Trips with kids are meant to expand their minds, to show them something different.
We took our three daughters to Paris where we stayed at a friend’s apartment. It was also their first time to Europe. That alone would have been mind expanding.
But we had three random encounters that got them thinking about how small and interconnected the world can be – and also how we don’t always have control of a situation.
On our first day, we went to the Louvre. I’d bought tickets for 11am and we were all super excited. When we arrived, there was a massive backlog of people. That was the day the museum staff went on strike. And there was no one giving any information on when the museum would open.
It was hard for our kids to grasp that this could happen, that we could have a timed ticket we purchased but weren’t going into the museum. So we punted and took a cab to Notre Dame and made up a day.
When we returned to the Louvre at 3pm, we learned the museum had only opened at 2:30! But here’s what blew their mind: Standing behind us in the snaking line were two of their friends from school! They couldn’t believe the coincidence.
The next day, we went to the Eiffel Tower. I took my youngest to the bathroom and standing behind me was an old source who had been in one of my books. He was there with his grandson. I hadn’t seen or spoken to him in six or seven years.
“Hello, Paul.”
“Hello, Alec.”
What else would we say?
The girls’ heads were spinning. “That’s crazy, Dad,” my oldest said. “Two people on the same trip.”
That evening, sitting outside at a brasserie on the Rue de Rapp, I said to my family, “I think one of my Lead Dads of the Week just ran by.”
“C’mon, dad, enough,” my middle daughter said. “You can’t keep running into people you know in Paris.”
“I’m pretty sure that was him. I’m going to email him.”
Sure enough, that was Anton Titov running past. Now to be fair, Anton is one of my most recognizable Lead Dads ever – with his shock of bright red hair – and I knew he had moved to Paris from New York. But still three sightings?
He and I met up for coffee a few days later. Turns out where we were staying was on his regular jogging route.
Randomness in the planned, scheduled worlds of our kids is an amazing opportunity. I don’t mean running into your classmate in town or even at Sephora. I’m talking about the kind of random encounters my girls experienced in Paris.
It was going to be an amazing trip no matter what. But running into people we knew so far from home was mind expanding.
Too often our kids’ lives are anything but random. They’re focused, they’re driven, they’re highly plugged in and attuned to the nuances of cultural shifts. But they’re in their lanes, driving fast ahead. They’re not looking around enough.
I’ve always looked around. It’s a good thought to kick of summer.
