Donna McIntyre: Through the eyes of a child

Viewing the world through kids' fresh eyes so often highlights prejudices and preconceived ideas we adults unconsciously carry around. Illustration / Richard Dale

Opinion

Travelling with her savvy children gives Donna McIntyre new perspectives.

If it hadn't been for the kids, we wouldn't have gone to the 4D Gaudi Experiencia show down the road from Park Guell in Barcelona. We pondered why we were paying to sit in a dark room and watch something about the works we had just seen when it was sunny outside and there was so much more to see of the city.

But our teenage son's friend had said the show was the best thing he had seen in Barcelona. He was right; the presentation gave an insight to the brilliance of this 19th-century free thinker as the technology unscrambled and rebuilt rockfaces and foliage into the unconventional building designs of Antoni Gaudi.

And even more incredible for our kids, who have never not known technology, was that Gaudi drew with pencils and paper. No SketchUp website then, no PlayStations, no TVs, just imagination and sheer brilliance.

Such are the rewards of travelling with kids. At times it can be frustrating they can't see past a McDonald's when there is so much local fare to taste. But the kids notice things we don't see, from when they are little and we need to understand that being in a crowded street in a pushchair looking only at people's legs and bottoms isn't that much fun. No wonder kids wail to be lifted out of their pushchairs sometimes to gain a higher perspective.

Viewing the world through their fresh eyes so often highlights prejudices and preconceived ideas we adults unconsciously carry around.

Our youngest can work out which train, what time and what platform we need while we are still searching the schedules board for our destination.

When he was younger he defused the tension of being stuck in a French bouchon sur l'autoroute by announcing from his car seat in the back, "We're stuck." Frustration turned to laughter and there was nothing else we could do apart from edging forward and singing kids' songs.

Another time he pointed out that one parent was waiting for a flight in the wrong terminal.

I'm certain we wouldn't have turned up for a flight a day late if our travel-savvy young companions had been old enough to read and double-check our itinerary. (They always do now!) They help as we clumsily navigate iPhones and inflight entertainment systems. They pronounce foreign words much closer to the accents of the land than my strong Kiwi accent ever allows me to do; they notice landmarks we are oblivious to.

They remind me, too, to take it easy when I sometimes try to cram in too much sightseeing ... their little red faces sweating buckets convinced us to ditch our walking tour of Singapore's Chinatown at noon for an air-conditioned taxi ride back to our hotel and a refreshing swim.

They can be a tad non-PC, playing the burger boy challenge to spot the most obese person of the day and pointing out the similarity of a shop assistant to sidesplitting comedian Miranda just before I made a purchase. "Such fun", especially as the Miranda double wouldn't stop talking while my daughter was doubled over laughing, out of the assistant's line of sight but definitely in mine.

We've been persuaded to eat in places we wouldn't have stopped at ... and enjoyed, we've met people who wouldn't have spoken to us if we had been travelling only with adults.

Such fun ... from the Gaudi show, impromptu hilarity and the kindness of strangers, all thanks to travelling with young companions.

That's why I hope I'll never frown a furrowed brow at other parents travelling with babies and little children as I sometimes see other travellers do. Some people seem to forget we were all young once.