Normalizing Traveling Without Kids
And without the mom guilt too
“Let’s go to Alaska!”
“Yes!!”
“Alone…”
“Oh…”
We love traveling! Ever since my husband and I started dating, we have loved to travel. For us, it’s a way to see more of God. More of His creation, more of His people and places. We love to learn about the culture, language, and history. Everything about it is appealing to us.
Naturally, we want to share those things with our kids too. Even at a young age, we want them to see God in all His glory through these different places. However, some trips have been just for us - as husband and wife, not as dad and mom.
Couples need to normalize traveling without their kids more and here’s why: when you get away together, without kids, you are reinvesting in each other so that you can better communicate, love, and care for each other with kids.
Getting away on a little (or big) vacation, just the two of us, allows us to put each other back at the top and focus all our attention on staying connected and invested in each other. Now I think it needs to be said that this should be occurring every day throughout every year forever, because that’s what helps a healthy marriage stay healthy: continually giving each other attention, love, and care while staying connected and invested. However, life and kids happen, plus work, chores, and everything else. So sometimes, it can be easy to lose one or two of those things. Sometimes it can be easy for the priority list to shift. Getting away alone, for us, helps us to reset and continue to do those things in the everyday at home.
We typically try to get away once a year on our own and then once with the kiddos too for a family vacation. However, it hasn’t always been easy leaving them at home. The mom guilt hits hard and sinks deep. We have a big trip to Europe coming up and have both gone back and forth several times about bringing the girls or not. But ultimately, this trip isn’t for them, it’s for us and our marriage and celebrating the six years of marriage and ten years of togetherness that we’ve built. For this trip, we have to be selfish and let them have a blast with grandparents because we committed to doing this for our marriage.
If we can normalize traveling without kids then we, as mothers (or parents in general), can remove the guilt easier because there isn’t that pressure from the outside world telling us we are selfish or bad parents. Mothers need to be encouraging other mothers to reinvest in their marriages without the guilt because if you aren’t parenting at a healthy level with your spouse then you aren’t parent well at all. Your kids can feel that. Your kids will be raised in that. You can’t wait for it to work itself out, you have to put the work in now to do it together.
One day those kids won’t be in your house anymore. Your lives won’t revolve around them or their calendars. One day, it will just be you and your spouse again. The sad reality is that a lot of relationships fumble when this happens. They forget how to be together, just the two of them. Working towards maintaining that intentionally and togetherness now is what is going to make that transition smooth in the future. Dating your spouse now will make it easier to date them when your calendar suddenly opens up.
So, let’s normalize traveling without kids. Let’s normalize reinvesting in our marriages to be better parents. Let’s normalize dating your spouse to set up for better futures. Let’s normalize encouraging other parents to do the same and not guilting them for wanting to. Let’s do it together.
Let’s continue the conversation:
Do you travel without kids? What is your reason for doing so or not doing so?
Why do you think mom guilt is on such a rise in our society?
How can you better invest in your marriage for your kids and your future?
I love this. I would love to travel with my husband again, just the two of us. We met during our travels too, so it is something special for us.
I am not sure if I'm ready yet to travel together with my husband without the kids since my youngest is only two. I'm going off for the first time soon for two weeks without them, and I take solace that they have their papa with them.
How do you all do that? And at what age are the kids when you all first try it?
That’s so special that you two met traveling and have that as a bond between you! I love that!
I sincerely hope that your upcoming travel goes well and that it can provide reassurance for you and your husband to do it together soon 🤍
Our daughter was 18 months old when we went on our first trip together post kids. We live within 35 minutes of both our parents so our girls see their grandparents a lot which helps when we travel on our own because they have these really special bonds with their grandparents and love going to their houses, so that makes it a lot easier. Knowing we have people who we trust and who our girls trusts and love is a huge reason we can even travel without them to begin with. We also demand a lot of pictures/updates and phone calls just to ease our anxieties and see/know they are doing okay!! It takes a lot of trust and handing over control to someone else to care for your kid which is honestly the hardest part but it also offers A LOT of growth.
At the end of the day, every couple is different. It worked for us to start when she was 18 months but it may make sense for you guys at a later age, and that’s okay! As long as you two are prioritizing it at some point and hold each other accountable to prioritizing it, that’s what matters.