When asked what their favorite part of the trip was, they responded..
The hot tub.
At the hotel.
My kids light up the most when I am fully engaged with them, fully present, entertaining their ideas, and asking questions.
Their favorite family trip so far? When we traveled to Arkansas to mine for crystals. AKA, dig in the dirt all day. They saw it on a YouTube video. They asked to go. So we obliged. I had never been to Arkansas. It's beautiful.
We stayed at a resort, Diamonds Old West Cabins, with a huge playground outside the cabins, archery, and a bubble party every evening at 6 pm.
For our Disney(land) trip, we stayed at a motel ~ 1.5 miles from the park (Canadian walking distance) and the thing my kids LOVED was we walked by a 7-11 every day and I would buy them a slurpee on the morning walk to the gates. Probably $20 for the week (and likely not much worse for you than a typical vacation breakfast).
The "make your own waffle" station at the included breakfast was also a huge hit. The park and rides were satisfactory.
I've taken my older daughter to Disney (World) twice now (at ages 7 and 9). Her absolute favorite part: riding the Skyliner to EPCOT. On our second trip we went an hour out of our way to go ride it because we weren't at a served hotel that time.
When pressed for a favorite activity within the park, it was "that time we ran all the way from Japan to Soarin', dodging people".
A few months ago, we took our year-and-a-half-old daughter to Belgium and Spain for two weeks. Her favorite part of the whole trip was seeing horses, sheep, and geese (all of which, believe it or not, we have here at home in Canada).
When I was about seven, my sister and I were taken on a special trip to see the Giant Pandas at the National Zoo in Washington, DC. The pandas were fine, but we were fascinated by the chipmunks running around everywhere.
As a grown ass man, I make a point of visiting zoos in foreign cities if I'm in a city that has one. My lady is never as enthusiastic, but then quickly forgets about her lack of enthusiasm with the first glance of a meerkat
My gf and I went to Ronda in Spain a few years ago and stopped at the amazing bridge over the gorge. Looked around for a few minutes and then spotted a mother cat leading her litter of kittens through a field down below. We watched them, entranced, for ages. It's always the way with us.
Even as an adult I enjoy time when some other person I am spending time with is fully engaged and fully present, I’d call it quality time, but it’s just so rare…
When we were kids, at some point we lived in a house whose garden was on top of a hill. So we would sometimes just look for whatever cardboard box is available and roll down the hill inside it.
I stopped offering stuff to my kids for birthdays a long time ago, they got enough from uncles and aunts. I prefer offering "events" like going some place special. Memories are more important than plastic stuff.
I once made a cardboard box (from an oven) into a real-life duplicator as a mad scientist at a talent show using a couple of twins as part of the show. Had some people blown away. lol.
> My kids light up the most when I am fully engaged with them, fully present, entertaining their ideas, and asking questions.
Exactly. The author didn't mention it but it's not just the bus ride, it's how they engaged with their daughter during that ride.
Remember the mania over the total eclipse in April in the US? I took my daughter on 250-mile roadtrip to see it. The drive took a few hours there, then 9 (!!) hours back because of horrendous traffic. It could've been a tantrum-filled disaster, but I committed to staying upbeat and fully engaged the entire time, and as a result it was a fun and memorable trip we still talk about today.
Oh and we didn't even get to see the eclipse ... 95% cloud coverage.
So yeah step 1 is creating time + space for things like this -- like taking a long bus ride -- but a crucial step 2 is leaning into it with presence and attention to your child.
Our son loved the Monorail as much as the park, and when by luck of the draw we were the first in line at one of them, he was invited into the cabin by the engineer(? conductor?) and got to "drive" one was the highlight for him for years.
I have travel entire Vietnam with people with kids. After seeing all the pagoda, park, cave, amusement park.. the best part of the travel for the kid was the pool at one hotel.
Wow, we did the exact same trip a couple years ago, and also stayed at that amazing cabin place. Took home 80 lbs of crystals! Highly recommend.
We also stopped by the Arkansas diamond mine and tried our hand at it. Way less fun, with a near zero chance of finding so much as a speck of a diamond.
My wife remembers going to Disney World with her grandparents when she was 6 or so. Her fondest memories were the hotel pool and the lizards that lounged around it. Those poor grandparents. Imagine spending a lot of money and then dealing with a tantrum when you say "Let's go to Disney World."
yep, my parents took my sister & I to Florida. My mother went with my sister to Disney World. I didn't go, I stayed back at the place with my father & we played marbles. I got to see a turtle run down a hill. Great time. Thankfully they knew amusement parks weren't of interest to me already from when we'd gone to Universal Studios & I mostly remember sitting on a bench
If they like that consider taking them clamming if that's a thing near you. I don't really eat clams and thought I might get bored digging in the mud, but somehow it hits some "natural slot machine" desire in my head.
We live in a walkable part of city. In a park 1 block from our apartment, there are "baby trains" (small electric trains, on rubber wheels). They cost ~$2 for 5 minutes, plus 10 minutes of your kid screaming "want more". Subway in Almaty is $0.2 (for adult), unlimited time. So when my son was almost 2 y.o. and walked well, I decided to take him to the real subway instead of enduring that vulgarity (granted the station is just 2 blocks away). He loved it a lot. Shouted "too-too" when the train was departing. Wanted more and more. He couldn't speak then, so he was turning my head with his hands, to make me see the approaching train. Also, it was a hot sunny day of +35°C, but in subway, it was 10 degrees cooler. The first time, we travelled 1,5 hours strait, 2-3 stations back and forth. I sweated because I had to carry a rucksack and a 6 kg of folded stroller. But that was unforgettable.
I have a tip for you, if you ever visit Vienna, get a 24(48,72)hr unlimited ticket and spend some time on the subway (U-Bahn) with your kids, riding the various lines. The entire subway system has different trains (some more like street cars, some more like urban rail) and tracks run in underground tunnels, shallow trenches and over open ground.
Honestly, one of my favourite aspects of traveling is simply using the local mass transit.
Coming from a city where it's a particularly bad joke, it's still a novelty, and it provides such a different perspective on the city than "where can I park within orbit of $specific_destination"
I must add, I just remembered another story: I needed to make an overhead cupboard and a small closet, and found out there was no time to do this without kids nearby. So I did it together with the son. He was happy to press the button on the drill and to drive dowels with a toy hammer -- I drilled extra holes in the exercise board for him. We did it in several sessions, and afterwards he'd proudly tell people he made two closets.
Once I had to go to a DIY store on a weekend, and to free my wife from sitting with him, took him too. I knew we'd be fascinated, and indeed he was, studying everything for 2 hours.
Certainly it's true that kids can get a lot of joy out of something that to an adult seems really small or boring. But the flip side is kids can get totally emotionally distraught or enraged over tiny things.
Are these two sides of the same coin, and come from having just a smaller world, where small things can feel very big to a developing brain? Or as an adult with a fully-formed brain and access to the larger world, can we separate them and find that kind of unrestrained joy in the small stuff without also being swept away by small disappointments?
I think many adults also get distraught or enraged by tiny things - it is an emotional regulation problem, not an age problem (but adults can and should be better than children).
An analogy I've heard in the past is that emotions are like a button fixed in a box with a ball in it. When you're younger the box is smaller so the ball hits the buttons more often as there is less free space. As you grow, your box grows too, so your ball has more space in the box and more empty space on the walls for the ball the bounce off of, making the buttons less likely to be pushed.
This "ball and button in a box" analogy is precisely the one that people told me about when I was processing grief.
Right after the traumatic event, the "ball" hit the "button" nearly continuously, but as the months and years progressed, it's gotten farther and farther apart.
That analogy seems a bit contrived, but the "button pushing" reminds me of something.
At a recent dentist visit the Lidocaine local anaesthetic was accidentally injected into a (small) artery. That's when I discovered that it's a mixture that includes adrenaline, which contracts peripheral blood vessels, preventing it from dispersing too fast. Unless.. it goes directly into an artery, sending it straight into circulation.
To this day I can't come up for a better explanation of what happened, other than it felt like someone had simply pressed a button in my brain labelled "panic".
The dentist explained what had happened, I fully understood everything, I'm not at all afraid of dentistry, and I'm not easily frightened. None of that mattered. The button had been pressed, and now I was panicking for no discernible cause. Just... naked panic. Panic, panic, panic.
I had to cancel the appointment and walk home, slowly, listening to calming music the whole way and trying not to sprint down the sidewalk to escape whatever I felt like was chasing after me.
Thinking about it… yes, I suppose it did change my perspective.
It made me feel a lot more empathy for the “lone woman in a dark parking lot” scenario.
It made me realise I’m a meat computer running on chemicals and I’m not as in control of my emotions as I previously liked to think.
I realised that strong feelings can occur without an apparent matching cause. Feeling good without a success, feeling bad without hurt, etc… Emotions exist in and of themselves and can be directly triggered.
Etc… probably too much to write here, and things that are probably obvious to most readers but wasn’t obvious to me until that incident.
PS: It reminds me of instinct: we humans don’t have many that can override our conscious minds, but we do have some. The feeling of drowning for example can trigger completely involuntary actions. Unless you’ve experienced something like this, you just don’t know what it’s like to have biology overrule your thoughts.
When you're a kid, so many experiences are new, so the emotional response is higher.
A kid might fall off their bike, get a minor scrape on their knee, and cry because while the pain is pretty minor, it might actually be the greatest pain they've ever experienced in their life.
As an adult, you're probably not experiencing a lot of new things, and the new things you're experiencing are likely variations of things you've already done.
Though uh...I've seen my wife's boobs thousands of times, yet my brain still reacts like it did the first time. >.>
They naturally take all the space they can get, learning their limits. Issue is, they don't hear "no" often enough early on, to know that there are limits.
I don’t think it’s an either or. They are two sides of the same coin in that “kids experience stronger emotions”, but my experience leads me to see multiple reasons for that.
There’s the external trigger and how it fits into their life experience. Something that may be a 6/10 fun for you may literally be the most fun the child has ever had because they have less life experience. Something that’s a 2/10 pain might be literally the most pain they ever remember experiencing.
Which plays into how much practice they have managing these emotions. You get better at dealing with pain and frustration with practice. But no amount of practicing dealing with a paper cut will ever prepare you for being stabbed. Curling a 5lb dumbbell every day won’t get you to curling 100lbs.
But this is also impacted by the options they have available to respond to these emotions. As an adult if you’re frustrated you have the practice, fully realized autonomy, and societal trust to make real changes to address the issues in front of you. You don’t need to deal with this entirely internally. As a child, often your options essentially boil down to “deal with it”. And even as they expand, it takes time to practice with the new options available to you.
So an adult will experience the emotions less heightened and they also have more practice and better tools for handling them. The child will experience a stronger emotion, have little practice in managing the emotion, and few other options to address the overall situation.
Which can easily get into a negative feedback loop. Something is frustrating. The emotion is strong and you don’t know what to do about it. That’s frustrating. You can’t fix the situation. That’s frustrating. Now you’re more frustrated, GOTO 10. Pretty soon the emotions have compounded into something overwhelming.
And a child, much like an adult that hits this point, is going to have a meltdown. I don’t think adults are much better equipped at handling themselves when they are experiencing overwhelming emotions, it’s just much more difficult for them to get there in the first place.
As an adult, I think you can absolutely learn to find more joy in the small things. We have to, by necessity, filter some of the small things out of our days so just being an adult doesn’t become overwhelming. Making a conscious effort to be present and aware can go a long way. This is, I think, what’s happening when people have these mundane experiences with children and find them magical—simply having the child there to point things out and force them to be aware can bring back a lot of that small joy. It will never rise to the same level as the child’s because you come into it with a greater range of experience and it often lacks the novelty, but it can be made into much more than it normally is for you. And you will certainly be dragged down much less by any negative parts of the experience.
Anyway, my two cents as someone that spends a lot of time thinking about this both in terms of managing my own emotions and happiness as well as being a dad… And someone that’s trying _very_ hard to procrastinate right now.
This really hits home. Like everyone, I tend to fall into routines and get comfortable with the familiar. But having kids constantly pushes you out of that comfort zone because they're excited by things that might seem small or inconvenient to you. Embracing their enthusiasm is not only good for them but for you too. It brings some variety and breaks the routine. I always have to resist the urge to tell my kids, "No, we're not doing that because..." Just going with the flow and joining in their little adventures is incredibly rewarding. It's not just about making them happy—you gain just as much. Their joy is just the bonus.
When I was a kid in suburban Australia my parents would organize a semi-annual ‘bus-train-ferry’ trip. It was a school holiday tradition where - in hindsight - we’d do the sort of daily commute that thousands of working adults would do every morning…except for a kid the magic of a bus to a train station, a train into the city, and then a ferry across the river was just great fun. A day ticket for a family back in the 1980s? Probably next to nothing, but a priceless memory.
I took a train to work for a few years, and a ferry to work for about a year later. Even if it's regular it's still magical.
A couple of times I took the bus to the ferry, walked to the light rail, took that to the airport, flew, then picked up a rental car and drove in to work. Maybe the airport train too. Pretty much all the modes but a bike.
I went to the transport office and got a map of all the local tram routes - we hung it on the wall, and my child and I rode every tram from one end to the other.
Took a few weeks to ride all the trams in Helsinki, and it got a bit boring towards the end as several tram routes terminated in the same location. But every tram we'd get on in the middle, ride to one end of the line and go out for a walk, then ride to the other end.
Recently I suggested we do it again, as the trams have been renumbered a little, and there are two new lines available but he's lost interest. Shame, but doing the original routes was a lot of fun and I still have the route map on my wall along with the star-stickers we placed on it to mark the route numbers we'd completed!
Great that you posted this. I told my story of riding metro with my son, but only after this one un-stuck my brain to think of other locations in my city we could ride to, for almost nothing.
Funnily, when I was in Helsinki, I did ride couple of trams to the terminus. But in my brain, this was stored in another department, "urban research going to the fringe". Not "going out with the kid".
For my middle child's 1st Birthday we realized we could give him everything he ever wanted for about $8. He opened a few boxes of bandaids, tissue boxes, and a roll of toilet paper. Played for hours.
Premise of article is wrong. Kids do get excited about the same things as adults; novel and intriguing things within reach. These things just aren't exciting any more to adults. That's the only difference. An adult that's never been on a train, but never could, or was never allowed, will find it exciting too.
I love airports. The people watching there is just phenomenal.
I always get to my flight like 4 hours ahead of time just to sit in the busy concourse and watch the people. They're fascinating.
It's interesting to compare a European perspective with an American one.
In the US, the train stations I've seen range from unremarkable to downright filthy. The one station I found interesting was New York Penn Station, which I would favorably rate as on par with an average airport.
I took a bus home with my toddler one day when waiting for the planned ride was going to take a longer time than I was originally expecting. I didn't think much of it, but for him the bus ride was WAY more interesting than the zoo we had just visited!
Tbh if you've never done either, I can absolutely see why getting on and riding a machine 1000x your size is a bigger deal than seeing various animals from a distance.
For their 3rd Birthday the daughter of a friend just wanted to ride the bus. So all our friends and their kids got on the right bus at the right time and place so we were all on the bus by the time the Birthday girl got on.
We had a riot of a time going around our little town, and the bus driver and other passengers all sang Happy Birthday and “the wheels on the bus”
The issue is you don’t know which of the 0-5 dollar products to spend that will make them excited.
A strategy is therefore to buy lots of cheap stuff and experiences, and let the kids have the option to choose. Then throw away the stuff they don’t care for.
If you buy expensive things, you tend to try to force that thing onto the kid, which can be counter productive.
If I may amend, try a "Wow, that's beautiful! That must have taken a lot of work!" and you might keep your kid drawing long-term. It's nearly always better to praise effort over skill IMO.
We took a trip to North Carolina with our at the time 5 year old. The only things we took for entertainment was one of those pens with 4 different inks and a pad of paper.
This sort of content feels good in the immediacy but ultimately lessens the quality of hn.
I'm not concerned about this post specifically, but I feel that we should be more critical of things like this making it onto hn. I come to hn to mostly hear about tech, tech advances, startups, etc. I don't come here to read feel good (and admittedly, very cute) stories. They have their place, but I feel that place is not hn.
IMO the near constant dismissive, negative, and / or non-constructive criticism is what devalues HN. Genuine curiosity, sharing of contextual and tangential experiences, and constructive criticism are what makes it great. At its best its only about technology because thats where many inquisitive types end up.
In this particular case, the spark it ignited in me and others was precisely that inquisitive nature - about eschewing the expected value in lifes activities and instead reaching for that inner genuine interest can turn many experienced upside down. Maybe in reaching too far, but that was my take away from it. If similar stories were reposted ad nauseum i doubt they would make the front page and thus for me at least i am unconcerned with its presence.
You may check out the mess of LinkedIn. Fully professional, almost no "off-topic" posts. People always write they're happy, proud, excited. Future tech vids. Productivity porn vids. "Check out our next feature." Successful success 24/7.
Another collective blog I read turned into a flood of corporate "why work with us" or "how to patch KDE under FreeBSD", or "Zuckerberg just said X. This news was translated by XYZ personal brand consulting co.".
Tech blogs that I read, turned into either stream of USB gadgets, or into big tech geopolitics. "Google wants to flank Facebook with X, Nvidia won't let AMD do Y, Altman thinks Z, waters changed."
This post about kids and normal life is what makes HN different.
Maybe so, this is a public community and the community will decide on its own standards (as it should be). My opinions are my own.
I can't exactly draw the line about what does belong on hn, but a question I sometimes ask myself is "Would I be rolling my eyes if I read similar content on Linkedin?" If so, I assume it shouldn't be on hn.
I come to HM for technology matters, but I am genuinely interested to see that
the many geeks here from hardware nerd over full-stack developer to investor or founder are all also human beings that have ordinary lives and ordinary problems.
It is valuable content to read on HN how fellow geeks see other spheres of life.
OP here. I see where you're coming from and I even agree with you. I seek and like tech posts on HN.
That being said, I enjoy reading (and writing) human stories as well!
Plus, it's nice to read the many stories people are sharing in the comments of this post. It shows that our community isn't as cold/ruthless as some may think :)
For sure, like I said, it isn't about this (your) post. Just wanted to make a small amount of noise about keeping hn aligned with the interest I associate it with.
Very cute story though, commend you for observing such truths in your parenting.
At the risk of sounding old and cranky I'm inclined to agree with you. The story made me smile no doubt. But I was not expecting a public transportation story.
I think the comment about the kid liking the puddle the best at the zoo is the best comment I have read on HN in the past decade.
90% of HN is off topic drivel, pointless ranting , overall tired and unoriginal, when it’s not flat out wrong. I include most of my contributions in these 90%. Genuinely interesting contributions are then few and far between amongst the 10% which actually desserve to exist. If it’s quality you seek, you can close your account right now and go do something useful with your time instead.
When I was five or six, my grandmother took me and my siblings on a train to Toronto (maybe a two hour trip) around Christmas to walk down some street (no idea which) and look at the Christmas displays in shop windows. It was all magic to me.
I don't think we ever bought anything although she must have fed us something. It's one of my favorite memories and I still love trains. I'm hoping to ride Via from Toronto to Vancouver in a cabin car someday soon!
If the trip happened in the past 30 years, then your family probably walked along the south side of Queen St, just west of Yonge St. at the Hudson's Bay flagship store in Toronto.
It was 1975ish, so a bit more than 30 years ago but Hudson’s Bay sounds right to me. That store was a much bigger deal in the 1970’s. My family always had their blankets kicking around.
Before 1991, the Queen St store was actually part of the Simpson's department store chain.
The Simpson's Christmas window displays were much more extensive as well.
Back then, the family could have gone down into the basement of the Simpson's department store and dined on hot dogs and an orange-Tang-like drink (there may have been other flavours, but I always chose orange). The drinks came in paper cones (similar to those used for water coolers) placed in metal holders.
Yesterday the rain was torrential when I picked up my 5yo from school with my 2yo. I brought wellies and we walked up and down the streams of water running down the hill. The kids were more excited than anything we've paid for recently.
When I was growing up, it was a Christmas tradition for my family to take the local train system (SEPTA) from Delaware to Philly to visit the exhibits at the old Gallery mall. It was a rough, dirty, and crowded ride, and it felt like forever as it stopped at every station. My grandparents would take my mother when she was growing up.
Decades later it still left a positive impact on me.
My son loves to ride a bus too, I'm not a fan, and near me buses are single deck, quite old and unpleasant and really quite expensive.
I discovered they city park and ride scheme was the perfect solution. It's cheaper than parking in the city centre and unlimited bus rides to and from the centre on nice new double decker buses.
If you're a bit stable yourself (& used to skateboard yourself), try long-boarding (4 year old in front of you with plenty of protection, there's enough space on a standard longboard to fit an adult & child).
Or biking them in a bicycle trailer to the store/school.
Surfing is one I'm looking forward to myself, I've never done it either myself!
Tangential anecdote: When I went to a buffet as a child, I loaded up on mashed potatoes, fries, onion rings, etc. I would be told by family and friends that I was effectively wrong for choosing those foods because seafood, meat, etc., was more expensive and therefore more valuable and worth choosing.
I don't think that was a bad outcome necessarily, because I picked foods that were super unhealthy and cater to thin dopamine hits. But I do think the reasoning (value vs. health) was off as it started instilling a sense of letting perceived/imagined value reign over personal instincts and inclinations.
Reading this felt like a call to be more present, pay more attention to the small things, do things for their own sake, etc.
Our mum used to take us for short hiking trips. I don't remember the hiking, but I still do remember the train rides to get there. Those are some of the best memories from my childhood.
I didn't have that particular kind of idyllic childhood, that fairytale cherished time of having engaged, caring parents whose primary goal was to spend quality time with me. But with that came a different kind of freedom, different experiences.
For example, on one occasion my mother and stepfather wanted a week together, and obtained it by taking the three of us for a full week stay at a big amusement park during a school holidays... and oh you better believe that I have an extremely joyous set of memories of spending all day every day unsupervised in a happy dream of endless roller coasters and water slides!
I've been spending my entire adult life trying to rediscover this spiritual joy of being a child. I remember it so fondly. My daughter is about to turn 2 and I'm secretly hoping that she can help me find at least a little of it.
A while ago I was at our patio table with my 4 year old, we were building a house/castle thing out of scrap cardboard. At one point while painting it she pauses and looks over at the garden/woods. I asked her what she saw, she smiled at me and said, "I'm just... happy." I'll never forget it :-)
While rediscovering the world with kids is more wholesome, if you want the raw experience of looking at nature with novelty in your mind, try LSD or magic mushrooms.
Kind if a larger lesson in this story is that kids will be interested in what they are interested in. Many of us here are like me and have made a career out of programming computers or related jobs. I've had three kids and not one of them is interested in programming, despite my attempts at encouragement. You can teach your kids a lot of things but they will also make their own path in life.
For whatever it's worth, my dad was a programmer and spent my childhood doing his best to get me interested in it as well. But I just couldn't have cared less. I think most of us in our adolescent and teenage years just instinctivley feel like whatever our parents do must be lame and boring.
During my softmore year at UIUC in '94, I finally relented to his endless prodding to check out this www thing he was rambling about, and went to a presentation by the Mosaic team at a building down the street from me. Needless to say, that changed everything, and I've been coding ever since.
But I'm pretty sure it was in my DNA and it was only a matter of time before I admitted to myself that programming is actually fun as hell.
I'm sure you're proud of the paths your kids have taken, but hey, you never know. Maybe one day they'll also admit to themselves that dad's hobby was actually pretty damn cool and give it a go too.
> "No, no don't play with the wrapping paper! Look at the truck vroom vroom!" to no avail. She preferred the wrapping paper.
Your daughter a cat, by any chance? It's just the same with cats. They don't give a shit about anything you buy them, sometimes not even food - if there's packing peanuts, packing paper or Amazon cardboard boxes, that is more important.
When my daughter was about 8, we took her to see Marshall Fields in Chicago. Her favorite part of the store was the escalators. We rode those multiple floors of escalators for about half an hour, she loved it!
Also, taking the train to/from Chicago was up there too.
We are in progress of putting a basketball hoop at the end of our dead-end street and are unfortunately concerned that there are a handful of residents who probably don't want it. I swing back and forth on who I think "the bad guys" are. But I know the kids will love it and it will keep them off their phones.
I had a similar experience with my young son. One of our best memories together was telling a long bus ride in pouring rain, just watching the scenery roll by. He is 21 now, and still finally remembered that trip.
I guess I am a little cynical, but one alternative interpretation of this article is that five year olds can be quite difficult, and it is very tempting to just waste 4 hours to avoid dealing with a temper tantrum.
My partner didn't drive until my daughter was 8yo. They bused around most places, as a result, daughter and wife now refuse any offer of a bus journey...
I still remember the good times I had with my dad just taking train trips to random locations in my state. I think its part of a kid's desire to explore!
I've been to restaurants where two adults and two kids are sitting at a table. The adults looking at their phones and the kids watching something on tablets makes for poor chances of an interesting little moment to happen.
Before he was even 3 my son knew the menu at the local Indian place we went to weekly and he'd pick out which curry he wanted that day. He asks about the decorations and paintings on the wall of every restaurant we go to, and generally stays engaged with us throughout the entire meal.
Yes it is more work, but it also means he is learning patience and manners.
I still liked riding the bus, all the way through college. I live in a small town now, no need to ride the bus, a bike does fine, but I miss it sometimes.
Do the things that will give your kids the greatest exposure to different ways of being, living, and seeing. That ain't done by having entrenched routines.
I took my daughter to a Broadway Disney musical. We were almost late so I picked her up and ran multiple packed city blocks with her in my arms. I think that was her favorite part, including, which I don't remember, running in front of a tourist taking a picture of a spiderman sidewalk actor and yelling "sorry" as I passed. We also went to Disney and her favorite thing was actually just going on a ride she was nervous about and feeling good about how brave she was.
Forget about toys. Kids love big cardboard boxes. My nephews and nieces love them.
I’m middle aged but I remember building so many make believe things out of boxes. All I needed were markers, glue and paper. My parents couldn’t afford those mini cars so I built them myself. Out of boxes.
A big box could be a car. Or a fort. Or a castle. Or a boat.
Japan is genius when it comes to implementing those simple things that kids like. Like putting little shallow water areas in playground, all kind of mechanical things and variety of playgrounds from all types dotted all over the city, some would considered to be "dangerous" in the west. There are ones where kids can even light fires and play with working tools or cook. There are theme parks all based on various playgrounds without any electricity driven rides. You can also stamp a special kids book in train stations and even places where kids can act play in various adult "jobs" like cashier or mechanic or whatever. My kids had so much fun at those places, much more than in Disney, although they enjoyed it too.
We took our kids to Disney World once.
When asked what their favorite part of the trip was, they responded..
The hot tub.
At the hotel.
My kids light up the most when I am fully engaged with them, fully present, entertaining their ideas, and asking questions.
Their favorite family trip so far? When we traveled to Arkansas to mine for crystals. AKA, dig in the dirt all day. They saw it on a YouTube video. They asked to go. So we obliged. I had never been to Arkansas. It's beautiful.
We stayed at a resort, Diamonds Old West Cabins, with a huge playground outside the cabins, archery, and a bubble party every evening at 6 pm.
They still talk about that trip.
For our Disney(land) trip, we stayed at a motel ~ 1.5 miles from the park (Canadian walking distance) and the thing my kids LOVED was we walked by a 7-11 every day and I would buy them a slurpee on the morning walk to the gates. Probably $20 for the week (and likely not much worse for you than a typical vacation breakfast).
The "make your own waffle" station at the included breakfast was also a huge hit. The park and rides were satisfactory.
I've taken my older daughter to Disney (World) twice now (at ages 7 and 9). Her absolute favorite part: riding the Skyliner to EPCOT. On our second trip we went an hour out of our way to go ride it because we weren't at a served hotel that time.
When pressed for a favorite activity within the park, it was "that time we ran all the way from Japan to Soarin', dodging people".
It’s so funny you mention this.
My family are pretty regular Disneyland goers. Last year we finally made it to Disney World for the first time.
My four “kids” were between the ages of 12-23.
And I think their favorite part of the trip was the Skyliner.
How was DW compared to DL? Like yourself, I've been to DL dozens of times, but never made it to DW.
Must be from Winnipeg or something
(Winnipegers have a culture of slurpees)
A few months ago, we took our year-and-a-half-old daughter to Belgium and Spain for two weeks. Her favorite part of the whole trip was seeing horses, sheep, and geese (all of which, believe it or not, we have here at home in Canada).
When I was about seven, my sister and I were taken on a special trip to see the Giant Pandas at the National Zoo in Washington, DC. The pandas were fine, but we were fascinated by the chipmunks running around everywhere.
As a grown ass man, I make a point of visiting zoos in foreign cities if I'm in a city that has one. My lady is never as enthusiastic, but then quickly forgets about her lack of enthusiasm with the first glance of a meerkat
My gf and I went to Ronda in Spain a few years ago and stopped at the amazing bridge over the gorge. Looked around for a few minutes and then spotted a mother cat leading her litter of kittens through a field down below. We watched them, entranced, for ages. It's always the way with us.
Even as an adult I enjoy time when some other person I am spending time with is fully engaged and fully present, I’d call it quality time, but it’s just so rare…
This. "My kids light up the most when I am fully engaged with them, fully present, entertaining their ideas, and asking questions."
Things a screen and all the gadgets and fancy engineering in the world can never replace.
Ummm.. Have you played with ChatGPT's new voice mode? ;)
More pertinently, have the kids played with it?
As per the examples in this thread, what kids do and don't like has very little in common with adults' expectations of what they'll like.
My little brother once got a bicycle for christmas. He played the whole evening with the cardboard box it was in.
Consider the possibility that your brother might be a cat ...
When we were kids, at some point we lived in a house whose garden was on top of a hill. So we would sometimes just look for whatever cardboard box is available and roll down the hill inside it.
I stopped offering stuff to my kids for birthdays a long time ago, they got enough from uncles and aunts. I prefer offering "events" like going some place special. Memories are more important than plastic stuff.
A pretty cool one, at that!
I should think a combination transmogrifier/duplicator would be more fun than a boring bicycle, sure.
I once made a cardboard box (from an oven) into a real-life duplicator as a mad scientist at a talent show using a couple of twins as part of the show. Had some people blown away. lol.
At least where I grew up, biking on christmas day was a miserable recipe.
First time I took my eldest to London Zoo, we asked her what her favourite part was, she said "the puddle".
> My kids light up the most when I am fully engaged with them, fully present, entertaining their ideas, and asking questions.
Exactly. The author didn't mention it but it's not just the bus ride, it's how they engaged with their daughter during that ride.
Remember the mania over the total eclipse in April in the US? I took my daughter on 250-mile roadtrip to see it. The drive took a few hours there, then 9 (!!) hours back because of horrendous traffic. It could've been a tantrum-filled disaster, but I committed to staying upbeat and fully engaged the entire time, and as a result it was a fun and memorable trip we still talk about today.
Oh and we didn't even get to see the eclipse ... 95% cloud coverage.
So yeah step 1 is creating time + space for things like this -- like taking a long bus ride -- but a crucial step 2 is leaning into it with presence and attention to your child.
Our son loved the Monorail as much as the park, and when by luck of the draw we were the first in line at one of them, he was invited into the cabin by the engineer(? conductor?) and got to "drive" one was the highlight for him for years.
As a kid I remember - swimming pools and any museum that had buttons you could press to make the displays do something.
also parents have gotten rid of BB guns and fireworks!
I had a similar experience -- their (age 2 & 5) favorite thing? Was it the rides, meeting all the characters? No. The parking lot tram.
Funny, this was also my favorite ride when I was 4!
I have travel entire Vietnam with people with kids. After seeing all the pagoda, park, cave, amusement park.. the best part of the travel for the kid was the pool at one hotel.
Wow, we did the exact same trip a couple years ago, and also stayed at that amazing cabin place. Took home 80 lbs of crystals! Highly recommend.
We also stopped by the Arkansas diamond mine and tried our hand at it. Way less fun, with a near zero chance of finding so much as a speck of a diamond.
Yes! We had the same experience! Mining for diamonds was real work, and we never found a trace.
The crystals were beautiful, and the kids could find them with ease. Tons of fun.
They each got their own pickaxe, which they loved.
They claimed they were already expert diggers because of all the hours they spent playing Minecraft. "We know how to dig, Dad."
My wife remembers going to Disney World with her grandparents when she was 6 or so. Her fondest memories were the hotel pool and the lizards that lounged around it. Those poor grandparents. Imagine spending a lot of money and then dealing with a tantrum when you say "Let's go to Disney World."
yep, my parents took my sister & I to Florida. My mother went with my sister to Disney World. I didn't go, I stayed back at the place with my father & we played marbles. I got to see a turtle run down a hill. Great time. Thankfully they knew amusement parks weren't of interest to me already from when we'd gone to Universal Studios & I mostly remember sitting on a bench
If they like that consider taking them clamming if that's a thing near you. I don't really eat clams and thought I might get bored digging in the mud, but somehow it hits some "natural slot machine" desire in my head.
Friends did around the world trip from Europe, via Australia, drive for days in outback, etc etc with 2 kids and 1 newborn.
I asked kids (7 or so yo) what was the favourite part?
He answered Singapore, because it was cold (aka air conditioning everywhere)
We live in a walkable part of city. In a park 1 block from our apartment, there are "baby trains" (small electric trains, on rubber wheels). They cost ~$2 for 5 minutes, plus 10 minutes of your kid screaming "want more". Subway in Almaty is $0.2 (for adult), unlimited time. So when my son was almost 2 y.o. and walked well, I decided to take him to the real subway instead of enduring that vulgarity (granted the station is just 2 blocks away). He loved it a lot. Shouted "too-too" when the train was departing. Wanted more and more. He couldn't speak then, so he was turning my head with his hands, to make me see the approaching train. Also, it was a hot sunny day of +35°C, but in subway, it was 10 degrees cooler. The first time, we travelled 1,5 hours strait, 2-3 stations back and forth. I sweated because I had to carry a rucksack and a 6 kg of folded stroller. But that was unforgettable.
I have a tip for you, if you ever visit Vienna, get a 24(48,72)hr unlimited ticket and spend some time on the subway (U-Bahn) with your kids, riding the various lines. The entire subway system has different trains (some more like street cars, some more like urban rail) and tracks run in underground tunnels, shallow trenches and over open ground.
Stockholm has some beautiful subway stations.
https://uncharted.io/@dominikgehl/exploring-the-stockholm-su...
Honestly, one of my favourite aspects of traveling is simply using the local mass transit.
Coming from a city where it's a particularly bad joke, it's still a novelty, and it provides such a different perspective on the city than "where can I park within orbit of $specific_destination"
I must add, I just remembered another story: I needed to make an overhead cupboard and a small closet, and found out there was no time to do this without kids nearby. So I did it together with the son. He was happy to press the button on the drill and to drive dowels with a toy hammer -- I drilled extra holes in the exercise board for him. We did it in several sessions, and afterwards he'd proudly tell people he made two closets.
Once I had to go to a DIY store on a weekend, and to free my wife from sitting with him, took him too. I knew we'd be fascinated, and indeed he was, studying everything for 2 hours.
Certainly it's true that kids can get a lot of joy out of something that to an adult seems really small or boring. But the flip side is kids can get totally emotionally distraught or enraged over tiny things.
Are these two sides of the same coin, and come from having just a smaller world, where small things can feel very big to a developing brain? Or as an adult with a fully-formed brain and access to the larger world, can we separate them and find that kind of unrestrained joy in the small stuff without also being swept away by small disappointments?
I think many adults also get distraught or enraged by tiny things - it is an emotional regulation problem, not an age problem (but adults can and should be better than children).
Curiously enough, not a lot of those adults still find joy in the tiny things.
An analogy I've heard in the past is that emotions are like a button fixed in a box with a ball in it. When you're younger the box is smaller so the ball hits the buttons more often as there is less free space. As you grow, your box grows too, so your ball has more space in the box and more empty space on the walls for the ball the bounce off of, making the buttons less likely to be pushed.
This "ball and button in a box" analogy is precisely the one that people told me about when I was processing grief.
Right after the traumatic event, the "ball" hit the "button" nearly continuously, but as the months and years progressed, it's gotten farther and farther apart.
That analogy seems a bit contrived, but the "button pushing" reminds me of something.
At a recent dentist visit the Lidocaine local anaesthetic was accidentally injected into a (small) artery. That's when I discovered that it's a mixture that includes adrenaline, which contracts peripheral blood vessels, preventing it from dispersing too fast. Unless.. it goes directly into an artery, sending it straight into circulation.
To this day I can't come up for a better explanation of what happened, other than it felt like someone had simply pressed a button in my brain labelled "panic".
The dentist explained what had happened, I fully understood everything, I'm not at all afraid of dentistry, and I'm not easily frightened. None of that mattered. The button had been pressed, and now I was panicking for no discernible cause. Just... naked panic. Panic, panic, panic.
I had to cancel the appointment and walk home, slowly, listening to calming music the whole way and trying not to sprint down the sidewalk to escape whatever I felt like was chasing after me.
Although probably not great at the time,.. I can imagine it would be an interesting experience.
Did it change how you much control you feel you have in regards to being in charge of your own thoughts and emotions?
What a great question!
Thinking about it… yes, I suppose it did change my perspective.
It made me feel a lot more empathy for the “lone woman in a dark parking lot” scenario.
It made me realise I’m a meat computer running on chemicals and I’m not as in control of my emotions as I previously liked to think.
I realised that strong feelings can occur without an apparent matching cause. Feeling good without a success, feeling bad without hurt, etc… Emotions exist in and of themselves and can be directly triggered.
Etc… probably too much to write here, and things that are probably obvious to most readers but wasn’t obvious to me until that incident.
PS: It reminds me of instinct: we humans don’t have many that can override our conscious minds, but we do have some. The feeling of drowning for example can trigger completely involuntary actions. Unless you’ve experienced something like this, you just don’t know what it’s like to have biology overrule your thoughts.
>But the flip side is kids can get totally emotionally distraught or enraged over tiny things.
Oof isn't this the truth. The tiniest things will drive my son into full meltdowns right now.
When you're a kid, so many experiences are new, so the emotional response is higher.
A kid might fall off their bike, get a minor scrape on their knee, and cry because while the pain is pretty minor, it might actually be the greatest pain they've ever experienced in their life.
As an adult, you're probably not experiencing a lot of new things, and the new things you're experiencing are likely variations of things you've already done.
Though uh...I've seen my wife's boobs thousands of times, yet my brain still reacts like it did the first time. >.>
Yes. Basically kids can have strong emotional reactions to seemingly small things.
They naturally take all the space they can get, learning their limits. Issue is, they don't hear "no" often enough early on, to know that there are limits.
I don’t think it’s an either or. They are two sides of the same coin in that “kids experience stronger emotions”, but my experience leads me to see multiple reasons for that.
There’s the external trigger and how it fits into their life experience. Something that may be a 6/10 fun for you may literally be the most fun the child has ever had because they have less life experience. Something that’s a 2/10 pain might be literally the most pain they ever remember experiencing.
Which plays into how much practice they have managing these emotions. You get better at dealing with pain and frustration with practice. But no amount of practicing dealing with a paper cut will ever prepare you for being stabbed. Curling a 5lb dumbbell every day won’t get you to curling 100lbs.
But this is also impacted by the options they have available to respond to these emotions. As an adult if you’re frustrated you have the practice, fully realized autonomy, and societal trust to make real changes to address the issues in front of you. You don’t need to deal with this entirely internally. As a child, often your options essentially boil down to “deal with it”. And even as they expand, it takes time to practice with the new options available to you.
So an adult will experience the emotions less heightened and they also have more practice and better tools for handling them. The child will experience a stronger emotion, have little practice in managing the emotion, and few other options to address the overall situation.
Which can easily get into a negative feedback loop. Something is frustrating. The emotion is strong and you don’t know what to do about it. That’s frustrating. You can’t fix the situation. That’s frustrating. Now you’re more frustrated, GOTO 10. Pretty soon the emotions have compounded into something overwhelming.
And a child, much like an adult that hits this point, is going to have a meltdown. I don’t think adults are much better equipped at handling themselves when they are experiencing overwhelming emotions, it’s just much more difficult for them to get there in the first place.
As an adult, I think you can absolutely learn to find more joy in the small things. We have to, by necessity, filter some of the small things out of our days so just being an adult doesn’t become overwhelming. Making a conscious effort to be present and aware can go a long way. This is, I think, what’s happening when people have these mundane experiences with children and find them magical—simply having the child there to point things out and force them to be aware can bring back a lot of that small joy. It will never rise to the same level as the child’s because you come into it with a greater range of experience and it often lacks the novelty, but it can be made into much more than it normally is for you. And you will certainly be dragged down much less by any negative parts of the experience.
Anyway, my two cents as someone that spends a lot of time thinking about this both in terms of managing my own emotions and happiness as well as being a dad… And someone that’s trying _very_ hard to procrastinate right now.
This really hits home. Like everyone, I tend to fall into routines and get comfortable with the familiar. But having kids constantly pushes you out of that comfort zone because they're excited by things that might seem small or inconvenient to you. Embracing their enthusiasm is not only good for them but for you too. It brings some variety and breaks the routine. I always have to resist the urge to tell my kids, "No, we're not doing that because..." Just going with the flow and joining in their little adventures is incredibly rewarding. It's not just about making them happy—you gain just as much. Their joy is just the bonus.
When I was a kid in suburban Australia my parents would organize a semi-annual ‘bus-train-ferry’ trip. It was a school holiday tradition where - in hindsight - we’d do the sort of daily commute that thousands of working adults would do every morning…except for a kid the magic of a bus to a train station, a train into the city, and then a ferry across the river was just great fun. A day ticket for a family back in the 1980s? Probably next to nothing, but a priceless memory.
I took a train to work for a few years, and a ferry to work for about a year later. Even if it's regular it's still magical.
A couple of times I took the bus to the ferry, walked to the light rail, took that to the airport, flew, then picked up a rental car and drove in to work. Maybe the airport train too. Pretty much all the modes but a bike.
I went to the transport office and got a map of all the local tram routes - we hung it on the wall, and my child and I rode every tram from one end to the other.
Took a few weeks to ride all the trams in Helsinki, and it got a bit boring towards the end as several tram routes terminated in the same location. But every tram we'd get on in the middle, ride to one end of the line and go out for a walk, then ride to the other end.
Recently I suggested we do it again, as the trams have been renumbered a little, and there are two new lines available but he's lost interest. Shame, but doing the original routes was a lot of fun and I still have the route map on my wall along with the star-stickers we placed on it to mark the route numbers we'd completed!
Great that you posted this. I told my story of riding metro with my son, but only after this one un-stuck my brain to think of other locations in my city we could ride to, for almost nothing.
Funnily, when I was in Helsinki, I did ride couple of trams to the terminus. But in my brain, this was stored in another department, "urban research going to the fringe". Not "going out with the kid".
For my middle child's 1st Birthday we realized we could give him everything he ever wanted for about $8. He opened a few boxes of bandaids, tissue boxes, and a roll of toilet paper. Played for hours.
Premise of article is wrong. Kids do get excited about the same things as adults; novel and intriguing things within reach. These things just aren't exciting any more to adults. That's the only difference. An adult that's never been on a train, but never could, or was never allowed, will find it exciting too.
I'm still excited about flying on a plane even though I've done it dozens of times.
The planes are okay... But the airports... omg they suck so hard.
Trains and train stations on the other hand, even though I use them so regularly, are still super nice. I wouldn't say "exciting" but very nice.
That's why I'm so angry that the French government and railway company keep making trains and stations more and more like airports and airplanes.
I love airports. The people watching there is just phenomenal. I always get to my flight like 4 hours ahead of time just to sit in the busy concourse and watch the people. They're fascinating.
It's interesting to compare a European perspective with an American one.
In the US, the train stations I've seen range from unremarkable to downright filthy. The one station I found interesting was New York Penn Station, which I would favorably rate as on par with an average airport.
European airports have gone massively downhill in the last decade.
Try getting a sit down meal with table service anywhere. Nope, you’re queuing for a shit, dry/soggy brötchen.
The lounges aren’t even worth it anymore either.
I took a bus home with my toddler one day when waiting for the planned ride was going to take a longer time than I was originally expecting. I didn't think much of it, but for him the bus ride was WAY more interesting than the zoo we had just visited!
Tbh if you've never done either, I can absolutely see why getting on and riding a machine 1000x your size is a bigger deal than seeing various animals from a distance.
thank you so much for sharing your story :)
experienced the same with train to museum
For their 3rd Birthday the daughter of a friend just wanted to ride the bus. So all our friends and their kids got on the right bus at the right time and place so we were all on the bus by the time the Birthday girl got on. We had a riot of a time going around our little town, and the bus driver and other passengers all sang Happy Birthday and “the wheels on the bus”
Brilliant idea for a memorable 3rd Birthday!
The issue is you don’t know which of the 0-5 dollar products to spend that will make them excited.
A strategy is therefore to buy lots of cheap stuff and experiences, and let the kids have the option to choose. Then throw away the stuff they don’t care for.
If you buy expensive things, you tend to try to force that thing onto the kid, which can be counter productive.
Pen and paper are my go-to. Throw in a "wow that's beautiful!" And they will draw all day.
If I may amend, try a "Wow, that's beautiful! That must have taken a lot of work!" and you might keep your kid drawing long-term. It's nearly always better to praise effort over skill IMO.
We took a trip to North Carolina with our at the time 5 year old. The only things we took for entertainment was one of those pens with 4 different inks and a pad of paper.
Kept him occupied for the 16 hours.
In this case she asked to take the bus. I suppose that could’ve gone south, though. I think kids are generally delighted by novelty.
This sort of content feels good in the immediacy but ultimately lessens the quality of hn.
I'm not concerned about this post specifically, but I feel that we should be more critical of things like this making it onto hn. I come to hn to mostly hear about tech, tech advances, startups, etc. I don't come here to read feel good (and admittedly, very cute) stories. They have their place, but I feel that place is not hn.
IMO the near constant dismissive, negative, and / or non-constructive criticism is what devalues HN. Genuine curiosity, sharing of contextual and tangential experiences, and constructive criticism are what makes it great. At its best its only about technology because thats where many inquisitive types end up.
In this particular case, the spark it ignited in me and others was precisely that inquisitive nature - about eschewing the expected value in lifes activities and instead reaching for that inner genuine interest can turn many experienced upside down. Maybe in reaching too far, but that was my take away from it. If similar stories were reposted ad nauseum i doubt they would make the front page and thus for me at least i am unconcerned with its presence.
You may check out the mess of LinkedIn. Fully professional, almost no "off-topic" posts. People always write they're happy, proud, excited. Future tech vids. Productivity porn vids. "Check out our next feature." Successful success 24/7.
Another collective blog I read turned into a flood of corporate "why work with us" or "how to patch KDE under FreeBSD", or "Zuckerberg just said X. This news was translated by XYZ personal brand consulting co.".
Tech blogs that I read, turned into either stream of USB gadgets, or into big tech geopolitics. "Google wants to flank Facebook with X, Nvidia won't let AMD do Y, Altman thinks Z, waters changed."
This post about kids and normal life is what makes HN different.
Maybe a little bit of humanity and feel good is just what HN needs! These computers and software and such are after all for... humans mostly.
Computer issues are easy. I could do it all day. But those human problems are tough to crack.
Maybe so, this is a public community and the community will decide on its own standards (as it should be). My opinions are my own.
I can't exactly draw the line about what does belong on hn, but a question I sometimes ask myself is "Would I be rolling my eyes if I read similar content on Linkedin?" If so, I assume it shouldn't be on hn.
I can agree that I wouldn't want to see this type of content take over HN... and I don't think it would. But a little sprinkled in seems fine.
I come to HM for technology matters, but I am genuinely interested to see that the many geeks here from hardware nerd over full-stack developer to investor or founder are all also human beings that have ordinary lives and ordinary problems.
It is valuable content to read on HN how fellow geeks see other spheres of life.
OP here. I see where you're coming from and I even agree with you. I seek and like tech posts on HN.
That being said, I enjoy reading (and writing) human stories as well! Plus, it's nice to read the many stories people are sharing in the comments of this post. It shows that our community isn't as cold/ruthless as some may think :)
For sure, like I said, it isn't about this (your) post. Just wanted to make a small amount of noise about keeping hn aligned with the interest I associate it with.
Very cute story though, commend you for observing such truths in your parenting.
At the risk of sounding old and cranky I'm inclined to agree with you. The story made me smile no doubt. But I was not expecting a public transportation story.
I don’t mind it in small doses and trust the community to vote appropriately.
Even the Wall Street Journal has lighthearted “A-hed” articles, which have occupied valuable space on their front page for 83 years and counting.
I think the comment about the kid liking the puddle the best at the zoo is the best comment I have read on HN in the past decade.
90% of HN is off topic drivel, pointless ranting , overall tired and unoriginal, when it’s not flat out wrong. I include most of my contributions in these 90%. Genuinely interesting contributions are then few and far between amongst the 10% which actually desserve to exist. If it’s quality you seek, you can close your account right now and go do something useful with your time instead.
At least, this post is soulful and happy.
The article spurred a bunch of interesting comments. The comments are why I come to HN.
When I was five or six, my grandmother took me and my siblings on a train to Toronto (maybe a two hour trip) around Christmas to walk down some street (no idea which) and look at the Christmas displays in shop windows. It was all magic to me.
I don't think we ever bought anything although she must have fed us something. It's one of my favorite memories and I still love trains. I'm hoping to ride Via from Toronto to Vancouver in a cabin car someday soon!
If the trip happened in the past 30 years, then your family probably walked along the south side of Queen St, just west of Yonge St. at the Hudson's Bay flagship store in Toronto.
as an example, see https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/ylxwxt/hudsons_bay...
just search for "Toronto Hudson's Bay Christmas Display Window"
Before then, Eaton's dept. store in the Eaton Centre, just north of the Queen St. Hudson's Bay store, may have had Christmas display windows as well.
Google Maps Street view link of the store windows that house the Christmas displays leading up to Dec. 25 every year.
see https://maps.app.goo.gl/ho5aM9sjaPo27bYB6
It was 1975ish, so a bit more than 30 years ago but Hudson’s Bay sounds right to me. That store was a much bigger deal in the 1970’s. My family always had their blankets kicking around.
I have some bad news for you: 1975 was almost 50 years ago.
Before 1991, the Queen St store was actually part of the Simpson's department store chain.
The Simpson's Christmas window displays were much more extensive as well.
Back then, the family could have gone down into the basement of the Simpson's department store and dined on hot dogs and an orange-Tang-like drink (there may have been other flavours, but I always chose orange). The drinks came in paper cones (similar to those used for water coolers) placed in metal holders.
see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpsons_(department_store)
What did I do to you?
Yesterday the rain was torrential when I picked up my 5yo from school with my 2yo. I brought wellies and we walked up and down the streams of water running down the hill. The kids were more excited than anything we've paid for recently.
When I was growing up, it was a Christmas tradition for my family to take the local train system (SEPTA) from Delaware to Philly to visit the exhibits at the old Gallery mall. It was a rough, dirty, and crowded ride, and it felt like forever as it stopped at every station. My grandparents would take my mother when she was growing up.
Decades later it still left a positive impact on me.
My son loves to ride a bus too, I'm not a fan, and near me buses are single deck, quite old and unpleasant and really quite expensive.
I discovered they city park and ride scheme was the perfect solution. It's cheaper than parking in the city centre and unlimited bus rides to and from the centre on nice new double decker buses.
Spending time with kids > giving stuff to kids.
I would say this applies to more than just kids, this is the case for almost everyone.
If you're a bit stable yourself (& used to skateboard yourself), try long-boarding (4 year old in front of you with plenty of protection, there's enough space on a standard longboard to fit an adult & child).
Or biking them in a bicycle trailer to the store/school.
Surfing is one I'm looking forward to myself, I've never done it either myself!
Tangential anecdote: When I went to a buffet as a child, I loaded up on mashed potatoes, fries, onion rings, etc. I would be told by family and friends that I was effectively wrong for choosing those foods because seafood, meat, etc., was more expensive and therefore more valuable and worth choosing.
I don't think that was a bad outcome necessarily, because I picked foods that were super unhealthy and cater to thin dopamine hits. But I do think the reasoning (value vs. health) was off as it started instilling a sense of letting perceived/imagined value reign over personal instincts and inclinations.
Reading this felt like a call to be more present, pay more attention to the small things, do things for their own sake, etc.
This was very sweet :’) I wish my dad would have said yes to the train more when I was a kid. Now he’s the one asking me to ride one.
Our mum used to take us for short hiking trips. I don't remember the hiking, but I still do remember the train rides to get there. Those are some of the best memories from my childhood.
I didn't have that particular kind of idyllic childhood, that fairytale cherished time of having engaged, caring parents whose primary goal was to spend quality time with me. But with that came a different kind of freedom, different experiences.
For example, on one occasion my mother and stepfather wanted a week together, and obtained it by taking the three of us for a full week stay at a big amusement park during a school holidays... and oh you better believe that I have an extremely joyous set of memories of spending all day every day unsupervised in a happy dream of endless roller coasters and water slides!
I've been spending my entire adult life trying to rediscover this spiritual joy of being a child. I remember it so fondly. My daughter is about to turn 2 and I'm secretly hoping that she can help me find at least a little of it.
A while ago I was at our patio table with my 4 year old, we were building a house/castle thing out of scrap cardboard. At one point while painting it she pauses and looks over at the garden/woods. I asked her what she saw, she smiled at me and said, "I'm just... happy." I'll never forget it :-)
this is beautiful, thanks for sharing.
While rediscovering the world with kids is more wholesome, if you want the raw experience of looking at nature with novelty in your mind, try LSD or magic mushrooms.
It doesn't need much money to show someone you love them.
That's why a poor loving father will always be worth much more than a wealthy absent father.
Kind if a larger lesson in this story is that kids will be interested in what they are interested in. Many of us here are like me and have made a career out of programming computers or related jobs. I've had three kids and not one of them is interested in programming, despite my attempts at encouragement. You can teach your kids a lot of things but they will also make their own path in life.
For whatever it's worth, my dad was a programmer and spent my childhood doing his best to get me interested in it as well. But I just couldn't have cared less. I think most of us in our adolescent and teenage years just instinctivley feel like whatever our parents do must be lame and boring.
During my softmore year at UIUC in '94, I finally relented to his endless prodding to check out this www thing he was rambling about, and went to a presentation by the Mosaic team at a building down the street from me. Needless to say, that changed everything, and I've been coding ever since.
But I'm pretty sure it was in my DNA and it was only a matter of time before I admitted to myself that programming is actually fun as hell.
I'm sure you're proud of the paths your kids have taken, but hey, you never know. Maybe one day they'll also admit to themselves that dad's hobby was actually pretty damn cool and give it a go too.
> "No, no don't play with the wrapping paper! Look at the truck vroom vroom!" to no avail. She preferred the wrapping paper.
Your daughter a cat, by any chance? It's just the same with cats. They don't give a shit about anything you buy them, sometimes not even food - if there's packing peanuts, packing paper or Amazon cardboard boxes, that is more important.
When my daughter was about 8, we took her to see Marshall Fields in Chicago. Her favorite part of the store was the escalators. We rode those multiple floors of escalators for about half an hour, she loved it!
Also, taking the train to/from Chicago was up there too.
We are in progress of putting a basketball hoop at the end of our dead-end street and are unfortunately concerned that there are a handful of residents who probably don't want it. I swing back and forth on who I think "the bad guys" are. But I know the kids will love it and it will keep them off their phones.
You just need to go with the flow and "yes, and", as long as nothing dangerous is happening
Also about parenting and bus rides...
The Years Are Short (Gretchen Rubin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KktuoQwb3vQ
I had a similar experience with my young son. One of our best memories together was telling a long bus ride in pouring rain, just watching the scenery roll by. He is 21 now, and still finally remembered that trip.
I guess I am a little cynical, but one alternative interpretation of this article is that five year olds can be quite difficult, and it is very tempting to just waste 4 hours to avoid dealing with a temper tantrum.
Kids usually love taking transit.
My partner didn't drive until my daughter was 8yo. They bused around most places, as a result, daughter and wife now refuse any offer of a bus journey...
I still remember the good times I had with my dad just taking train trips to random locations in my state. I think its part of a kid's desire to explore!
There is no such thing as "quality time" together, there is only time together.
Bigs things happen in the little moments, and you have to have those little moments for them to happen.
I don't know...
I've been to restaurants where two adults and two kids are sitting at a table. The adults looking at their phones and the kids watching something on tablets makes for poor chances of an interesting little moment to happen.
We are no tablet at restaurants hold outs.
Before he was even 3 my son knew the menu at the local Indian place we went to weekly and he'd pick out which curry he wanted that day. He asks about the decorations and paintings on the wall of every restaurant we go to, and generally stays engaged with us throughout the entire meal.
Yes it is more work, but it also means he is learning patience and manners.
When I take the subway into work, I am in the physical presence of other people, but am I really with them?
Depends. Do you smell them?
> Do you smell them?
It's irrelevant: you can smell many of them even after they have left the wagon or room, still you're not with them.
I still liked riding the bus, all the way through college. I live in a small town now, no need to ride the bus, a bike does fine, but I miss it sometimes.
Do the things that will give your kids the greatest exposure to different ways of being, living, and seeing. That ain't done by having entrenched routines.
It's as if shes hard wired for public transport in an effort to have a future planet to live on!
My conclusion is to do different stuff to make life less boring.
Absolutely wonderful tale - I laughed out loud at that final touch!
> Kids get excited about things that are very different from those of adults.
The very first sentence of this post is ungrammatical.
This kind of stuff I like reading on HN!
I took my daughter to a Broadway Disney musical. We were almost late so I picked her up and ran multiple packed city blocks with her in my arms. I think that was her favorite part, including, which I don't remember, running in front of a tourist taking a picture of a spiderman sidewalk actor and yelling "sorry" as I passed. We also went to Disney and her favorite thing was actually just going on a ride she was nervous about and feeling good about how brave she was.
Love this!
I love this story haha
Forget about toys. Kids love big cardboard boxes. My nephews and nieces love them.
I’m middle aged but I remember building so many make believe things out of boxes. All I needed were markers, glue and paper. My parents couldn’t afford those mini cars so I built them myself. Out of boxes.
A big box could be a car. Or a fort. Or a castle. Or a boat.
I think the SMBC comic Yeep [1] deserves mention here.
[1] https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/yeep
So wholesome :-)
Priceless! <3
indeed! :D
aww r/mademesmile
Lovely story
A reminder that $ != happiness
Japan is genius when it comes to implementing those simple things that kids like. Like putting little shallow water areas in playground, all kind of mechanical things and variety of playgrounds from all types dotted all over the city, some would considered to be "dangerous" in the west. There are ones where kids can even light fires and play with working tools or cook. There are theme parks all based on various playgrounds without any electricity driven rides. You can also stamp a special kids book in train stations and even places where kids can act play in various adult "jobs" like cashier or mechanic or whatever. My kids had so much fun at those places, much more than in Disney, although they enjoyed it too.
Is this not an obvious "no-shit-sherlock" thing to anyone who ever hung out with a kid?
It’s an excellent reminder to anyone who ever hung out with a kid...
Because it’s easy to forget. :)
I don't think there is anyone on Earth not able to work it out, but I know for an ironclad fact there's those who can't be bothered.