Interview Excerpt on Traveling Dangers

I read this interview today and I wanted to post a short excerpt because it mirrors my own feelings about choosing to travel with my kids and the pros and cons that come with that decision.

The two women participating in the interview travel with their kids via bike. I’m in an RV. I used to think I was fearless. After reading this, and learning more about their own stories, I realize that I have long way to go.

The interview is part of a series that Nancy Sathre-Vogel created on traveling families for the Examiner.com. You might have hear about Nancy and her family’s recent endeavor to bicycle from the northern tip of Alaska to the the bottom of South America. She, her husband, and their two sons are currently a few hundred miles from making their goal. In this interview, she is interviewing Rebekka who completed a similiar bike tour with her husband and young son.

You can read the full interview here.

WBTE: Have you had any of those “light bulb moments” – those times when all of a sudden you realize you know you are doing right by your kid? A moment when you knew you made the right decision in taking off on the bikes?
Rebekka: We have been criticized a lot on our journey for being selfish and exposing our child to unnecessary dangers (illness, robberies, etc). I have doubted our decision many times – questioning our desire to travel and take away the securities of a home and familiar environment from our son.

Now I know that we did the right thing. I know now that there are many different ways of bringing up your children. The most important thing is that you stay authentic and love what you are doing. Our son learned a lot and saw a lot which most children don’t – especially not that young. He missed out on doing what such young children are normally doing in our society: going to preschool or being babysitted, having sports lessons or other type of activities.

Neither option is the children’s decision. I had to learn that children with the safety of a home have not chosen that type of life either. It is the parents. As long as the parents are genuine in doing what they are doing, their children will adapt to it and learn through that way of life what they will need one day to be responsible on their own.