Long car rides can be either a fun family adventure or an imprisonment for hours. It all depends on the mood of the kids.
Children have seemingly struggled throughout history with staying occupied (or quiet) during road trips. There always seems to be one who is peacefully asleep and another who asks, "Are we there yet?" or "How much longer?"
There are books, music, travel puzzles and games of I Spy. At least, those are the classics for car ride entertainment.
When Dad decides he can't take top 40s music in the car anymore, something else goes on the radio. Maybe it's a baseball game, NPR or a classic rock station. This irritates the children.
Today's children can bring along a Kindle or an iPad to play with. Maybe the car has a portable DVD player (hopefully with headphones). If you're lucky, you have Wi-Fi in the vehicle to keep the complaining down.
I don't. Sometimes I let the kids use my hotspot, but other times the hills and valleys of the rural Midwest don't allow me to have a strong cellphone signal. This vexes the children, and they don't like the alternatives.
"Look at the rolling hills! Is there an eagle flying? Look at that cool farmhouse. Close your eyes and sleep. Just be quiet and sit there like all the generations before you had to do."
My generation had our "struggles." For years Game Boys or other travel video games didn't have a backlight, and when driving on a night when the full moon wasn't on your side of the car or there wasn't a plethora of streetlights, it was nearly impossible to win at Dr. Mario.
We had books to read, a Rand McNally atlas book to plot courses through cities and states we weren't going to, travel fun-pack books to try to write with, which inevitably would leave long lines of pencil across the page because we hit a pothole. Maybe we had a Walkman or a traveling cassette player. Sometimes if it was a sunny day and we were bored, Dad would put the comics section of a newspaper on a backseat window - entertainment and a visor. Thanks for the ingenuity, Dad!
His generation was the first to have radios in every car, though AC and seatbelts weren't yet mandatory. The generation before just had a window, and their parents had a good view of the inside wall of the boat hull on the trip over from Europe.
As you can tell by now, the struggles of today's children are worse than before. At least, according to my kids.
While our longest rides recently have been for only a few hours at a time, we've been able to manage without locking anyone in the trunk. But my cousin is visiting Mount Rushmore, and I've long wanted to take the Great Lakes Tour. These hours and hours in the car with children make me weary to think about. I think I need a chauffeur. How soon can I purchase a driverless car?
I suppose that topic should be saved for another day.
- Adam Krebs is a reporter for the Times and is thinking of upgrading to a minivan, a coach bus or a private jet. He can be reached at akrebs@themonroetimes.net.
Children have seemingly struggled throughout history with staying occupied (or quiet) during road trips. There always seems to be one who is peacefully asleep and another who asks, "Are we there yet?" or "How much longer?"
There are books, music, travel puzzles and games of I Spy. At least, those are the classics for car ride entertainment.
When Dad decides he can't take top 40s music in the car anymore, something else goes on the radio. Maybe it's a baseball game, NPR or a classic rock station. This irritates the children.
Today's children can bring along a Kindle or an iPad to play with. Maybe the car has a portable DVD player (hopefully with headphones). If you're lucky, you have Wi-Fi in the vehicle to keep the complaining down.
I don't. Sometimes I let the kids use my hotspot, but other times the hills and valleys of the rural Midwest don't allow me to have a strong cellphone signal. This vexes the children, and they don't like the alternatives.
"Look at the rolling hills! Is there an eagle flying? Look at that cool farmhouse. Close your eyes and sleep. Just be quiet and sit there like all the generations before you had to do."
My generation had our "struggles." For years Game Boys or other travel video games didn't have a backlight, and when driving on a night when the full moon wasn't on your side of the car or there wasn't a plethora of streetlights, it was nearly impossible to win at Dr. Mario.
We had books to read, a Rand McNally atlas book to plot courses through cities and states we weren't going to, travel fun-pack books to try to write with, which inevitably would leave long lines of pencil across the page because we hit a pothole. Maybe we had a Walkman or a traveling cassette player. Sometimes if it was a sunny day and we were bored, Dad would put the comics section of a newspaper on a backseat window - entertainment and a visor. Thanks for the ingenuity, Dad!
His generation was the first to have radios in every car, though AC and seatbelts weren't yet mandatory. The generation before just had a window, and their parents had a good view of the inside wall of the boat hull on the trip over from Europe.
As you can tell by now, the struggles of today's children are worse than before. At least, according to my kids.
While our longest rides recently have been for only a few hours at a time, we've been able to manage without locking anyone in the trunk. But my cousin is visiting Mount Rushmore, and I've long wanted to take the Great Lakes Tour. These hours and hours in the car with children make me weary to think about. I think I need a chauffeur. How soon can I purchase a driverless car?
I suppose that topic should be saved for another day.
- Adam Krebs is a reporter for the Times and is thinking of upgrading to a minivan, a coach bus or a private jet. He can be reached at akrebs@themonroetimes.net.
