This time last Friday afternoon we were cruising down 101 on our way to a mini-vacation at Pismo Beach. We arrived excited about the weather, excited about our nice big suite, excited to head back to the beach. We had four luxurious days and nights ahead of us, full of promise of quiet and fun. And they were fun, amazingly fun. But they weren’t quiet. And it wasn’t the kids’ fault this time. I blame the invention of the smart phone.
When I was young, every summer my mother and father would take two full weeks off from work. We would go up to the White Mountains and hunker down in a chalet that had minimum TV (a few local channels could be found by some aggressive bunny ear adjustments) and lots of wild blueberries and raspberries for the picking. We’d spend all day at the lake, eating the sandwiches we’d prepared the night before between rounds of Scrabble. There was no talk of work. Frankly, until I was quite older, I don’t think I was ever really clear on what my father actually did for a living. It was pure family time. If we wanted to call home, we had to go downtown and use the pay phone. But rarely did we ever want to call home.
Our beach vacation reminded me a lot of those early trips. We had fun building sandcastles, racing the waves, catching 81 sand crabs (or sand dads as Danny named them) in one sitting. We brought sand by the truckloads back to our beds and at night the kids, tanned beyond reason and salty from the sea, ate peanut butter sandwiches, their laughter punctuated by the waves rolling in by our patio. We walked downtown, ate ice cream every day and jumped over and over again from vacant lifeguard stations. Jay became a full time walker over the course of these quiet, happy days.
It was heaven. That is, until the rest of the world went back to work and tried to drag us with them. Sunday night found Dan and I on our laptops, for thirty minutes of clearing our plates which ended up being ninety minutes of working. Both of us were asked to attend meetings and do work, even though everyone knew we were on vacation. Our phones rang, emails came in, and pretend family meetings about a “Scooby Doo” mystery that Dan had invented about people stealing the beach were interrupted by real work calls.
But, you know what, I blame us. We are the idiots that chose to bring our phones with us. We are the ones who worried about getting our iPhones sandy when we should have just left them at home. We are the ones who didn’t just say no to meetings, who vaguely offered up statements like “although I am on vacation, I am still totally accessible.” OK, that we is me. And why would I ever do that?
Since I started my own business, I have never had a day completely tuned out of work. I even worked every day for hours during a trip home for Jay’s Baptism, which was also the first time I had seen my 80-something parents in almost nine months. Crazy. And I have no one to blame but myself.
Late ‘50s and ‘60s styles are back in fashion. Mad Men is a hit. So I vote all of us crazy working parents take this retro comeback one step forward. On your next vacation, turn it all off. Disconnect. Because you know what, it will all still be there when you come back. Our parents knew that. When I was a kid, we didn’t pretend to email each other, we ran around outside. We never had to worry about Mommy dropping conversation at red lights because she was now desperately scanning her iPhone, even on a Saturday morning trip to Little Gym.
This summer, let’s all be nice to ourselves. Let’s all log off. Let’s admit that it is under our control and let’s actually enjoy our vacations with our kids. If we miss out, it’s really just our own fault.
Although, as with everything else in my life, I will still secretly blame it all on my iPhone.
