“Mama, we are going to Walibi during the holidays,” says our youngest teenager of fourteen years. He picks the right moment to announce that, because I'm working behind the computer. It doesn't really dawn on me that my teenager wants to leave alone, but I say:"Just write it in the agenda."
I had already forgotten about Walibi until we sit down at the table and he starts talking about it. “If, we go to Walibi,” he says. I'm startled. “Ho, ho, with whom do you actually want to go to Walibi and who has given permission for you to go there?” I ask surprised. He mentions some boy names and says that I myself have given permission that he may. And he has already passed that on to his friends. So.
I dig back into my memory for a few seconds. I hesitate for a moment, but I don't think a yes-that-is-good has passed my lips anywhere. I don't think I ever heard the question of whether he should be allowed to go out on his own from my adolescent. Since I'm not one hundred percent sure, (Hellupppp my memory is failing me!) I'll check with my son. According to him, the fact that he had to write it in the diary was a yes-you-can-to-Walibi. So you see again how important communication is with adolescents, although of course this does not only apply to adolescents. I recently saw a nice saying about this:'Communicating is talking past each other as closely as possible.' This was clearly one of those cases.
Anyway, the Walibi problem was not solved yet. “I don't know if I think it's such a good idea that you all go to Biddinghuizen by train,” I say worriedly to an increasingly glum-looking teenager. This amusement park is one hundred and thirty kilometers away from us. To get there, you first have to take a train and then the bus. They also have to transfer from one train to another. I find it quite exciting to let my teenager go alone and immediately see a lot of bears on the road. Bears in the sense of catching the wrong train, getting lost, scary men, missing the train on the way back and so on. According to my son, there is one friend who has traveled alone to Biddinghuizen by train many times and he knows how it works. I want to check it anyway, and text the boy's mother. She agrees that he knows how it works in terms of trains and connections. I tell my son to think about it. He texts his friends:"Ninety percent sure I can't…and a grumpy face."
In the evenings on the couch I try to contact my mother. “Mom, how old was I when I went on a Teen Tour alone?” Teen tour, that was really cool. We have traveled around the country several times with a group of boys and girls for four days. It was the time of my life! Without parents as far as possible, and away as long as possible. Traveling alone, deciding for ourselves where we got in and out, that was the ultimate feeling of freedom as an adolescent! We have seen all corners of the Netherlands, the beach, various amusement parks, and of course the big city, Amsterdam. We met nice colleague Teenage Tour Travelers with whom later contact was maintained. Those were the four best days of the summer vacation.
The sound of my phone brings me back to the here and now. My mother sends me a message. “15!” it says on my screen. Ow.Fifteen. My teenager is still fourteen, but next month is his birthday. I realize that I was the same age as he is now when I traveled all over the Netherlands by train.
Walibi, wasn't that called SixFlags Holland or something? I think we once went there with Teen Tour……… “Shall we let him go after all?” I ask my hubby.
