We take our kids, ages 4, 2.5, & 1, camping in a 26 ft, 1993 travel trailer every chance we get.
Camping with toddlers is…HARD. Like 20,000+ steps a day hard. Like drip sweat hard. Like 5 hours of sleep for mom & dad hard.
My kids are so young that a bystander might question why we even go through the trouble bc…will they even remember?!
I KNOW how it must look/sound. & I know that there is some validity to the question “will they even remember?”; after all, “explicit” memory (ex: recalling EXACTLY what you ate for breakfast) starts around age 3 but it’s not until age 6 or 7 that explicit memories are more frequent & detailed.
I also know that “implicit” memory, the unconscious, involuntary recollection of emotion, is NOT insignificant.
TRUE. They won’t remember that we ate their favorite tacos or that my son caught his first bass. They won’t remember that we fed horses & goats or that we stayed up WAAAY past their bedtime just to be together.
Also, true. They WILL remember the intangibles…the FEELING that life was fun, exciting, & good; the FEELING of freedom & being surrounded by nature. The FEELING of being together & connectedness.
If you ask me, those are more important anyway. If you ask me, that’s what makes a person whole.
THAT is why we do it. Not to mention, we only get 18 summers with our kids (God willing, of course); THIS is one of them.
