The Train Spotter

My mom’s birthday is coming up. That, in combination with my parents’ upcoming move to a newly built house, was reason for my sisters and me to coordinate a trip to the Netherlands. I haven’t seen my two-year older sister in two years and there is lots to catch up on. We do this in a local beer bar in Venray.

We talk about our kids, each sharing our own struggles. She explains how her youngest can be very rebellious and knows exactly how to push her buttons until she explodes. I share how we have difficulty motivating our oldest to do anything, ranging from joining for breakfast to biking with his siblings to a park nearby. He is often cranky in the morning, being a pre-teen, and due to his special needs, it is challenging to find activities for him that he is able and willing to do.

I mull over each of our parenting struggles during a bathroom break. When I return, I say: “The answer to parenting problems is always obvious for anyone else but the parent. If someone else would tell my story, I would say that we just need to put in more effort to find activities for our son, try harder. Someone hearing your story might think that you just need to stay calm when your son acts out”. Easy to say. Harder when you live the reality.

Since the birth of our youngest, I am much less judgmental about other kids’ behavior or other parenting styles. My own kids couldn’t be more different. One patient, sensitive, and flexible, the other feisty, determined, and hyperactive. What worked for my sensitive boy when he was two, certainly does not work for my whirlwind girl, and vice versa. What works for my kids, likely will not work for my sister’s kids. So I try just to listen, without giving too much advice.

Before we realize it, it is long after midnight. We both laugh - I can’t even reminder the last time I stayed up this late, even though I am cheating as it feels like 4pm in the afternoon for me. When we get back home, we can’t unlock two of the doors to my parents’ house as they left the key inside of the doors. We snicker, sneaking around the house, and eventually manage to unlock the front door. It is like we are seventeen again. When we go up the stairs as quietly as possible, we hear mom ask dad: “are the girls back yet?”, completing the deja-vu.

The next morning, I am waiting at the station for my train to Utrecht. A boy, probably about 16 years old, runs from platform to platform. There are only two platforms at this rural station. He is wearing a small backpack and a Fanny pack, and is talking loudly to someone on the phone. He looks busy, but excited. It soon becomes clear that he is figuring out through which platform the ICE - the high-speed train from France or Germany - will pass. Once he spots it in the distance, he starts filming it with his phone, meanwhile waving vigorously. The train honks. He is beaming. This process repeats itself when another ICE passes in the other direction.

When my train arrives, I ask him while boarding the train: “Do you like trains?”  “I love trains”, he answers with a smile, “I watch them all day”. I am tearing up, partly because of lack of sleep, partly because of how endearing I find this. This could be our oldest. We need to find him a passion just like this. He loves pretend-play, and his favorite pretend-play is around airplane travel (checking in bags, security). If only he could watch that process at the airport. He would be happy all day.