‘Moving through life without me’: Fran Whiting on the moment she realised her kids were all grown up

It took a trip overseas for me to realise that my children were perfectly able to cope without continual input from me.

The gift that travel gave me was not what I expected. Picture: iStock

We have just come back from nearly a month overseas, after many years of domestic travel only.

We took our 20-year-old son, and 15- year-old daughter, and when I told a friend we were travelling together on a fairly busy schedule through the UK and France, she said: “That sounds like hell in a hormone basket.”

We were also travelling on a fairly tight budget, which translated to economy airfares, basic accommodation – at one place, we could either sleep, or sit, but never both at the same time – and self-catering, which translated to us eating quite a lot of cereal.

It was, as my friend alluded to, a recipe for teen-frayed tempers and emotional outbursts in the line-up at the Louvre, but I am ashamed to say the only person to have a hormonal meltdown was me.

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Look, I was very, very hot, and there isn’t a woman in her fifties that won’t understand that. Also my feet hurt. Also everyone was annoying me.

The rest of the family, however, took the entire trip in their stride, and watching both my young adults navigate train routes, juggle timetables, attempt languages, help other travellers, and generally behave like high-functioning human beings reminded me of who they are. That is, when I can see them.

When I am not mired in the everyday of “have you done your homework?”, “that dishwasher won’t empty itself, you know”, and “What time will you be home?”

In fact, the whole trip reminded me of something I had forgotten – that the real beauty of travel lies beyond amazing sunsets, cobbled laneways, must-see landmarks, stunning lakes and snow-capped mountains (although all of those things are glorious too).

Journalist Frances Whiting. Picture: Tara Croser.

The real beauty of travel, that we don’t read about in guidebooks, or in online reviews, is that it allows us to become that most wondrous of things again – curious.

It allows us to remember that beyond the nine to five, the mortgages, the traffic, the supermarket queues and the everyday worries, we are all adventurers.

And we are all – if we are allowed to be, or lucky enough to be, or brave enough to be – adventurous.

Watching my son navigate long train routes and timetables, my daughter explore catacombs, lost somewhere in an ancient world, and hearing them say “yes” to going further, to rounding another corner, no matter how far we had already walked, made me see them for the first time in a long time exactly as they are. Resilient. Tolerant. Kind. Helpful. Hilarious – and more than capable of moving through life without me endlessly advising them about how to go about it. They already know, and if they don’t know, they can figure it out themselves.

That is the gift travel gave me, and like that old American Express television ad used to say, it is indeed priceless.

The rest of the trip, however, we’re still paying for and will be for quite some time, but it was worth every cent to remind me of who each of us really is.

And there was another gift as well. As we returned from our trip, and I lay my head on my own pillow that night (heaven), it reminded me that if you are lucky enough to have a happy one, there really is no place like home.