Vacation Guilt, FIBI, + Traveling with Anxiety

Plus how to know if your friends are travel-worthy

Hello and happy May-cember to all who observe (🙋🏻‍♀️). I know some of you might still be a long way off from the end of school, and please know you have my deepest sympathies, but we’re closing in on the last week here, to much rejoicing. I have mixed feelings about summer: I’m iffy on the lack of structure, it’s hotter than the hinges on the gates of hell, etc, but I do feel my mental jaw slightly unclenching as my kids get a little older and more capable of entertaining themselves. I live in Alabama, so it’s just always going to be hot here. I’ve come to terms with it. It’s a part of me now.

There was a little rumbling for a post re: my recent trip to England, but when I asked for questions on Instagram, I was surprised by the themes that emerged. Yes, we’ll talk fun things to do in London, finances, outfits, food, and red-eye flights, but y’all also wanted to discuss guilt around spending money, decision fatigue, balancing FIBI¹ with adult responsibilities, overwhelm, feelings of inferiority, intimidation factors, and mom shame for leaving your kids and traveling with friends or your partner or alone. For women especially, there is so much mental energy around traveling, and I’d love to unpack some of that here.

A bit of quick housekeeping before we start: I was also wondering: would an audio version of the paid posts be intriguing or annoying? Would you be ambivalent? Would love your thoughts.

Also I tried my darnedest to be brief (and all God’s children said LOL), so this is part 1 of what I’m hoping to just be two parts. But you know how we do.

Enough about that.

I’ve organized these into three categories: Part 1: Existential Concerns and General Travel, and Part 2: England-Specific and Grab Bag (I love a Grab Bag). Shall we begin?

Existential Concerns

Q: How do I turn off the mom guilt that comes with being away? - kierstenferg
A: I have strong feelings about mom guilt in general, and most of them apply to traveling as well. Obviously, not all of this is universally applicable, as every family situation is unique; so please, take anything I say here with your own grain of salt. But you are not just a mom. Yes, it is a huge part of your identity, it’s a wonderful aspect of your personhood, but it’s not the sole essence of who you are. More than likely, if you’re working through mom guilt, it means you’re wondering if you’re doing enough for your kids, which is a question that bad moms do not ask, because they do not care. Don’t ignore your mom guilt (it’s impossible), but don’t let it be the decision maker. I think some of this was modeled for me by my own mother, who was (and is) a fantastic mom, and she also had a whole, full life outside of being our mom. She and my dad traveled without us often, she went back to school to get her master’s degree when I was in high school, she and her friends have always gone to dinner or played Bunco, she lives her life. She worked her butt off to be an attentive, engaged, loving mom (she still is!), and I think part of the reason she was such a great mom is because she didn’t assign her entire personhood over to motherhood. She didn’t seem to lose her whole self to it, and I think that’s a pretty healthy thing to model. If my kids ever decide to be parents, I want them to experience parenthood within the context of being a full person, so I guess part of this is wanting to model that as well. Even though guilt, shame, and fear will always pop their ugly heads up at inopportune times, I don’t want them to be the factors that determine what I do with my life. Your children thriving and blossoming does not have to come at the cost of you shrinking and denying yourself joy and pleasure.