Peppermint stick ice cream and the end of an era

When the family outgrows the family tradition

It’s common parenting advice to get all the family time you can in before your kids would rather just be with their friends, significant others, or, frankly, anyone who isn’t their parent. There’s some truth in that but I found it to be less of a light switch moment and more a slow moving slide where your teens may not want to hang out with you but will if you’re (a) doing the thing they want to do or (b) spending money on them.

Our annual family summer vacations to the beach were fun for a few years. To clarify, “vacations to the beach” means “vacations to a place that’s close to a beach but because I don’t do natural sunlight of any kind, common beach trip activities included board games, nature walks, dinners on the deck, ice cream runs and, occasionally, actual visits to an actual beach.” Especially with shared custody, having that full week together was one where we bonded and, for me personally, having the kids some place where I’ve been going for decades and get some time to know my parents better was special too.

There was always a little family drama (Oldest and Middle still can’t spend too long together without digs and complaints) but everything was what I’d consider “age-appropriate tension.” In recent years, though, there’s been some fundamental shifts that have led to less of a push or emphasis from us in getting everyone here.

Inflection Point 1: Oldest brought her long-term partner.

I should have intervened sooner because, in an attempt to save money, Oldest booked some ridiculous series of flights that involved two layovers and a redeye. By the time they arrived on island, it was nearly 24 hours of total travel and obviously that kind of itinerary isn’t starting anyone’s trip off on the right foot. Having Partner there was really helpful in reducing some of the tension between Oldest and Middle which was a win, but there was newly established conflict between Partner and mosquitos. As the normal target for mosquitos, I was lightly relieved but it definitely affected their experience.

Our normal board game time also shifted - they’re serious board game people and brought games that required 45-minute rule explanations. I’m psychotically competitive and a sore loser at the best of times, so when I thought I’d cracked one “game” (that felt more like a proxy for a cognitive ability test) I was furious when Partner tried to steal my point on a technicality (I said “dinosaur” for extinct species and didn’t name a species). My rage was clear to everyone and it was a buzzkill for all.

Inflection Point 2: Screens

Around the same time, and maybe even the same visit, Middle stopped being able to read anything and, instead, just sat on the couch watching Twitch streamers play the video games that he wasn’t able to. I don’t know why two kids with AirPods sitting on a couch silently watching videos all day on their phones was so disruptive to me but it’s just the opposite of the vibe. Invitations to go to the beach, on a hike or into town were rebuffed unless a meal was attached. In addition, since Middle has what I’m fairly confident is a video game addiction, his attitude was that of someone going through a detox — which is to say, hostile, unpleasant, and surly.

Ages ago, I learned about the Welsh word, hiraeth, which has no direct English translation although often gets summarized as longing, homesickness or nostalgia. I loved this description from Wales.com:

Hiraeth gives a name to that sense of incompleteness you feel when you’re acutely aware of something missing in your life. Something you’ve left behind in the past – a home, a sense of feeling at home in yourself, an out-grown dream – or maybe an ideal you’ve invented that can never be realised, or a hope that perpetually eludes you as the future unfolds. At its core, hiraeth boils down to an awareness of the presence of absence, kindling a feeling in which pain and joy are braided too tightly to untangle.

I think that’s really the thing. As one can expect with teenagers, time passes and the way we enjoy ourselves as a family adjusts as we grow and change. Nantucket is a place that’s been special to me since well before I married Jeff and met my three stepkids. Even while Timothy Olyphant can go on Seth Meyers and make fun of the $12 ice cream scoops, I know he’s talking about ice cream at the Juice Bar — an ice cream shop so important to me that, not only did I write my college essay as a high school senior about it, but most of our family trips were scheduled the last week of July so I could have an ice cream cake from them (peppermint stick) for my birthday.

This place is my “happy place” even if I hate that term and I felt so lucky to marry someone who immediately got that this island is not about money or status (as we don’t have enough of either to matter to the typical summer crowd); it’s the one place where I will just sit in the living room with the windows open and a jazz playlist on and read or needlepoint almost all day. If I leave my little corner of the couch, it’s to do a jigsaw puzzle. Growing up, this was the one spot in the world where my whole family got to be together without interruption and, as the youngest child, I witnessed the dynamic change in real time when my brothers began spending summers abroad, working, or with their girlfriends/other friends. I think I thought I had a few more years of that with my own family. Sometimes it’s easy to blame your stepkids (or their Partners) for a change when it’s actually generational; I don’t know of any parents of teens/early adults who aren’t also begging them to turn off the phone and go for a walk somewhere.

I write this now from that same beloved couch corner and realize I need to accept a different kind of vacation or make new memories here with just my husband and/or our friends who are also seeking a respite from screens and the world. This isn’t a strange feeling for me as I concluded my aforementioned college essay with: “I have not been to the Juice Bar with my entire family for more than two years, but even going by myself helps me to remember how remarkable it was when the five of us shared one roof, if only for two weeks in the heat of the summer.”

I was pretty nostalgic for a 17 year old.