My best memories are of adventures most parents would tell their children not to do, but may have done themselves. Like the time I jumped on a freight train to get home from university. Or the 105-day sea kayak trip through the Great Lakes never before having paddled a day in a sea kayak.
I tell my kids all my adventure and misadventure stories. Why not? It creates in them a sense of adventure and helps develop their sense of judgment. Would I do it all over again? If the answer is yes, I tell them so. I want them to know their dad was a raft guide, canoe instructor and ski patroller, and that I kissed their mom on the first date. It is a side of the 40-year-old me they don’t see on the way to the school bus stop.
Since co-starring in the film, Dougie Down the Pet—the story of a four-day whitewater canoe trip with my four-year-old son—one of the most common questions I get from fans of the movie is,
“How do I convince my mother-in-law?”
I always suggest that if you really want to go, don’t tell her until you get back.
Better yet, ask her what she really did with her parents as a child or with your wife when she was a baby. Like riding to the waterpark in the very back of the family station wagon lined with cushions from a sectional sofa. Stories like that make canoeing the Petawawa River with helmets and PFDs look rather responsible.
I recently met a very enthusiastic mother at the Outdoor Adventure Show. She was pushing a double stroller piled high with camping equipment. This was going to be their breakout year. She and her husband were at the tradeshow making plans and getting ready.
She asked me about paddling courses for her boys, asleep in the stroller. She said she and her husband weren’t all that comfortable canoeing and camping, so wanted them to receive professional instruction—
“I want them to learn proper strokes.”
I thought she was joking.
I suggested she leave the kids with her mother-in-law and take a weekend skills course with her husband—they could call it a date. They probably needed one; we all did then.
I also suggested joining a club or taking a guided family adventure and sucking every last bit of knowledge from their experienced leaders or guides. There is really no better way to learn about gear, cooking, camping and paddling than go- ing with a professional guide.
We as parents need to feel confident in order to enjoy ourselves and to pass on our love of the outdoors. If we have great looking strokes, if we can cook over a fire and if we truly love being outside and are happy there, our children will do as we do, no matter what your mother-in-law has to say.
This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2012 issue of Canoeroots Magazine.
