Eddie鈥檚 hazel eyes lit up when he saw the sign: 鈥淒id you know this place was here?鈥� Though we鈥檇 only been walking for an hour from our City Heights home to San Diego鈥檚 Hillcrest neighborhood, apparently, my husband already needed espresso. I鈥檇 been hoping we could survive with less on this meander. But my sons, Kai and Nikko, hiked their masks over their noses and raced into the all-white caf茅. I stood outside with our backpacks and our dog (a designer mutt named Stella) as my family procured speed-inducing treats. Could we actually slow down during this week of walking San Diego? After I declined pastries festooned with sparkles, little Nikko pushed his glasses higher on his face and said, 鈥淲e still have like nine miles to go today.鈥澨�

鈥淚 don鈥檛 want to go fast,鈥� I replied.听

Now that life had returned to its pre-pandemic haste, I鈥檇 been longing for slowness. We鈥檇 relocated to San Diego from Santa Cruz in December to be closer to family, and I found myself driving everywhere, chauffeuring my nine- and 13-year-old boys to soccer, school, and music lessons. Though we joked that in San Diego everything was 15 minutes away, the distances felt vast, so many single-story concrete corners we鈥檇 had to traverse to reach sand or dried canyonlands. How would we ever connect with this place if we were always driving it?

I thought I鈥檇 found my answer in a podcast interview with writer, scientist, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation Robin Wall Kimmerer. She explained that we were all once native to a place, and to return to this ecological connection to home, we must acquaint ourselves with the living world around us. So, I decided that my clan would do just that. We鈥檇 walk from our mid-city house to the posh seaside village of La Jolla, and back鈥�50 miles in total鈥攐ver five days. They boys helped craft the itinerary to include hotels with hot tubs and comfy beds. Eddie mapped out all the restaurants he wanted to try along the way. I made no plans other than to search for dandelions in the sidewalk鈥檚 cracks.听

On that first day, as we descended past the Mission Hills mansions perched over the glittering bay, Eddie admired the engineering feat of building a bayfront airport right in the middle of downtown. The boys marveled over a soccer pitch in a backyard. Stella sniffed at a jasmine bush manicured into an archway.听

But I felt adrift. How hard we worked to manipulate our living world to our benefit, and yet, how little connection I truly had鈥擨 didn鈥檛 know the names or characteristics of most of the plants and animals we saw as we marched into Old Town; I didn鈥檛 know the moods of the tides, the fog, the wind pressing us toward our destination for the night, Paradise Point Resort on Mission Bay.听

The next morning, as we migrated from Mission Bay to Pacific Beach, we started using Kai鈥檚 to identify the plants and animals around us by taking a photo of the species.听And though it said Stella (who is a poodle/retriever/lab mix) was an alpaca, we began to shakily acquaint ourselves with our environment. Like so many of us here in California, most of the palms, jacaranda, and hibiscus were nonnative, and these SoCal icons also housed other immigrants like the green parrots squawking overhead. So many species were like us, making a home in lands that aren鈥檛 ours. Yet they had found a way to thrive here. Could I as well?听

Hiking from Bird Rock (an affluent hillside beach community) to La Jolla, a dogwalker pointed us toward a bike and walking path we鈥檇 never noticed. On the trail, the boys found a tire swing, fairy houses, and a beehive encircled by California poppies, our state flower. 鈥淭hese can grow anywhere,鈥� Kai told us. Just like my boys. They were resilient as this landscape鈥攚e plopped them in a new city, right in the middle of a pandemic, and they found ways to connect with their environment like Mexican elderberry, which wasn鈥檛 exactly from this trail, but added nutrients to the soil and sustenance to other species.听

As I iced my feet on the hotel balcony that night, I listened to the boys recounting our success of walking so far in just two days. I wondered how much they鈥檇 noticed about the natural world around us. Because the farther I wandered, the less I understood鈥攍ike how did the Kumeyaay, San Diego鈥檚 first people, access water in their ancestral homelands? Did they live, like we do, on high ground so that when the torrential rains blew through, flooding the valleys, their homes were safe? And how had they survived the annual fires that gobbled up the dry brush on the rolling hills? What did they eat? What native plants were available to them in this coastal desert? Because for us, it was so easy to just order some sushi to be delivered to our room. How had we become so different than this land鈥檚 ancestors? And how might we regain some of that wisdom?

We took a different route back home: trekking down the beach by UC San Diego to a La Jolla waterfront trail, passing giant houses adorned with Teslas, surf schools, and botox spas to reach the flatlands of Pacific Beach,听where we recharged at a local seafood shop that imported most of the fish from afar. Looking at all these paved roads and multi-unit houses with tiny garden plots out front, the trucks lugging kayaks, the cyclists zooming by, I realized that we all had ways of connecting with the land beneath us, even if it was for fun instead of survival. Was just the desire to integrate the natural world around me a good enough start?听

That night, a loud crack made us hobble out of bed and onto our deck at Bahia Hotel. The nightly fireworks show exploded over Mission Bay. The palms clapped in the breeze. Seagulls shrieked over someone鈥檚 bonfire leftovers. The almost full moon rose over the faraway peaks to the east, reflecting in the ripples on the water. I took a deep inhale, noticing the slight saltiness in the air. Then an exhale, releasing my oxygen. My feet throbbed. I couldn鈥檛 stand for long. This walk had forced me to slow down and appreciate what it means to be walking this land. We still had another ten miles to go, but I knew that as we walked along the San Diego River and up that big Texas Street hill, stopping for a rest at one of North Park鈥檚 bustling breweries, I鈥檇 be trying my best to get to know the ground under my feet and maybe learning something about myself in the process.

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A parent鈥檚 purpose is to give their children skills to become independent adults. This means empowering them with decision-making abilities听and plentiful chances to learn from their mistakes. When it comes to outdoor adventure, the hardest part for lots of kids is knowing when to bravely go for it听and when to play it safe. Making things even harder, today鈥檚听overscheduled, overmanaged children often freeze when given the chance to take charge of themselves.

At the start of last summer, my two young sons expected to have their days planned to the minute. This is what they and most of their friends were used to. But in the hopes of helping them follow (and find) their own interests, I decided to give them two unstructured hours a day to do whatever they wanted.

Those first couple of days, they were lost. Thinking I was helping, I gave them ideas鈥攃limb a tree, draw, clean up dog poop. My ten-year-old son, Kai, would do whatever I suggested, looking miserable the entire time. By the end of the first week, I stopped making suggestions.

Once I backed off, something shifted. Soon听they were running to the beach from our house in Santa Cruz, California, boogie boarding down the stairs, and constructing elaborate Lego treehouses.

I was feeling really good about myself,听until one day I walked into the room to find Kai trailing his precocious six-year-old brother on听some adventure, and it became clear that all their activities that summer had been orchestrated by my younger听son.

Concerned that Kai needed more chances follow his own lead without his little brother taking charge, I decided he should plan a mom-and-son adventure. There were boundaries鈥擨鈥檓 aware he still doesn鈥檛 have a developed prefrontal cortex鈥攂ut he got to pick the region and what we did with our time. My hope was to empower his leadership skills听so that when he entered middle school soon, he could lead, not follow.

Kai decided he wanted warm water, fish tacos, and surf. Because neither of us wanted to fly far from home, we ended up at the Grand Palladium Resort听on the Mexican coast just north of Puerto Vallarta. When we got there, the concierge handed Kai a swag-filled backpack that said 鈥淔amily Boss鈥� and asked if he wanted his bubble bath drawn that night or another. His eyes flicked to the game consul in the lounge and he whispered, 鈥淟ater?鈥�

鈥淜ai, let鈥檚 go swim,鈥� I tried, hoping to distract him from that lurid machine.

But Kai offered his best pleading smile and asked if he could play a game we鈥檇 never allowed. I could only swallow my disappointment and shrug.听鈥淚t鈥檚 your trip. We鈥檝e only got three days here,鈥� I said.

An hour later, he said, 鈥淟et鈥檚 swim.鈥�

On the boat to Las Caletas, a slice of Banderas Bay, Kai studied the activities available to us. 鈥淲e should snorkel,鈥� I said, noting that this 1,000-foot-deep bay听is home to听turtles and tropical fish.

鈥淣ope,鈥� he said, pointing at the Teen 国产吃瓜黑料 Center on the map. 鈥淲e鈥檙e doing the waterslide听and the zip line.鈥�

鈥淏ut鈥︹�� I bit my lip, reminding myself that this was his gig, not mine.

The zip line wasn鈥檛 so bad, though I screamed like it was. Nor was the Blob, a giant raft where one person crawled along a hot, slippery surface to the rounded edge, while the other daredevil ascended a two-story ladder and then belly flopped onto the raft, sending the first adventurer soaring into the water. I never made it to the edge, nor the top. But my adventurous kid did,听limbs wild, rocketing into the air.

Over at the launchpad, a slide jetted riders from the mountaintop back up into a U, soaring at least 20 feet before flying into the water. I could not hide my glee that adults were not allowed to experience this ridiculousness, but that was quickly replaced by the fact that my little boy was about to zoom off the edge of a mountain wearing only swim shorts and a loose helmet. I curbed the urge to hold him back听and instead watched him catapult into the sky, whooping with a joy听unlike anything I鈥檇 witnessed all summer.

After lunch he decided we could finally snorkel. We鈥檇 been warned that baby jellyfish populated the waters, so Kai asked me to swim ahead. He trailed so close that I kicked him in the face, so I reached for his hand听and pulled him to swim in-line with me. We were chasing a fluorescent fish when Kai pointed out a small sea snake.

I pulled him to the surface. 鈥淲e鈥檝e got to get out,鈥� I said,听fear tinting everything.

鈥淒on鈥檛 worry,鈥� he said, moving closer.听鈥淚t鈥檚 just a baby.鈥�

I鈥檇 heard about the ways young men challenged their mothers鈥� comfort levels. I鈥檇 surely had my share of playing goalie and climbing trees, but I had always urged my son into uncomfortable waters. Now the earth tilted. He was luring me farther out into an insecure sea. I was following.

You鈥檙e an idiot, I told myself听as I swam closer to the听creature slinking around my baby鈥檚 toes.

The waves were overhead the next day,听and my son wanted to surf. And though we both surf, I wouldn鈥檛 call either of us good enough to rock seven-foot swells. The hotel鈥檚 surf coach, Eder, sized me up and gave me an out, saying I could paddleboard. 鈥淣o way,鈥� Kai nearly yelled. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e surfing with me.鈥� A flash of emotion crossed his face. I understood.

I鈥檝e been swallowing fear since I found out I was pregnant. To raise strong, independent children means encouraging them to be brave, to go beyond what they believed they were capable of, and letting them fail. But it also sometimes means having to accept that we, too, must be courageous ourselves.

Kai spun to face the waves. On his first try, he held back for a few seconds too long and lost his chance. Then just before the next wave peaked, he听caught a ride. The swell was so tall I could not see my child from behind until he flew up, a mess of feet and board. Wishing that playing it safe was an option, that reading books about parenting was the same as actually doing it, I started paddling toward听my kid, wanting to make sure he was OK.

鈥淩eady?鈥� Eder said, reaching to push me into the waves as if I were his prey.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 want a big one.鈥� Now that Kai was not around, I could admit my fears.

鈥淭he big ones are easier,鈥� he said. 鈥淧addle.鈥�

Much has been written about the divine experience of standing on top of liquid, but few talk about falling. I held my board close, realizing the most daring thing I鈥檇 done in the last ten years was breed. Empowered by the bravery I saw my kid exhibit just moments before, I took a deep breath and ducked under the coming wave, and then the next. 鈥淕et out of there,鈥� someone called. I didn鈥檛 need urging.

I told Kai I was done and thought he should get out, too. But he said he wanted to surf more, and Eder promised he鈥檇 stay with him. On the sand, I reconstructed my terror, as we so often do, piecing together a new edge in the puzzle of parenting. Because of the mistakes I鈥檇 made as a young person while听traveling, I now know how to hold back when necessary (like getting out of the water when the waves are too big), and I can face the challenges of adulthood.

But playing it safe is not always the best option for youth鈥攖here鈥檚 a developmental reason children don鈥檛 arrive with an intact prefrontal cortex that听influences their decision-making. We should be there when our kids first flex their leadership muscles. But that also means backing off, giving them the chance to lead us听and, more importantly, themselves, into adventure, infusing them with responsibility, both away and at home.

When he and Eder got out of the waves, Kai said, 鈥淣ext time I get to plan an adventure, it鈥檚 going to be a full-on surf trip.鈥�

When we got home, it didn鈥檛 take Kai long to return to his natural tendency to have his activities prescribed. At first I was bummed out, until I realized that as a parent, the learning process must continue. This isn鈥檛 some one-off fix that will change everything听but a starting point for a life of decisions听and mistakes. I鈥檓 now organizing this year鈥檚 summer travels, and Kai will get to plan a part of our whole family鈥檚 trip. He鈥檚 complained a bit, but it forces him to dig deeper into his own sense of adventure and ultimately take responsibility for choosing the best way for us all to access this experience.

If a parent鈥檚 ultimate goal is to prepare our kids to become good adults, then we must give them space to brave the dangerous ocean and find their own limits. On these journeys, we can be within swimming distance. But we must allow them to stand atop their own waves.

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