Green-eyed monster is throwing a fit over here, after I read this New York Times article on a family that has managed to live out something I've only dreamed about: traveling around the world. Indefinitely.
The indefinitely part wasn't really in the cards for us, but the traveling around the world was. Back in 2000, after the husband and I got laid off, we thought about selling our house for a pretty penny and then home-schooling the older child—we had a baby, too, at that time—for a year while we circled the globe. We'd had it all planned out, even a budget of sorts. A book we'd read about a family that did something similar gave us a ton of tips. (Australia allows foreigners to enroll their kids in their great public schools, which gave them a break from homeschooling.)
But then old-fashioned pragmatism prevailed. Naysayers—and there were many—said the kids needed stability. To which another friend cried "bullshit," because, as she so eloquently put it, a loving family is most of the grounding a kid needs. So we sold the house, moved east, got jobs and an apartment, and here we are.
Sometimes I wish we'd gone on that trip. It would be difficult now, especially with one child in high school, when her social life and future plans for college hold lots of sway. When she was 7, it wasn't such a critical thing to home-school her one year. (We were moving, anyway, so it's not as if we weren't cutting ties.) Now, it feels like a major upheaval.
If you look closely at the comments on the Times article, there are critics aplenty. But from my vantage point, this set-up seems mostly win-win. Your thoughts?
—CityMom
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