Mae didn’t want to go to see the monuments. We just had a fun lunch in Georgetown with her cousins and aunt and uncle, all of whom she rarely gets to see, and they were staying in Georgetown to shop. Why would she want to leave that and go visit monuments in DC? To her credit, she asked, but then dropped it, when I gave an unequivocal “no.” Of course I understood she would have much more fun being with her cousins walking around Georgetown, even with the ten year age gap. But it was a no-brainer—we were there to see DC, there was no doubt in my mind she was seeing the monuments, which she had never seen before. None of my kids had. We were fulfilling a long ago-made declaration that we would indeed travel from California to DC to see the monuments.
“Long ago”—our twenty year old son, Kieran, had the opportunity to take the annual eighth grade rite-of-passage-trip to see DC and the monuments. We had said an ironically opposite unequivocal “no” to that. He wanted to go with his classmates, and we easily made the argument that his dad is from DC; his grandparents and aunt and uncle and cousins still lived there. Why would we shell out over $2500 to fly him across the country for a forced march tour of the nation’s capital that we were sure no eighth grader would enjoy, when most likely we’d be visiting Tim’s family sometime in the next year or two and we could show him the monuments ourselves, with better tour guides (i.e. local family), definitely better food and accommodations, and better sleep (i.e. no bunking with three other eighth graders for five nights). An easy “no.”
By the time our middle child, Patrick’s, DC class trip rolled around in spring 2020, we still hadn’t made it to DC as a family yet, but something else rolled around that took care of the decision for us…Covid. Before the world succumbed to a pandemic, Patrick was already aware we weren’t signing him up for the trip. In retrospect it would’ve been wiser to say “yes” to the trip and then get the credit with Patrick, but who could’ve predicted a global disaster.
By 2022 the DC trips were back on, Covid be damned, and we still said no for our last child’s trip. I don’t even think at that point we cared if Mae wanted to go or not. It was a firmly established family tradition now–the Breens don’t do the DC class trip. We had precedent on our side.
A full five and a half years after we said to Kieran “we’ll be going to DC as a family soon,” we finally made the trip to DC in November of 2023. The reality of what our kids had missed, not getting that eighth grade education, sunk in when we learned Mae assumed “the Washington monument” was a statue of George Washington, and did not know the White House was where the President lived.
We got out of the car on a day that had started out sunny and pleasant when we left Northern Virginia but was now gray and cold, and walked towards the Lincoln Memorial, in good spirits, despite the kids seeming underwhelmed about the day ahead. We stood out front of the Lincoln Memorial, admiring the Washington Monument’s reflection in the reflection pool, Mae pretending like she was holding the monument in her hand for a photo while we, laughing at and with her, intentionally took photos of her not showing the monument in her hands. A pleasant family moment interrupted, walking up the steps, as Kieran said, “I’m not angry anymore, but for a long time I was really mad I missed the eighth grade trip. Everyone had a really good time.”
We snapped a few pics of Abe and headed back down the steps, all the while I grappled with what Kieran had said. At first I thought it was his revisionist history. I specifically remembered him saying, that eighth grade spring after the trip, that his friends had thought the trip was really boring. Back then I had felt vindicated about our decision. I had no memory after the trip of any guilt whatsoever about not sending him, like if he had told me all his friends said it was the best trip ever. But I felt a little guilt now as we were finally showing the kids DC five and a half years after the initial opportunity. Kieran was a sophomore in college. He had never visited the nation’s capital. Had that hamstrung him in any way? When the insurrection happened, did it seem like a far away place with no personal relevance to him, and therefore may not have touched a live wire in his soul like the rest of us, watching as our democracy got assaulted?
I chose to not worry about whether my version of history or his was correct; he was being adult enough to say it didn’t matter now that he hadn’t gone on the trip, so I wasn’t going to try to establish the correct version of history either. I was just happy to amble around the National Mall and have the kids hopefully soak in the history of the monuments, the sorrow and depth of the memorials, the sheer magnitude, as you looked across the reflecting pool, of what it means to be a part of all this, to be American. How lucky I am that my dad, who had gotten drafted for Vietnam, had a safe posting and wasn’t one of the thousands of names on that wall. How privileged my life has been, reading MLK’s words as he fought for equality for all people. How precious it was to spend a leisurely day with my kids, with two teenage sons, who I increasingly worried, with our world order upside down, could be drafted during their lifetime, a concern that used to seem as ridiculous and unlikely as a president who committed treason being reelected to the nation’s highest office. At the Korean War monument, reading “Freedom is not free” struck a profound note. So many dead during our young country’s existence, so much wrong in the world today that threatens our existence, everyone’s existence, in different and same ways, from international conflicts that draw America in, to prejudice and hate crimes, to global warming.
I don’t know if my kids were experiencing the day like I was, the feeling of being very small standing at the Mall, of being a speck in a nation’s somber and inspiring history, of how much we, as a family and as Americans, have and have to lose. I felt guilty for withholding this from them, this inspiration and gravity, an understanding of our place, and maybe a call to action. Or maybe they were seeing DC at exactly the right time, being older and more capable of understanding and absorbing the depth and significance. There was no unequivocal answer to that question, but we were there.
