Who are we becoming?
On our last night in Sydney we met a lovely Australian couple from Melbourne who had spent time living in the US, UK, and Australia. As we got to talking, I shared about our sabbatical year, which prompted several great questions.
One, that I’ve been thinking about since asked, is “who do you think your children will be when you return after this year compared to who they would have been if you had never taken this year to travel?”
Great question, right?
I had three immediate responses:
First, having just worked with them on their school work, I believe they will be academically stronger. Nothing against our home public school, but virtual instruction through the first year of COVID was so challenging. It is clear our kids did not learn very much that year. They passed all their classes, but they did not understand or internalize any of the concepts they were taught. While their peers have been back in the classroom for most of this year, I imagine a lot of the time has been focused on making up for what they missed the year before. Our kids are pretty good about doing what they’re told and acting like they know what they are doing; with so many kids at varying levels, the teachers can’t take time to make sure our kids are really understanding what is being taught. However, the curriculum we’ve used this year (thank you Great Minds and Rachel!) is so good at making sure they learn the concepts, practice them, and then can succeed at applying them. It is brilliant and they will be better prepared to engage in classroom learning after this year.
Second, they are closer as siblings then they would have been had this past year been like any other. At home, they have friends and sports and school to occupy their time. They spend some time together, especially playing with kids in the neighborhood, but this year they have been together 24-7. They have rarely had other kids to play with and so they’ve had to keep each other entertained and engaged. Besides Ben and I, they are the only ones who will truly understand what this year has been like and they will have memories and stories to last a lifetime about the adventures and mishaps they’ve experienced together. I love this for them.
Finally, I know that they are more capable, confident, and independent than they were before we left and will be than if we had stayed. Traveling the world, navigating new cities, engaging with new cultures, trying new foods, pushing through tiring travel days, embracing extreme sports like paragliding, scuba diving, and bungee jumping. Each one of them have conquered each new situation/opportunity and been pretty great throughout. They’ve handled the ups and downs of this year better than most adults would – at times better than Ben and I have.
Upon deeper reflection, these are definitely spot on. To them, I’d also add that our kids are also more knowledgeable about the world and how other people live and therefore more grateful for and appreciative of all that we are blessed with in the United States. They’ve seen first hand the impact of true government corruption on basic services like roadways and trash removal. They’ve heard first hand accounts of the destruction, fear, and impact of war from people who lived through the Bosnian War and are now triggered by the war in Ukraine. They’ve seen what it means to live in economic poverty; to not have electricity, modern plumbing, or clean water. They’ve experienced having to boil their own water to get fresh drinking water.
But they’ve also seen how, even without those luxuries, happy and content people can be. They’ve made fast friends with children they don’t even share a common language with because children are children no matter what nationality, religion, language, etc. and a game of tag is fun even if you can’t communicate with words.
My final reflection is that after this year together, our children are also closer to Ben and I than they would have been otherwise. Don’t get me wrong, we were a close family before, but being able to spend so much uninterrupted time with our children without the distractions of work and social commitments back home has taken our relationships to the next level. The conversations we’ve had with them, collectively and one on one, about all things, from the frivolous to the most consequential, are priceless. When we return, Paul and Sophia will be entering middle school and all the drama that can come with it. My hope (and belief) is that they will be better able to navigate all that middle school brings and also be more willing to talk with us and share their feelings, concerns, questions than they would have been previously.
The next question to answer is who will Ben and I be compared to who we would have been otherwise…
