Parents and Children
Blues Beach
FURLONG By MONICA
ONE of the most depressing lessons that the parents of small children have to learn is that real holidays arc not possible for them. Goodness knows, we fight hard against the know- ledge, piling our carry-cots into Land-Rovers and touring the Continent with our toddlers, lightheartedly trying tents and caravans and holi- day chalets and holiday camps, buying our copy of the Parents' Holiday Guide each January and leafing eagerly through it in the hope that this Year we will find the perfect solution But I think we are fooling ourselves. The bitter fact remains that the kind of holiday which renders a young child, say, up to the age of seven, angelic with happiness is not a particularly satis- fying one for his parents unless their tastes happen also to be ones of infantile simplicity. All that small children want is sea and sand and Other children to play with, with a few ice- creams and fun-fairs and late nights sprinkled On the top like gold-dust on a super lily. They don't want long journeys, or foreignness, or food beautifully cooked and served, or landscape, or Peace. One may, of course, try to plan one's holidays as single-mindedly as one did before °Ile had children, setting, firmly out for an un- Spoiled spot in magnificent scenery, containing a matchless hotel where the food is impeccable; if one's children are cowed enough it may even Work after a fashion, but the essential light- heartedness of the holiday is lost anyway because the remorseless routine of child care goes on re- gardless of the setting. Even on the Day of Judgment one's baby would doubtless insist on being given its bottle and a clean nappie at five 13 clock in the morning, and even on holiday one's toddlers like to greet the dawn with joyous shouts and requests for orange juice and biscuits. The fierce programme of changing and bathing, of washing clothes and wiping faces, of stopping the baby crying and carrying on interminable mystified conversations with the three-year-old, which at home is so habitual that it seems scarcely noticeable, suddenly becomes unbear- able in surroundings dedicated to leisure and Pleasure. It is at such times that even the most devoted, grateful and fulfilled Mums suddenly find themselves thinking enviously of their childless friends and wondering whether, after ail' they themselves have mistaken their vocation. There is a ghastly irony in the fact that at the Period of one's life when one could most d° with holidays devoted to cultivated idleness
there is the least chance of achieving them.
Unless one has a nanny, or an exceptionally stout-hearted grandmother to hand, or the kind of conscience which does not demur at handing a toddler over to a stranger, there is no solu- tion, and I find myself that the whole thing becomes much more bearable if one does not try to kid oneself that the holiday is going to be a riot of freedom and fun and does not at- tempt to be ambitious. The choice is not a rich and exciting one. For parents in the south of England it is probably a straight selection be- tween south or east coast. For parents every- where the choice revolves around whether a place has a sandy beach or a stony one, whether it shelves steeply into the sea or is flat, whether the sea is safe or treacherous. And as for accom- modation, if one is not to be the perfect spartan and do everything oneself, the choice is between hotels which offer high chairs, cots, nursery tea, evening baby-sitters and drying facilities and ones which do not: ones which positively incite one to bring children and ones which re- gard them, particularly if they are babies, as an unfortunate aberration on the part of the guests, like snakes in a hat-bo) or alligators in a bathtub. Having just returned from a safe, sandy English beach and an equally sandy English hotel (accompanied by a reasonably cheerful husband and ecstatic children), I've come to the conclusion the thing isn't so bad It's not the Riviera, of course, and it's not the kind of holiday which smoothly unravels the tangles of civilisation and puts all one's neuroses neatly back in their proper place, but perfectly bear- able, indeed mildly pleasant. There are tricks of the maternal trade which do ease the burden a bit; any sensible mother takes the kind of dresses for the baby that don't need ironing and abandons nappy-washing in favour of dispos- ables. (Those huge Victorian lavatories they have at English seaside hotels digest Paddi-pads beautifully.) But companionship is the great thing. Another complete family with offspring of a similar age to one's own either taken forcibly on holiday with one, or promiscuously picked up on the beach, tends to halve the labour and double the leisure one can expect, since the children are far too busy creating impassioned friendships or batting each other over the head to 'want attention more than 60 per cent. of the time. Provided one's children don't come up with sand allergy, or sea-water rash, or galloping sunburn, or have my sister's unhappy knack of jumping off breakwaters on to jagged bits of glass, there really is a bit more rest than at home, as well as a change of air and no washing- up.
Taking children on holiday is, like every other aspect of family life, appallingly expensive, and at moments when morale is low it is tempting to calculate that the cost of ice-creams, Paddi- pads, pram-hire, soap-flakes and beach-hut alone would probably pay for a one-way, night- travelling, tourist-class ticket to Nice. Is the family holiday worth it? Remembering the six or so golden and glorious holidays of my child- hood before the war stamped on that kind of infantile happiness, I feel certain that it is. The luxury of giving one's children that sort of rap- turous memory is not one to be renounced, not for the whole Continent of Europe.
'Hold everything!--it's obsolete!'
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