Skip to content

Family: Road trips close generation gap

I got invited on a road trip last weekend and, without hesitation, I agreed.
10361301_web1_Mielke

I got invited on a road trip last weekend and, without hesitation, I agreed.

I was agreeable to the road trip mostly because I was to accompany my daughter and my granddaughter. Accompanying them to anywhere was good and I was pleased to be asked to tag along.

This time it turned out we were to go to a ‘Cheer’ competition.

And that was sure to be fun.

But wherever we went I was reasonably optimistic that three generations of women hanging out together is always a good thing.

We could talk, laugh and share things. And as the grandma the road trip would give me an opportunity to share my wisdom about life and other deep subjects.

I smiled with anticipation.

Of course, none of that happened. And, as always, it seemed to turn out that I was the student, not the teacher.

My daughter climbed into the driver’s seat.

When she’s with me she prefers to drive whenever we go to the city or, actually, anywhere.

My granddaughter climbed into the back seat, telling me she was stressed about the competition, her final exams and, pretty much, life overall.

She, then, immediately fell asleep. She woke up when her mom told her to put instructions to where we were going into ‘maps’ in her phone.

“Grandma’s not very good at that,” she said.

“I am so,” I protested. “I’m just slow at it.”

I decided to give up the idea of being seen as wise, and decided, instead, to try for being seen as creative.

I pulled out my knitting.

I’m not much of a knitter, but I figured if women could get the vote a hundred or so years ago, surely to goodness, I could figure out how to knit.

I knitted a few stitches and glanced sideways at my daughter to see if she was impressed.

She wasn’t.

I explained to her that I decided to knit slippers for her dad, who is constantly complaining of cold feet. I waited for accolades.

None came.

“Mom,” she said, patiently. “You are doing it all wrong. You are doing it the left-handed way. Can’t you do it with the other hand.”

I was properly insulted. No one since my Grade 1 teacher had asked me to use the other hand.

“I cannot,” I said, indignantly.

I put away my knitting, deciding to give up on being seen as creative..

The Cheer competition was a noisy, high-energy affair involving incredibly fit pony-tailed young girls twisting and flipping their bodies through the air in a series of movements that left the audience yelling and stamping their feet.

Of course, my eyes were only focused on one young girl, a vivacious, bouncy teen who had, only minutes before, been sound asleep in the back seat of my car.

She certainly wasn’t asleep now.

On the trip home I decided to give up trying to be wise or creative and just go along for the ride.

Actually, that was wise.

And as we chatted, the generation gap closed and we were nothing more and nothing less than three girls, on a road trip, hanging out and having fun.

And that, as far as I’m concerned, is as good as it gets!