We'd already exhausted our options in that department, so it led to contention. But I'll never be sorry about watching the Texan Tstorms with the boy and the man, nor about the cowboys we met in the Corral Restaurant, the only place to eat in New Boston and quite pleased to host a little family of New Yorkers. Taking that trip was the right choice, despite the various people who argued the wisdom of it with me beforehand. Well, living under one roof for an extended period hadn't worked out, but as stated above, on the road it was usually a blast. The weightier argument, that we might stimulate reunion fantasies in our son, took a little more thought on my part- and probably on his too.
Kids do, however, have reunion fantasies even when one parent is jailed or in Tasmania.
I played with the thought of trying to give him the whole thing with a disclaimer attached, and then realized just how much I was projecting my adult anxieties onto a tiny child. I was going crazy trying to figure out how to explain to him that Mom and Dad could have fun together sometimes. It's as awful as trying to explain why they can't. Finally I had to question the necessity of it. With an older child, say over seven, it might be wise to clarify that the road trip didn't constitute a date or a promissory note.