Tuesday, May 18, 2010

One Method For Making Traveling With Kids Seem Easier

Think traveling with kids is tricky now, imaging doing it 65 years ago. The Department of Labor was kind enough to publish a guide to exactly this: If your baby must travel in war time (published in 1944).

I found this pamphlet oddly gripping to read. Maybe it was the handy packing advice:

[Ladies:] Limit yourself to one dark dress or suit. Many mothers have found an apron a convenience, one that could be slipped over their dresses when they were caring for their babies.

Or the meal suggestions:

Orange juice and cod-liver oil usually cannot be carried conveniently. There is no harm in letting your baby go without these during the time when you will be traveling.

(No cod-liver oil? My lord, those were primitive times)

Or just the overall candor of the writing:

This train is crowded. At every stop more people get on—more and still more. Soldiers and sailors on furloughs, men on business trips, women—young and not so young—and babies, lots of them, mostly small.

...
You will want to think twice before taking your baby into such a crowded, uncomfortable place as a train. And having thought twice, you'd better decide to stay home unless your trip is absolutely necessary.

See, we don't have it so bad now? Next time I have to basically disrobe and empty all of my worldly possessions into a bin in order to pass through a security line, I'm going to try my hardest to think just how good we have it.

Oh, and maybe the apron idea isn't such a bad one, after all.

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