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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now, we'll end today's show by exposing the secret and taking your calls about the secret to having an actual vacation with your kids. Yesterday was the last day of school for New York City public school kids, for example. I'm sure a lot of you from any district are planning on taking advantage of summer vacation to get out of the area for a family getaway, but maybe the last time you traveled with taunts, you realized the venture wasn't as restful as you hoped it would be. After all, you still have to parent your kids no matter where in the world you are.

As a good friend of mine once said to me when my kids were little, "There's no such thing as a vacation with children. Just a change of venue." Yes, I could see the heads nodding in agreement out there as you laugh a little and maybe cry a little at that notion. No such thing as a vacation with children, just a change of venue. If you haven't booked your trip yet, but you're hoping to travel with your children this summer, you're going to want to hear this secret from Samantha Darby, our guest joining us now. She's a Senior Lifestyle Editor for Romper, and here she is. Samantha, welcome to WNYC.

Samantha Darby: Hi, Brian. Thank you so much for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Now that you have parents on the edge of their seats, what is your secret to an actual vacation with kids?

Samantha Darby: Oh my gosh. As a mom of three, the secret, and it's pretty simple and pretty cost-effective, is to go on a vacation with your friends who also have kids. [chuckles]

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Listeners, tell us your stories. Validate this notion or not. Have you vacationed with family friends? What makes another family compatible to travel with? How did you divide the labor of planning, meal preparation, childcare, anything else that needed to get done? Do you have any double family-friendly vacation spots, spots, spots that are friendly to two families? Are you on a double family vacation right now and listening to the show because you're obsessed with the news? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, call or text. I'll tell you, we did that. I can give you my own testimonial.

Samantha, we did that many summers with one family we were close to, and that included one of my son's best friends, and it really worked. We could do things all together a lot, which breaks the sameness of always just being with your nuclear family. We could do things as separate families, and crucially, we could switch off so one couple or the other can have an actual vacation for an afternoon or an evening or whatever. That's the jam, right?

Samantha Darby: Yes, that's pretty much exactly how it is for my husband and I. We went on vacation, this was the second time we've done it with friends that we've known forever who also have three kids that are about the same ages as ours. It just worked out that then it was like each kid had a built-in playmate. We were really good friends, obviously, with the couple that went with us. It was just everyone got to relax, get a break from their siblings to play with other kids and all work together.

There were some mornings where our friends wanted to go for a walk on the beach by themselves, and they would say, "Do you guys mind if the kids stay here with you, and then we can swap off later if you want to break?" We're like, "Yes, no problem." Because it's funny adding six kids feels like a lot, but when they are all playing together and happy, it's much easier than your three that are ready to kill each other some days.

Brian Lehrer: Right. Which goes to the fact that I see this whole topic as part of the larger math equation that measures adult to child ratio. The more adults per child on the premises, the better the day for the actual parents. Even I guess if you are one person with six temporarily, but then somebody else gets the six later in the day. This is the on-vacation version of adult-child ratio math, right?

Samantha Darby: Yes, totally. It is just nice to have extra hands around for when things go wrong on vacation. This is the thing is that a vacation with kids. Is not always restful. It's not relaxing. For us, going with another family, specifically with kids that are about the same age, they get it, and so they're willing to step in when there's a need for it. There was a moment where our older two were totally fine in a restaurant, but our toddler was melting down, and the plan was to go get ice cream after. Our friends just looked at us, and they were like, "Why don't you take her back to the house and put her to bed, and we'll take the kids with us to go get ice cream?" It was just like, "Oh my gosh, you saved the day."

Brian Lehrer: Here's an issue being raised by a listener who writes, "Travel with families, with kids who are discipline aligned. Nothing worse than parents who don't handle their children in similar ways." Have you run into that, families who are not discipline-aligned as the listener calls it?

Samantha Darby: Yes, for sure. I think this is why we all have friends that we can hang out with, with our kids that are not the same friends we would take on a vacation with us or go somewhere together. I think feeling comfortable with your friends and how they parent, especially if you're all on the same wavelength there and feeling confident in your own parenting choices, that kind of stuff is what makes it work.

Obviously, if your kids like having tablet time, and another family doesn't, that's not going to make or break a vacation. Having somebody who's way off base on how you discipline or raise your kids can make sticky situations, which is why you have to go with people who get you get your kids, and you all feel aligned in that way.

Brian Lehrer: If we've been thinking about this as just in the context of two families going together, I think Ryan in Brooklyn is going to expand our palette. Ryan, you're on WNYC, hello.

Ryan: Hi, how are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good. What's [crosstalk]

Ryan: We had gone with four other families, a total of five families. These are my friends from high school and their families. We had done this first in the outer banks, and the way we had done it was we divided up the meals across the week. We were saying for I think a total of six or seven days. Two of those days was everybody pitches in for ordering a pizza usually the day you arrive. Then one day is hot dogs and hamburgers. Everyone just buys the groceries and chips in that way. Then every other day one family owns a meal. That got the kids involved, or the couples would be off in the house getting the meal ready while everyone else was at the beach or at the pool.

Brian Lehrer: You had a whole commune going there. Did it get-

Ryan: Really did.

Brian Lehrer: -logistically complicated in any way that backfired, or was it always worth it?

Ryan: It actually turned out to be really great. The kids got along really well. That freed the parents to just hang out all day. The kids kept each other entertained. They actually put together a movie that they were making for the whole week. They put together, and it evolved over the course of years where they made a script one year.

Brian Lehrer: Ryan, thank you. Great story. I talked about adult-child ratio, where the more adults per child, the better. William in Sussex County is actually going to flip that script with probably an important point. William, you're on WNYC. Hi.

William: Hi. Good morning. Thank you. I was a single dad, and it got to the point where I did not get to be fun after a certain age. I started bringing two of my nieces on vacation with us. The older two and the younger two were each within a few months of age of each other. They kept each other entertained seamlessly. Yes, I had four kids with me, but it was easy because I no longer had the burden of entertaining them so I could simply focus on taking care of them.

Brian Lehrer: Fair enough. William, thank you for adding that. I have to go for time purposes, but that's a really important wrinkle in this, isn't it, Samantha?

Samantha Darby: Yes, for sure. I definitely think that there are times where people want to go on vacation with families and getting many adults or even just another couple, and having differing opinions can make things get a little hairy. Again, it really is who you go with. You're not just going to go on vacation with someone that you barely know. These are friends that have been to your house when it's a mess and have seen your kids throwing a tantrum and that you've shared snacks with at the pool without thinking about it kind of thing. These are your family friends kind of.

Brian Lehrer: Right. I guess in William's case, if the kids are old enough, especially even if you don't have more adults around per child, they entertain each other in ways that takes a burden off the adult that is there. We're going to run out of time in a couple of minutes. What's the biggest downside or the biggest challenge? I know trips with friends can really heighten emotions, relationships can turn sour in some cases. You talk about the different friends that we may have as parents, maybe some compatible more than others. What's the biggest risk to avoid if you're going to try to go down this route?

Samantha Darby: I really think a lot of it is just changing your own perspective. If you are going to go on vacation with another family, you can't control how that family reacts to situations, what happens. You need to be confident that if they do something a different way, if they're wanting to change plans, and you don't want to change plans that you can both feel empowered to do what's right for your family.

Going with another family should be a fun thing. It should make it a little bit easier, a little bit more enjoyable, but it's not meant to be that you have to follow these rigid set of rules or make it where it is like a commune kind of thing the whole time if that doesn't work for your family. I think just being open and communicating again, this is why you want to take friends that you can say like, "No, we're not doing that because my kids are not going to be okay with that situation." It just needs to be that kind of relationship and that kind of environment.

Definitely, even with our close friends who my husband went to high school with them, we have all been in each other's weddings, we're really close, but there are still moments where we have to say like, "You know what? We're not going to do this, and we're going to figure out a different way." It's just that communication.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, the good communication, so important. There is one other way for parents to have a real vacation in the summer, sleepaway camp.

Samantha Darby: There you go. [laughs]

Brian Lehrer: I guess that's another show. We thank Samantha Darby, Senior Lifestyle Editor Romper for talking about families going on vacation together so the adults get some actual vacation time. This was great. Thank you so much.

Samantha Darby: Thank you so much, Brian. I appreciate it.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer Show today was produced by Mary Croke, Lisa Allison, Amina Srna, Carl Boisrond, and Esperanza Rosenbaum. Zach Gottehrer-Cohen edits on National Politics podcast. Megan Ryan is the head of Live Radio. Our intern this summer is Sasha Linden Cohen, Juliana Fonda, and Milton Ruiz at the audio controls. Remember we have live coverage of the debate tonight at 9:00. We'll talk about it on the show tomorrow morning at 10:00. Stay tuned for All Of It.

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