When the Fantasy of a “Fun” Family Outing Is Far from the Reality
We must’ve been out of our strawberry-picking minds
“Are you taking the kids to pick strawberries?”
I was asked this question dozens of times leading up to June one year. It seemed to be the ultimate summer experience out here in our faraway suburb.
The only fruit I’d ever picked were apples on a school field trip as a kid. (Which seemed more like child labor because the farm kept the bushels of apples we picked and let us only take one to eat.)
I’d never experienced strawberry picking. My mom had been either too busy or not about to haul three children an hour away to pick strawberries when she could go to the grocery store and buy some.
But where was the fun or magic in that?
When I began seeing pictures of people having what looked like magical experiences with their children — smiling with strawberry-juice-tinged lips and merrily posing in an oversized red Adirondack chair — the excitement built in me, and I thought, I must have that!
My oldest, who was eight then, didn’t seem incredibly excited at the prospect of strawberry picking.
“Can’t we just buy them?” he asked.
I figured he just couldn’t imagine how amazing it would be. That, or he didn’t want to sacrifice any video game playing time.
“It’s an experience,” I told him, ignoring his protests.
His two-year-old brother seemed on board as long as he could take a LEGO minifigure. One that happened to be my oldest son’s. Who complained he didn’t want his little brother to take it and lose it.
“He won’t lose it,” I insisted.
I checked the website for the next few days to find the perfect strawberry-picking conditions. When that day arrived, I ushered the kids into the car and exclaimed, “This is going to be fun!!”
Arriving at our destination, my youngest was asleep in his car seat. My oldest son suggested we go home. I pretended I didn’t hear him and searched for parking, finally finding a spot in a grassy lot that had to be a mile away from our destination. I hoped my littlest would wake up because I didn’t want to carry him the long distance. Then a mom walked by pulling a wagon with her two little kids in it.
I was clearly out of my league as a first-time strawberry picker.
I managed to wake him up. After promises of enjoying the much-advertised strawberry donut shake I’d seen on the website, he reluctantly agreed to walk on his own.
A massive line of parents and kids awaited us when we arrived at the building. Please be for something else, I wished. No such luck. It was a line for the wagons that rode you out to the field. I got in line, hoping my kids wouldn’t notice how long it was.
They noticed right away. And the complaints began from the oldest, while the youngest kept wandering off. When I heard a woman complain the line hadn’t budged in the last 15 minutes, I looked around to see if there was someone I could pay off to let us skip ahead.
There wasn’t.
Waiting in the hot sun made my kids a bit cranky. So when we were next to the big red chair I’d seen dozens of happy kids sitting in posted all over my social media feed, my kids refused to take a picture. It took a lot of talking — and a little bribery — to finally get them to relent and sit in the chair together. Forcing smiles out of them took extra.
It’s all about the experience, I thought.
Finally, we arrived at the front of the line, were handed our cardboard boxes to collect our strawberry bounty, and driven out to the field by a tractor-pulled wagon. A farm worker gave a robotic rundown on strawberry picking etiquette before ushering us off to find a row to pick our strawberries.
“Isn’t this great!?” I asked as we knelt down to begin picking strawberries. I’d gotten a carton for each of us, positive everyone would want to fill their own.
After a few minutes, my two-year-old declared he was done. I looked into his carton and saw six sad strawberries. I told him he had to fill it with more than that. He shook his head and pulled out the LEGO minifigure he’d brought along, making her climb strawberry plants instead.
Shortly after that, my oldest asked if he could be done as he showed me his half-filled carton.
I wasn’t ready to be done. I’d planned on us making Pinterest-worthy jams, smoothies, desserts, and whatever else you were supposed to do with a few pounds of fresh strawberries. When I asked him to keep going a little longer, my eight-year-old muttered something under his breath that sounded like “forced child labor.”
I looked around, wondering if I was the only one with two subordinate children. Someone was chasing her wandering kid through the rows. Someone else kept hissing at her child to stop eating the strawberries. And some seemed to be having the magical experience I’d pictured me and my boys having — or they were just really good at faking it.
“Can we be done?” my oldest whined.
Having filled my carton and added to my two-year-old’s, I figured it was probably better to go before someone had a meltdown. Me included.
“Uh oh.”
These are words you never want to hear your two-year-old utter.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
The eight-year-old instantly knew what the matter was.
“Where’s my Lego?”
My two-year-old vaguely gestured to the expanse of strawberry patch.
Oh no. I tried to avoid eye contact with the eight-year-old, who was fuming and had an “I told you so!” expression plastered on his face.
I started scanning the plants for the minifigure, already prepared to offer to buy a new one as the hot sun pounded down on us. The two-year-old wasn’t looking, which made my oldest son even angrier. Instead, he tried eating the strawberries, which violated rule #3. And got upset when I told him we had to pay for them first.
I wasn’t sure I would make it out of that strawberry field alive, with one son irate about his missing minifigure and another fighting me about strawberry consumption. As I contemplated making a break for it when I saw the wagon approaching to take people back, my oldest son found the missing minifigure.
Thank you, strawberry gods, I thought. I quickly snatched up the cartons and herded the kids to the wagon.
Once dropped off, we walked to the store to weigh and pay for the strawberries. I opened the door to total chaos and more long lines. Oh, fun, another part of the experience.
While we stood in a line I horribly misjudged to be faster than the others, all sorts of sweets and treats caught my kids’ eyes.
“Can we have this?” No.
“What about this?” No.
“Puh-lease!!!!!!”
To avoid losing my mind, I relented to buying some strawberry donuts. We finally made it to the cashier, and I was shocked to see just how much some strawberry-picking memories added up to.
It’s all about the experience! I told myself for the dozenth time that day.
After I shelled out my money, we made our way to another line to buy the much-promised strawberry donut milkshakes, which looked rather large. I told my boys they could share one. They insisted they each needed their own to ensure they had enough.
So I bought two, and we made our way outside to a table where my sons happily drank their milkshakes for all of a few minutes before declaring they were full and couldn’t finish because it was “way too much.”
They offered their milkshakes to me, which I couldn’t drink because I’m lactose-intolerant and didn’t feel like adding diarrhea to my list of regrets for the day.
I asked if they were sure they didn’t want any more several times before pitching the milkshakes. As we cleaned up our trash, I remembered the long walk ahead of us to the car. Which had grown even farther away as I carried three cartons of strawberries and a box of donuts.
Once there, I sank into the driver’s seat with relief after buckling my kids into their car seats.
“Did you have fun?” I asked as we drove off.
“Where’s my milkshake?” my youngest asked, clearly forgetting he’d sworn on his stuffed animals’ lives that he’d been finished.
Thankfully, he was distracted by a second LEGO minifigure of his brother’s he’d smuggled along and discovered in his pocket. So I didn’t have to say a word.
After a couple of days, my kids proclaimed they were sick of strawberries, and my big plans for making jam and other delights turned into freezing the strawberries “for later.” (I think there’s still a bag in our freezer somewhere.) It’s okay. It was all about the experience, not the jam.
The reality of that day faded from my mind with the seasons. And when June arrived the following year, and I saw the posts about strawberry picking season and the pictures I’d coerced my kids to take with promises of donut shakes and riches, I did what anyone who had an underwhelming experience forcing their kids to pick strawberries would do.
I asked, “Do you guys want to go strawberry picking?!” as if my mind had been erased of all the negative moments from a year ago.
It seems theirs had, too, because they enthusiastically responded, “YES!”
I believe the experience would be a lot more awesome this year Carol. Maybe you could tease them with something that would make them come.
Strawberries are meant to be sweet not sore...
Thank you for sharing this with us. I felt like I was reading an entire ordeal and I was right there in the corners watching everything.