No summer would be complete without the ubiquitous family road trip. Every summer of my youth included piling into the car for trips to the lake, grandma’s house or some obscure national park. These car trips consisted of large amounts of boredom, which led us to argue, complain, whine, bicker, sulk, poke, sing annoying songs loudly, and other forms of parent torture, designed to convince my parents that this was a very, very bad idea.
Now that I am a mother and live nine hundred miles from the nearest family, we are fairly regular road-trippers. I have experienced the temporary insanity that convinces me that my children will sit quietly confined in five-point harnesses for a dozen hours or more, when they are incapable of sitting patiently while I cut up their hot dogs. I have experienced the delusion that it is possible to cram enough stimulating books, games, puzzles and non-crumb-inducing snacks into a finite area to occupy said children (truth: it is not possible). And I have convinced myself that they will thank me for this when we arrive at our fabulous destination and proceed to make them memories to last a lifetime, whether they like it or not.
However, unlike our parents of the former generation, I have a tool in my arsenal, so potent, so powerful, as to render family road trip almost bearable: the portable DVD player. Let me just say that I will never, ever, under any circumstances go on a road trip without what I call the savior of all parents locked in confined spaces with children.
The car and gas companies ought to be hugging the person who invented the portable DVD player, because I have no doubt that without this invention, the rate of overland family travel (at least mine) would have dwindled. And I am sure that this invention has lessened the cumulative yelling of parents and children all over this country: cars full of “Stop that or I will drop you off at the next truck stop!!!!” and “She’s breathing on my side of the seat!!!” have given way to only hearing the hum of the engine and the opera singing guinea pig on the screen (although my husband may argue about which is worse to hear for hours on end).
Yes, the portable DVD player makes traveling in the car easier. But there is a small part of me that wants to not need it so much. There is that pioneering spirit in me that wonders if my children could be entertained by books, toys and scenery; I want them to not need the screen to be entertained, and so I try.
On the most recent of our road trips, the first cries for the DVD player came when we were just pulling out of the driveway, but I announced chipperly that we were not going to turn it on right away, we were going to “enjoy the ride” and read books and entertain ourselves for a while. This spawned an in-depth negotiation of just exactly how a long a "while" was going to be, and I had to play the mommy card of “until I say so.”
I was determined that my children be entertained by looking for double dump trucks on the freeway and noticing interesting buildings or cows, but they would have none of it. I pulled out every trick in my arsenal, from singing songs, reading books aloud to them, giving them toys and magnet doodle things. It wasn’t long until they had spent their interest on them and commenced throwing fish crackers at each other and fighting over who got the green doodle thingy, and after I had a knot in my shoulder from reaching behind me for the thirty-thousanth time to pick up a toy that had re-launched itself onto the floor (read: foot high piles of snacks, diaper bags and pillows crammed into the back seat), I looked at the clock: we had been driving for less than one hour.
I decided that this was not the battleground for the war against screen time. This was the time, if any there was, to fully embrace the love of digital media, so we strapped on the player and lulled along the rest of the trip, singing wit the guinea pig and laughing at the curious monkey. And when we reached our destination, I vowed never again to underestimate the necessity of such a device to my psychological stability on family vacations.
Yes, I embrace the DVD player as a part of our vacation necessity, and you won’t find me traveling without it, although I do still pack toys and books and keep an eye out for double dump trucks, just in case.
Laura | Visit me for parenting tips and more at mommy menagerie!
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SO funny! I laughed out loud.
Laura, you have a gift! It is as good as anything Dave Barry used to write. Looking forward to more.