Why do family holidays turn me into a sulky teenager again?
I have no idea if Ram Dass really said this. Just as I'm not sure if the Dalai Lama ever said: 'Don't let the behaviour of others destroy your inner peace.' Or whether Oscar Wilde believed the words he put into the mouth of Lord Illingworth in A Woman of No Importance: 'Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.' But as someone in the middle of a family holiday, I can certainly attest that any delusions about maturity, levity and inner tranquility are thrown firmly down the proverbial U-bend the moment you embark on a Big Family Trip.
If you are lucky enough to have living parents, siblings and children, then the chances are that at least some of your summer will be spent sharing a sofabed with someone who has your eyebrows, if not your surname. A survey by Legal and General found that 46% of those asked think it is important to go on a multigenerational family trip (including immediate and extended family), although 30% of respondents said they feel 'stressed' by the prospect of a family holiday – rising to 47% of parents and guardians of children aged under 18.
I can practically smell the Sudocrem, polyester sleeping bags and cheese-and-onion crisps coming off those statistics as I type. Yes, we hire cottages by the sea; yes, we pitch up in fields full of thistles; yes, we slither into new cities, laden down with phone chargers and spare sandals, but we are stressed, sad and sulking while we do it. This is August; this is what we do.
Which is where the faltering sense of identity comes in. As inevitable as red wine slopping on to a white carpet, the moment you are in the midst of your family (whether it is the one you grew up with, your chosen family or the ones you have created), you will find yourself reverting to a personality that you thought you had shed decades ago. Perhaps that means standing by the fridge, eating a cold sausage 20 minutes before lunch. Maybe it is taking your sister's T-shirt without asking and promptly covering it in blackberry juice. It could be leaning out of a toilet window overlooking your uncle's water butt, secretly smoking a cigarette and wondering if you should text that person you once snogged outside Morrisons but never slept with. Whatever the details, you will regress. Your temper will shorten. Your healthy eating regime will be blasted to smithereens by custard creams and Kellogg's variety packs.
Of course, not everyone aspires to enlightenment. I may have grown up in the sort of family where astrological charts, transcendental meditation and yogic breathing were as much a part of daily life as EastEnders and Anchor butter, but I'm not interested in becoming enlightened, and never have been. Instead of devoting myself to a journey towards universal consciousness and inner peace, I spent much of my 20s and even 30s hoping to one day be cool. And let me tell you, family holidays pretty much scupper that too. Nobody looks sexy on a water slide; it's impossible to feel elegantly rebellious while washing up in a bucket; and you cannot retain an air of mystique when your mum is loudly insisting that she should be given a free pot of hot water in a cafe because she has 'brought a teabag from home'.
So, this August, forget inner peace and outer sophistication. If you are going on holiday with your family, my advice is to add some people you are not related to (our best holidays by far have always included friends, their children, partners and other couples) or take up a labour-intensive cleaning schedule. For, as Zinedine Zidane* once said: 'Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.'
*It was either Zinedine Zidane or Zen Buddhism – the pages of my dictionary of quotations are stuck together.
Nell Frizzell is a journalist and author
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