are we there yet?
Editorial By Shaila Creekmore, Illustration By Brittney Guest

This time of year, all across the country, you can hear the sounds of frustration: Stop kicking the back of the seat! Stop hitting your sister! The bathroom? Why didn’t you go when we stopped? Stay on your side of the car! Don’t cross that line! Don’t make me stop this car!

Oh, the joys of summer vacation! They seem like a good idea at the time. Getting away, spending time with the family and seeing new places. But somehow we forget about those long car rides to get us there and quickly feel like Clark W. Griswold heading to Wally World.

Long distance trips today have advantages and disadvantages from when I was a kid. I grew up prior to seatbelt laws and rarely actually sat in a seat on any sort of trip. My parents would put a mattress in the back of my dad’s Suburban where I and the other kids would ride on trips. We could lie down and sleep, play board games or read. On one trip, we took my mom’s car with five kids in the backseat. The older three relegated the younger two to the floorboard for most of the drive. Many of my friends talk about the trips they took riding on top of a folded back seat looking out the back glass. Not exactly safe, but it was fun.

Today’s kids aren’t fortunate enough to be able to lounge in the backseat or rear of the station wagon, but now they have the pleasure of watching movies, playing videogames or listening to their iPods (instead of listening to dad’s musical selection). As a teenager, I finally got a Walkman with earphones that I could use to listen to my Debbie Gibson and Tiffany tapes. My husband, Kevin, had a Nintendo Gameboy, but you could only play them in the daylight unless you were lucky enough to have a light attachment.

With my two boys, even on the shortest trips, we have a carload of DVDs, the DS with car charger, and a few Kindermusik CDs for 2-year-old Tyler. And let’s not forget the cell phone so I can have something to do while Dad drives!

But even with all of the distractions, the battle of the car somehow still continues. It seems no amount of technology can distract kids from the monotonous hum of the interstate or two-lane highways, but it sure makes for a good nap if you’re lucky!