rural part of New Jersey. We could see the light from the city down the hill. Their yard was super dark and I saw my shadow from the full moon for the first time ever in my life. My brother, cousin and I watched the planes come in from far, far away to land at the airports. Years later, I remember this night.

So yeah, my kids didn't have to drive from the Midwest to the eastern seaboard in August. They got to go to Europe. But that doesn't change the fact that they are teenagers.

* Maybe we didn't drink at dinner. I don't know. That was when MADD was big and we had to sign pledges to never let alcohol pass our lips. When I went to France in seventh and eight grade, we had wine with a few dinners. I recall that for sure.