Note to Self: Let them go

I watched the "Desperate Housewives" finale last Sunday.  Don't worry, I'm not going to spoil anything major for you if it's still sitting in your Tivo or something.  However, at one point Lynette was arguing with one of her sons (I believe it was Porter) because he wanted to take time off before university so he could travel through Europe.  Meanwhile, Lynette was threatening to cut his funds off if he didn't go to school.  He said he wanted to find himself.  She said he could damn well find himself at university.

On the commercial break I turned to my husband (and out of respect for him I must inform you that he was only watching it because I had a vice grip on the remote and he was just sitting there out of a lack of other options) and said something that I'd like to repeat here because the more people who hear it, the more accountability I make for myself.

If either of my girls ever comes to us and says that they'd like to take a year off before college to go travel through Europe, I have every intention of saying yes and sending them off with my blessing assuming that a) they have been saving up for it since I don't expect to have cash to fork over for several months overseas, b) they promise to call regularly so I know they're still alive, and c) they also promise to send me a postcard of every city they visit and take tons of photos so I can see what I never did.

Education is important to me.  If I had continued on with my university studies instead of getting fed up and dropping out, who knows what I could be doing now.  I love the work I do but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that sometimes I wonder what options I would have had career-wise if I had stayed and gotten a degree.  I want my kids to go to university, I want them to finish a degree - I don't particularly care what it's in.  I'm not going to scream "medicine!  Law!  Business!" at them.  Whatever they study is fine with me.  I just want them to complete it.

That being said, I can't tell you how much I regret that I never took a year to work while I still lived at home with minimal expenses.  I wish I had saved up the money to go to Europe, even for a few weeks.  I've never been over the ocean.  I've visited a total of two provinces in my own country (Ontario and Nova Scotia) other than my own.  I've been to Vermont, Washington DC, and I went to Florida at the age of three.  I've been to Cancun, Mexico (long before H1N1 came along!).  That's it.  It's better than some people who have had even fewer opportunities to travel, but I know a great deal of people who have been so much further than I have.

I envy the people who traveled through Europe with nothing more than a train pass, a back pack, and a map of youth hostels (though admittedly, I prefer not to think of the hostels thanks to Eli Roth freaking me out with "Hostel" and "Hostel 2", ahem).  There are so many places in Europe that I'd love to see - Prague, London, Paris, Madrid, Istanbul, Rome, Tuscany, Dublin, I could go on and on.

It's not that it would be utterly impossible to ever get to any of those places, but at this point in my life, if I look at my bank account and my projected budget, let's just say it's not going to happen for a very long time.  And I wouldn't be likely to manage to get to all of those places like I might have at age 18 or 19.  I do have every intention of somehow making it to Prague before I die, even if I'm 90 when I get there.

But I would have loved the freedom of backpacking my way around Europe and don't know why I never thought to do it back when it would have been easier.

And so if either - or both - of my kids tell me that's what their immediate plans are, I will encourage them while they save up and then I will wave from the terminal at the airport as they fly off on an adventure. Education is important, but it can wait long enough for them to learn in a hands-on way first.

Here's hoping I don't forget all of this in a decade or so if it ever comes up!

This is an original Canada Moms Blog post.  Sherry Osborne can also be found blogging at her own place, Chaos Theory, when she's not poking around Flickr to check out travel photos other people have taken.