Tag: life

Parenting & Family · Uncategorized

Taking kids on a grand globe-trotting adventure

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My friend Jen has always been restless.

We met more than 25 years ago at Ohio State University. After graduation, she worked for a year on a farm in Kansas cultivating native prairie plants. Then she joined the Peace Corps and worked for two years with farmers in Honduras.

She met Milan after returning from the Peace Corps. They moved to the East, got married, changed their last names to Marvelous and settled in Philadelphia. When their first two children were still small, Jen insisted they move to the countryside near Ithaca, N.Y. They bought property, had twins, and raised their four girls and some chickens while Jen worked on a nursing degree.

A few years later, they moved back to Philly. Jen is a hospital nurse while Milan runs their properties, fixer-uppers that he fixes up and rents out. He also home-schools the girls. Occasionally, Jen flies off, volunteering her nursing skills in places like Haiti after the 2010 earthquake.

But for many years, maybe all along, her deepest desire was to circumnavigate the globe with her family. And you know what? She did it. They left when their girls were 15, 12, 9 and 9.

It was August 2015 and I was pulling weeds in our garden when she called. “We’re on the highway in Colorado, driving an Auto Driveaway car from Philly to San Francisco. Then we’ll head up to Canada.”

“Wait, you mean now? You’re leaving now?” It’s not that I didn’t believe they’d actually do it, but Jen had talked about this trip and documented the extensive preparations on her blog, Tripping Fantastic, for so long it felt like an ever-receding horizon.

In Vancouver, they boarded a cruise ship, spent 16 nights at sea, disembarking in Shanghai. From there, they took a train, buses and taxis to Laos, where they stayed for a month before heading to Thailand.

In January, when I was in Detroit for job-related training, I sat in my hotel room reading Jen’s blog. Her family settled in Bangkok, a temporary home base from which they explored the Malay Peninsula including volunteering at an elephant sanctuary and watching the sun rise on the first morning of 2016 at the ancient ruins of Angkor Wat in Cambodia.

They arrived in India in February. I studied ancient Indian art and architecture at OSU, but have never been to the Asian subcontinent. As late winter gray prevailed outside my office window, saturated colors exploded from my desktop screen — Jen’s photos from the state of Rajasthan.

Post after post left me with a mix of longing to take such a trip with my family and yet also feeling inadequate to the challenges of such travel. This was not a curated tour by way of Hilton hotels. With lots of research beforehand and during the trip, it was done on the cheap and, after the initial cruise, never plush. Once they journeyed on a train in China with no seats, only bunk beds flanking the walls, making it impossible to sit upright. The photo made me queasy with claustrophobia.

By spring, they had traveled from India through Nepal and back to China. I saw these countries in ways I had not imagined from listening to the news. China looks modern and efficient. In India, ancient civilizations remain impressed upon the hustle-bustle of the present day.

Jen Marvelous and her four daughters in Bangkok, Thailand in 2015.

When they backtracked to China, I thought maybe they were returning home. But instead they took the Trans-Siberian Railway from Beijing to Russia. From the eastern countryside beginning with Lake Baikal, they traveled to Moscow, stopping in Mongolia along the way. And from Russia they went to Istanbul just after the attempted coup.

Last summer, they wended their way through Europe: Romania, Greece, Croatia, Italy, France, England, Ireland and, finally, Spain where they boarded a ship in Barcelona. It brought them across the Atlantic to New York City.

Thirteen months, $86,000, six people. They circled the Earth.

Jen’s parents live in Northeast Ohio. She visited them soon after returning and we met for lunch.

“I keep thinking how a trip like that would completely change the way your children view life, the world, everything!” I told her. I have traveled with my children to many places, but nothing like my friend had done.

“Yeah, well, we’ll see. When they weren’t crying that we’d ruined their lives, they liked most of it. I think.”

“What!?!”

“Seriously, it was hot in Istanbul, so they didn’t want to leave our hotel and just laid around the room. But when they Facetimed their friends, they stuck their phones out the window to show them where we were, like it was fabulous. It could be frustrating at times.”

Ah, kind of like all parenting.

If you do your job right as a parent, it’s impossible for your kids to appreciate it. This is true of both the quotidian — say, providing nutritious meals, helping with homework, regular bedtimes — as well as the exceptional, like a trip around the world.

You don’t do it expecting them to say, “Thanks for buying organic food and cooking a delicious dinner for me yet again.” You do it because that’s what it is to be a parent and they don’t appreciate it because it’s all they know.

However, on the days when your children seem particularly ungrateful, remind yourself that one day they will have to take care of themselves and perhaps children of their own. It is then that they will truly appreciate all you’ve done for them and want to tell you so.

Certainly one day, if not already, Jen’s girls will.

This was first published in the Akron Beacon Journal on Sunday, June 3, 2017.

Uncategorized

Growing old can be rather pleasant

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“When I was young, I had the body of a Greek god,” my foster father told me. “Now I just have the body of an old Greek,” which he was.

I lived with John and his wife, Ruth, in their double-wide trailer on several acres outside of Boyne City, Michigan, when I was 15. Before retiring to northern Michigan, John had been a fire marshal near Detroit.

“When we lived downstate, I taught an NRA program for kids and it was pretty clear that girls have better natural aim than boys,” John shared after showing me how to shoot a .22 rifle. And, yes, like many of the girls he had trained, I was a good shot from the get-go.

Looking back, it’s regrettable I wasn’t permanently placed with John and Ruth. I stayed in touch with them for several years and although we eventually lost contact, they frequently pique my memory. Last week while ironing, I remembered John telling me he had come to enjoy washing dishes, a chore he’d hated most of his life.

“The warm water feels good on my arthritis and I like looking out the window, seeing the birds and different animals coming down from the woods,” he said.

The view from my ironing board is that of my house’s sandstone foundation − not the same as the woods in northern Michigan, but not unpleasant either. Now a woman “d’une certain âge,” as the French say, I understand what John meant and it’s curious of the many things we discussed, his enjoyment of dishwashing is one that has stuck with me.

The primary function of children, according to my mother, is to do housework and I kept her home for many years. Because she was a chain smoker, an orange residue coated all mirrors and glass, which I weekly wiped clean before dusting the furniture. Carpeting was vacuumed multiple times a week; the kitchen was scrubbed nightly. And I ironed every weekend. My stepfather wore long-sleeved dress shirts to work. Depending on the season, every evening he changed into a short-sleeved button up or flannel shirt. I first ironed the backside of the collar, followed by the yoke, then the sleeves and finally the three sections of the shirt’s body, giving close attention to the placket. Place the shirt on a hanger and repeat with 11 more shirts, followed by pants and pillow cases.

While my mother’s houses have always been impeccably clean, they’ve also been equally uninviting. Yes, I’m hardwired by training for a tidy, organized home, but clean and welcoming need not be mutually exclusive, a home can be both. Before my eldest child was school aged, I read “Shelter for the Spirit: How to Make Your Home a Haven in a Hectic World.” The author, Victoria Moran, describes creating a home that is both practical and comfortable. Something of a mash up of Marie Kondo, feng shui and warm Waldorf aesthetics (IYKYK), the book has influenced how my homes not only look, but feel. My longtime friend Jen Marvelous recently tallied the number of houses I’ve had since we left college.

“You’ve set up at least seven homes and I’ve loved them all,” she said. “Would you come help me?” Jen recently bought a small home in Philadelphia, where she’s lived for over 25 years, and for the first time in her life, she lives alone. I immediately said yes, and drove there last week.

American women over 50 who prefer living alone is a growing trend, a situation my friend and I simultaneously and unexpectedly find delightful. Our friends and children fill our homes most days, but then they leave. I cannot recall ever being as content as I am living in a cozy home that is just as I wish it to be.

I begrudged ironing for my mother, in part because it was a chore that took an hour or more. Today, I never iron shirts as cleaners do a far better job. But because I prefer 100% cotton bedding, I iron not only pillowcases, but also the upper trim of top sheets so that they lie flat. I also use cloth napkins, all of which I iron after they’ve dried on an aluminum rack.

Standing in my basement smoothing out wrinkled linens provides a reprieve from the noise and activity of daily living. The task, comfortingly familiar after decades of repetition, gives opportunity for my thoughts to gently wander. My calm joy in pottering around, keeping my home is a function of age not unlike that of my foster father’s so many decades ago. Accomplishments matter less than they did at a younger age whereas how each day feels, and little touches that make me happy, matter more.

Growing old, I’m finding, is rather pleasant.

This column was first published in the Akron Beacon Journal on Sunday, December 21, 2025.

Parenting & Family

Maintaining a functional family after parents break up makes co-parenting easier

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Leif, Max, Lyra and Holly at Akron’s Oct. 18 No Kings Day protest.

No sooner had I finished my last column extolling the beauty of autumn in our part of the world, when the weather shifted. Highs went from upper 60s to low 50s, still pleasant but indicating the waning days until winter arrives. For those with yards and gardens, it’s time to put away patio furniture, bring in plants that will winter over, blow leaves and generally close down outdoor living spaces enjoyed during milder months.

Located at the end of the shared driveway of my two homes, a garage stores all the yard equipment ‒ a mower, blowers for leaves and snow, rakes, shovels and more. And when I rented out my second home last spring after completing major renovations, I hauled everything my adult sons had stored in the basement of my rental out to the garage. Boxes, rugs, an artist’s easel and more were urgently and inefficiently tossed inside.

With winter coming, order in the garage could no longer wait and I made an offer to my younger children’s father, Max. If he helped organize my garage one weekend, I’d do the same for him the following one. “No more than two hours on Saturday,” I told him. He was there all day. We met early at Home Depot where I bought shelves that Max and our son, Leif, loaded into Max’s minivan and we caravanned to my homes. 

A 4-by-8-foot Border’s bookstore table Max and I had purchased when the chain closed in 2011 sat in the garage where I wanted to put the shelves. Made of solid oak, the underside of the table was reinforced with metal so it could hold stacks upon stacks of books. While sturdy enough for towers of boxes and rows of flower pots, the table wasn’t as functional for storage as shelves. Out to the devil strip it went, and I offered it for free on Facebook Marketplace. A young couple with a 2-year-old child claimed it. To my delight, the woman later sent a photo of the table in their dining room, writing that it will be the place of many meals, artwork and LEGO projects. 

By day’s end, the garage was cleaner and better organized than it has been in the 20-some years I’ve owned it. The following Saturday, I returned the favor. When Max and I broke up, he bought a house in Fairlawn specifically to live in the Copley school district. Our daughter, who has Down syndrome, is thriving in the SAIL program at Akron schools, but if that were ever to change, we wanted to ensure the best possible alternative. 

I was reminded that day of Max’s ability to imagine how useful almost anything can be. He had three garbage bins filled with empty mulch bags. When I asked why, he said to clean dog waste from his yard. Max and I have a week-on-week-off custody schedule and our son’s German shepherd, Otto, goes with the children to both homes. It would take more than a year to use all the mulch bags as Max intended. I told him to pitch them.

“That’s why I want you here, to help me make these decisions,” Max told me. Leif and I took four van loads of trash and cardboard to Fairlawn’s waste and recycling center. And when I left that day, I took a car laden with donations to a Goodwill collection center.

Max and I were friends for several years before we dated, which perhaps is why we’ve found it possible to remain friends after deciding to end our romantic relationship. This was not the case with the father of my first three children, who disappeared from all of our lives not long after the divorce was finalized. 

Parenting well is a terrific responsibility made far easier with a co-parent, particularly when both parents approach the job as similarly as we do. Our two children come to my home after school every day and Max picks them up after work when it’s his custodial week. Sometimes he stays for dinner; other times he takes all of us out. Max and I would see each other so frequently if we didn’t have children, but we do. And I am grateful for the relationship we have.

I recently took our two children to their pediatrician for their annual physicals. As always, she asked Leif many questions while I sat and listened. His education, activities and social life are equally and easily supported by both his parents.

“Do you know how lucky you are that your parents get along?” the pediatrician asked Leif.

When he said he did, she underscored just how lucky he is. Having lived the opposite, I know how lucky we all are to remain a functional family even though we now live in separate homes.

This column was first published in the Akron Beacon Journal on Sunday, November 9, 2025.