[NOTE: I wrote this more than a year ago after a trip in spring 2023 and have attempted in vain to pitch versions of it for publication elsewhere. So I’m sharing with you here before it gets even more outdated!]
We walked out of the Sistine Chapel, our necks still tight from craning to look at Michelangelo’s masterpiece. I soaked in the pristine 65-degree Roman spring day, Vespas zipping past, snippets of Italian conversation from passersby, and turned to my 10-year-old son, expecting him to be just as enchanted as I was. He looked up at me with his round blue eyes and asked “Can we listen to the podcast now?” Sigh.
For the months leading up to our Rome trip, we’d listened to the History of Rome podcast, a very detailed accounting spread across nearly 200 episodes. While I was captivated by hearing about Julius Caesar for the first time since high school, I’d be lying if I said that I listened to this podcast with the same level of interest and attention as my son, who’d become obsessed.
I started to say “No, we are not going to listen to a podcast about Rome when we are actually in Rome!” I wanted him to feel the city the same way I did, to take it all in. But I stopped myself. He wanted to listen to a podcast, and I wanted to walk. Why was I resisting? We could do whatever we wanted. That’s one of the silver linings of being a single mom – you get to make your own rules.
Being a single mom of an only child is a daily exercise in fighting off fears of inadequacy and not-being-enough. To be accurate, my son has a younger sister, the daughter of his father and stepmom. But he is my only child, and I have not remarried or repartnered in the decade since his dad and I split up. So our family when he is with me is just me and just him.
On good days, when I’m feeling like I’m conquering the world as a mom, I tell myself that we’re a small but mighty unit. But on other days, when the doubt slips in, I wonder if I’m enough. If I’m giving him enough. Enough fun, enough play, enough laughs, enough discipline, enough joy, enough companionship, enough tickles, enough rules, enough space, enough connection, enough warm memories, enough of a good childhood, enough love.
This feeling of inadequacy rears most acutely on vacations and holidays. I grew up in the classic nuclear family – two happily (from what I can tell, at least) married parents and a younger brother. Our holidays were filled with tradition and extended family, our house was warm and loud and bustling. We went on family vacation once a year, driving down from our small town in Illinois to Hilton Head, South Carolina, my brother and I squabbling in the backseat the whole way. We drove the same route every year, stayed at the same hotel outside of Chattanooga halfway through, stayed in the same area of Hilton Head, went to the same beach every day, ate our lunches at the Salty Dog Cafe and our dinners at the Quarter Deck. My brother and I would make up games to play at the pool or see who could make the biggest splash when jumping in, while my parents would lounge with a book. By the end of the week, I was always tan, tired and happy. I loved those vacations.
So when my son’s father and I separated when he was just eight months old, one of the many things I grieved was that neither I nor my son would have those family vacations that I’d grown up with. They were such an essential part of my childhood, a formative sense of who we were as a family. I couldn’t fathom being a parent and not giving my child those sun-dappled memories.
In the first few years, my son and I went on week-long summer vacations with my parents and my brother and his family. We’d rent a big house for all of us to stay in. My son would get to play and bond with his two cousins. He loved these trips. As all the kids got older, though, it became harder to schedule a week every summer between varying school schedules and summer camps. And my brother and sister-in-law wanted to have more time for vacations on their own, as their own family unit, which is completely understandable.
My son and I were on our own. It was up to me and me alone to create those cozy vacation feelings of belonging.
How could a vacation with just me possibly be enough? How could I measure up to Instagram-ready snapshots of happy big families romping on a beach? What is a “family” if not a bunch of smiling kids and a few grownups enjoying time away together? How did just one mom and just one kid fit into that “family vacation” image?
Our first vacation as “just us,” I got it wrong. I took him to Costa Rica, and while I love volcanoes and monkeys as much as the next person, I am not a beach person. Turns out, neither is my kiddo. We both rankle at the physical sensation of sand, especially hot sand, and we both get easily bored. I would pack up all the stuff – sunscreen, hats, water bottles, books, goggles, etc. – and trudge with him to the beach, where we mostly sat around while I read Harry Potter out loud. After about an hour of Hogwarts shenanigans, my son would inevitably start to whine about being hot and bored. I couldn’t argue because same. There was no sibling to play with him in the waves or build sand forts. Sure, I could do that with him, but it’s just not the same. As spontaneous and loose as I could try to be, it’s simply not the same sense of play that a fellow child would have brought.
I resolved to try again for our next trip. He was now 10, more self-sufficient and more formed as a person. And what a person! He’s an autodidact, obsessed with science, history, language, reading and learning. This year, he’d been consuming everything he could about ancient Roman history. Rome was calling us.
On the overnight flight from New York to Rome, after a few hours of playing on his iPad, he put up the armrest in between our seats and curled up with my legs as his pillow, drifting away into sleep on an airplane the way only kids can. I barely slept. As I stroked his hair while looking down at this tween of mine, I worried he’d be massively bored for a week with just his mom. I worried it would be a perfunctory trip that he’d look back on when he’s older with a slight eye roll. I worried it wouldn’t be enough. Mostly, I worried I wasn’t enough.
At breakfast at our hotel in Rome, while my son was finishing his third Nutella crepe in one sitting, a family sat down next to us. The mom’s hair was still damp, she must have just showered. The dad took the younger kid to the buffet, while the older kid scrolled through his phone. They were such a unit, such a family, setting out to have a day of family-filled adventures, I was sure. I imagined the memories those kids would have of their family’s Roman holiday and wondered what my son’s would be.
Pushing those thoughts to the back of my mind, I took a deep breath and gathered my inner resolve, just like I did when I walked in solo to the parents potluck at the beginning of each school year.
“Let’s go, dude, the Colosseum awaits!” I said. He clapped his hands and grinned, excited to explore the ruins of ancient Rome for the day. Narrating with a continuous stream of random facts about Rome, he mostly led the way. He paused occasionally to quiz me on Romulus or Remus or to ask me to rank my top five favorite Roman emperors.
“Augustus is obviously number one, Mama,” he said. Who am I to argue?
The next day, we went to a pasta-making class, taught by a charming Italian man named Alessandro in his home. The smell of garlic wafted around us. Besides us, there was a young married couple and two solo travelers, each in their 20s.
“And is Papa back at the hotel?” said Alessandro after my son and I introduced ourselves.
“No, it’s just us,” I said, smiling on the outside but wondering if “it’s just us” would be the phrase my son kept coming back to in therapy years from now.
“Oh I see, that’s wonderful!” said Alessandro to my son. “Do you get to travel a lot with your mama?”
“Yeah, Mama and I like to go on trips together,” he said. “We went to Costa Rica, and we’re going to Greece next year.” This was more than the noncommittal shoulder shrug I’d expected. Maybe he actually did enjoy these trips. Maybe we are a unit.
“Whoa, we might go to Greece next year!” I said, laughing.
I relaxed and let the afternoon, and the rest of the week, wash over me. We left no corner of ancient Rome unexplored, no cacio e pepe uneaten, no gelato unscooped. I basked in the rare opportunity to spend multiple days of unobstructed time with him – no work, no school, no other obligations. Just us, exploring and eating and laughing. I let him stay up late and eat as much dessert as he wanted. I got to set the rules, and I got to decide when to ignore the rules. I didn’t have to negotiate with any other grown-ups on solo time or whose turn it was to do what. I didn’t have to share my quality time with my son with anyone else. I didn’t have to settle sibling squabbles or cater to another child’s wholly different interests or age range. I didn’t have to cater or answer to anyone but us.
These vacations are a way to reinvent what a family is, what a family vacation is, to create something new and unique. For my son and me, a family vacation is time to explore the world and our interests, to be fully ourselves with each other, to adventure together. It wasn’t the same as what I’d grown up with or what I see on social media. It was better. It was ours.
On the last night in Rome, he collapsed exhausted into bed. We were both happy and full after our last night of pasta intake.
“This was so fun, Mama,” he said, and threw his arms around my neck. “I can’t wait for next year.”
“Me too, sweet pea,” I said. “Me too.”
The list of places I want to take him keeps getting longer. Look out, Greece. The world is big and wide, and we are enough.
Post script: Flash forward a year. We just got back from that trip to Greece, and it was magnificent.
What else…
I’m currently about halfway through Boymom: Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity by
, and I’m wondering how I can get this book in the hands of teachers and coaches and parents and … everyone. I wrote (much less eloquently than Whippman) about my own experience with this topic earlier this year: How to raise a feminist son in a few easy steps.Like many of you, I gobbled up the most recent season of The Bear. Not quite as delicious as previous seasons but still rather good, IMO. I wonder if Carmy could have benefited from a Boymom revolution…
A friend turned me on to The Glory, and it was a highly pleasurable binge, if you’re looking for something to while away an inevitable heat wave.
This was very sweet to read. I am also not a beach vacation person either. I like beaches, but I can't do it for more than 2 hours.
🥹🥹 this was beautiful. Thank you for sharing. In my experience, family is a feeling not a configuration. 💕