Dreams, Time and a Son

[goboatingnow]

Personally am of the view that you have to separate out the parents desires and dreams and ensure they are not being projected onto the kids. I always get concerned that the justifications advanced might be more to convince the parents then genuinely held beliefs as to the real benefits to their kids.

Furthermore, I find justifications that kids can hack the school, the peer pressure etc etc strange . They have to hack life. Certainly my kids schooling was close to idyllic ( her own words ) for my eldest daughter and less so, for my youngest , but she coped well.

I saw them go through the teenage issues , drink, sex, peer pressure etc , all difficult as a dad , but I has faith in them. ( asking the boyfriends to help clean my gun collection helped too ) They are now successful graduates.

I don't think " running " of to sea fixes any issues you had on land.

Personally I think it's easy to sail with 8 to 12 year olds, younger they are too dependant , older you are getting into the teenage years where you must give your kids space to grow AwAY from their parents. I see it as very difficult to justify sailing long term with teenagers.

You cannot protect your kids from anything by putting them on a boat. If you don't life the lifestyle , education, peers were you live. You could always move and resettle.

That's my tuppence

Dave


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[CortoMaltese]

Read all points of view, and indeed everyone has a good reason for each position. I am convinced that there is not a universal answer that can be "better" than the other, neither an option that would be the best for the future of a kid. Also because there is an important variant that is difficult to consider and analyze: the character of each person adult or kid, no matter. What might be the nicest and most interesting experience of life for a person might be a true nightmare for others.
I am talking with my kid (that by the way already changed 3 schools in the last 4 years and 2 cities) and, for what a kid can interpretate of such a complicated choice, he is loving the idea.
As everything there are pros and cons: peer and friendship maybe the thing that makes me more reflective......but at the end, how long i am really going to be sailing open sea? My idea is to change often location, but never staying less than months in each place. That would give plenty of time to my son to relate with other kids and even keep contacts......at the end nowadays internet made things much easier, even to compensate loneliness in certain moments.
Yesterday i took him with my wife to the Rio boat show and he really loved the environment and he was not stopping pushing me to buy a cat and sail away.....but yes, he is a kid, for him was like being in a luna park.
Still in process of deciding but i think i made an important step forward yesterday. But i am starting to be convinced that the "problem" is not the fact of taking a kid into a liveabord sailing life, but the way the thing is done. It's not the same thing, imho, spending months sailing touching a location just for supplying and immediatelly move on, than reach a place and stay for some time.
BTW: visited yesterday a lagoon 39 and a leopard 48, the only 2 cats in the show: one a bit too small and the other way too big.....
Cheers all and thanx for participating.

[atoll]

Originally Posted by CortoMaltese

Read all points of view, and indeed everyone has a good reason for each position. I am convinced that there is not a universal answer that can be "better" than the other, neither an option that would be the best for the future of a kid. Also because there is an important variant that is difficult to consider and analyze: the character of each person adult or kid, no matter. What might be the nicest and most interesting experience of life for a person might be a true nightmare for others.
I am talking with my kid (that by the way already changed 3 schools in the last 4 years and 2 cities) and, for what a kid can interpretate of such a complicated choice, he is loving the idea.
As everything there are pros and cons: peer and friendship maybe the thing that makes me more reflective......but at the end, how long i am really going to be sailing open sea? My idea is to change often location, but never staying less than months in each place. That would give plenty of time to my son to relate with other kids and even keep contacts......at the end nowadays internet made things much easier, even to compensate loneliness in certain moments.
Yesterday i took him with my wife to the Rio boat show and he really loved the environment and he was not stopping pushing me to buy a cat and sail away.....but yes, he is a kid, for him was like being in a luna park.
Still in process of deciding but i think i made an important step forward yesterday. But i am starting to be convinced that the "problem" is not the fact of taking a kid into a liveabord sailing life, but the way the thing is done. It's not the same thing, imho, spending months sailing touching a location just for supplying and immediatelly move on, than reach a place and stay for some time.
BTW: visited yesterday a lagoon 39 and a leopard 48, the only 2 cats in the show: one a bit too small and the other way too big.....
Cheers all and thanx for participating.

good luck with you quest,generally on a rtw trip,you end up sailing for 6 months and stopped for 6 waiting out the cyclone season,so good opurtunities,for a more balanced education regime,and shore time.

cheers alex

[captainbri]

Originally Posted by atoll

hi ann
i have many friends who grew up on boats,some of them in their mid-late 40's now.
and the common personality trait is that they all feel like outsiders looking in,and all have problems adjusting to conventional life.

i am not saying do not go cruising with your kids,just that, they ,the child, would benefit from it more after the age of 16,and before the age of 9-10.

Ii am in the group I don't feel like an outsider at all.. I can talk to anyone I find it easy to meet new people. Moving or changing locations is easy. I look at it like my friends missed out.. most were going to parties getting high or drunk a couple committed suicide some died in car accidents. Im still trying to figure out what I missed and if you ask me I didn't miss a thing.

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