Our Family Travelled To Italy And We Left Our Son At Home: Are We Terrible Parents?

This is a question I have asked myself many times over the last few weeks. 

You see, we travelled to Italy a few weeks ago to celebrate my cousin’s wedding. It’s a celebration that was set to take place over two years ago - and I don’t need to tell you what got in the way of that.

Well, since that initial invitation, my son Freddie was born.

Now just over 18-months-old, and new to running - I was pretty anxious about taking him and his 3-year-old sister on a 14-hour flight (just to Dubai), with another 6-hour leg to get to Italy.

How do you tell an 18-month-old he has to sit still for that long, without the safety of an iPad to fall back on? His attention span isn’t quite there yet!

Mother-in-law to the rescue!

One day my mother-in-law suggested that we leave Freddie home with her, so after a lot of thought, we cut our trip down to just two weeks - and took my mother-in-law up on her offer.

Don’t get me wrong! I know plenty of people navigate this daily. Some as single parents - some with many kids - and survive. I know I could have done it, too. I know I’m capable - but that didn’t stop the dread from creeping in.

I rationalised it by considering how nice it would be for us to spend some one-on-one time with our daughter, Eva, who was only two-years-old when Freddie came along. I told myself Freddie would be better off sans the jetlag, and wouldn’t appreciate the European delights like the rest of us would.

Freedom - oh freedom!

Leaving Freddie behind afforded us a certain number of freedoms. Firstly, no travel pram or travel cot necessary. No carting around formula, no factoring in nap times, no divide and conquer of children - as just one child meant that my husband and I could actually relax at certain intervals. I missed him incredibly, but I was actually faring quite well.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop

One day, as I awoke in Puglia, I saw a message from my mother-in-law saying that Freddie had quite a high temperature and she was taking him to hospital for monitoring. I broke down. I have never felt so useless and far away in all my life. I would have given anything to be at home in that moment, and the thought that if I left right then it would take me two FULL days to get home made me sick.

It turns out that he was fine - and it was most likely just a viral infection - but that moment has stayed with me, and I imagine always will.

Split holidaying isn’t all that strange of a concept

I know quite a few families (personally and on social media) who choose to holiday with one child at a time to ensure quality bonding. Not every holiday is spent this way, but they do organise certain trips to coincide with certain children and their age and interests. I do think it’s a concept with merit in many ways, but seeing the bond my two children have, I don’t know if it’s a path I’d go down again. 

Eva loved her one-on-one time with us, and I’ll always treasure our swims in Dubai, and ice creams shared in Italy, but I don’t think it would have been any less of a good time for her if Freddie was there too.

The aftermath

As you can imagine, the anticipation to hold Freddie in my arms after two long weeks away was almost too much to bear. I think the two moments that sealed the deal for me in my decision not to ever leave him again, was the bewildered and slightly frosty reception I got when I saw him at the airport; it wasn’t quite the ‘Love Actually’-esque reunion I envisaged.

The second part was when my mother-in-law came with me to pick him up from daycare just this week. I let her go in first, and when he saw her he BOLTED to the other end of the room and burst into tears. It was like seeing her in that setting meant that his parents had gone away again. It was like the poor child had been traumatised! My heart absolutely sank.

Disclaimer:

It’s important to note that not every child will react like Freddie, and that he absolutely loved his time with his grandparents. In fact, he didn’t cry once for the entire two weeks! This is simply my experience, and hopefully provides you with a real recount to consider should you ever find yourself in a situation where you have to make a decision like this.