I took a "Momcation" and have NO regrets
Last year, I waltzed into Walt Disney’s Magic Kingdom at the Emporium and asked for an “I’m Celebrating” button. On it, I asked the cast member to write “momcation.” They asked me to repeat myself and I just said, “like vacation, but replace the ‘V’ with ‘Mom.’” They smiled, handed me some Mickey Ears and off I went to enjoy my first momcation.
A 2018 study by Welch’s (yes the juice and fruit snack company) found that working moms work a staggering 98 hours or more per week. That equates to roughly 14 hours per day or 2.5 full-time jobs. And I can only imagine that number has increased since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of hybrid workplaces.
So I did what any mom would want to do. I treated myself to a much needed momcations and I have zero regrets (or guilt).
Most articles I found about momcations referred to “a vacation with other moms who understand the need for me time.” But seeing as how I didn’t become a mom until a few months before the pandemic, a momcation had never crossed my mind until my son became a toddler.
Amid the pandemic, job searching, and raising a tiny human, I spent those first years postpartum pretty down in the dumps so to speak. Three moves to two different states (one of those being near cross-country) had me yearning for a recharge unlike anything I’d ever felt before. Being a mom had me overstimulated, touched out in more ways than one, and stretched far thinner than I ever could have imagined at work.
Having also lost a job, experiencing unemployment ultimately became a blessing in disguise I didn’t know I needed. Eventually in the course of 18 months I landed two different jobs that moved us multiple times. I was searching for stability not just for me, but for our family, and something that would allow me to live my wildest dreams and be the parent I wanted to be. Our family had to lose everything for me to realize just how important our togetherness really was, and who I knew I could be.
Needless to say that from 2019 until summer 2023, I was a full-time mom, a full-time wife, and, starting in late 2020, I added being a full-time employee in higher education to that ever growing list. I went nonstop at all times and thought our “Little Fam Bam,” as I’ve affectionately referred to us, had to do everything together. We took drives, short trips, and longer vacations together as we found our new footing from Florida, to two different stops in Georgia, and eventually to Chicago, Illinois. All of this family time was never on my 2021 bingo card, but I’m forever grateful that I’m literally living some of my wildest dreams.
In 2022 my partner and I invested in some timeshare with a popular hotel company. I already know what you’re thinking, it must be a scam. But jokes on you though because when you travel as much as we like to eventually this hotel cost is zero cost, or we’re actually making money by playing the timeshare game smart.
My partner and I started talking in early 2023 about how to use the points we’d earned from our timeshare and decided that a family trip to Disney World would be our first thing. So off to Orlando we went! While there, I jokingly said to my partner (granted I was very overstimulated because Disney with a toddler is very different from just going as a couple) that we should take a “Momcation” and a “Dadcation.”
Curious, he inquired what I’d want to do, and me being the Disney lover that I am, I immediately said I’d come back to Orlando. That summer, I booked myself for four days (two travel days and two on the ground) doing just that.
Spoiler alert: Disney is SO magical as an adult, and even more magical when no one is telling you what you have to do. I met so many different kinds of people on my two-day adventure with my favorite rat. At the Crystal Palace for the Hundred Acre Wood Character Breakfast, Winnie the Pooh sat down and enjoyed chocolate chip french toast with me.
While in line to meet Ariel (1989 version), I was met by a mom who said her momcations were trips to the grocery store alone. I jokingly said that was mine most of the time—Costco alone with a Starbucks in hand (sorry, Target, I do share the love elsewhere, but you do share a parking lot with Costco just down the road). Later I was met by a man who said, “Woah, your partner let you do this?” Sir, let me do what? Be my own independent woman on a trip by herself trusting him to “handle it” while I was away. Y-E-S!
I met another woman on my most recent momcation… again to Disney World who called me a icon for doing this. My response: I have to take care of myself to take care of my people—no matter the facet of life. If taking care of myself makes me an icon, neat. I’ll never think that of myself, but to show to other moms that it’s possible to take time away for themselves and not feel guilty about it? Absolutely.
Lessons I learned while I was away? Too many to count. But here are a few of the important ones.
It’s okay to miss your family while you’re away. This was my first time away from both my partner and my son solely for me since his birth. All other trips had been for work, or with them prior to this.
It’s okay for you to not plan everything down to the last minute. I’m a chronic planner. Ask anyone and I’m always four steps ahead, and know what I’m doing likely a year from now. But it was okay to just have a hotel reservation, and a ticket to the park.
Trust your instinct. My partner and I have always approached the parenthood side of our marriage 50-50. I gave birth to our son, but he’s pulled a LOT of the legwork in raising him… and will change the diapers I didn’t want to, because boys are gross. I knew I could go away for a few days, and he could handle it. I might need to leave a few reminders on specifics, and even though I called five times a day,I totally didn’t need to. I just missed them. (It’s also okay to call ZERO times a day…you do you, boo!)
Two days wasn’t enough. I needed (and later took on a separate trip last week) three full days on the ground… again at my favorite rat that willingly lives in my wallet. Bonus: through plenty of trial, a couple of books in the work space, a healthy hand of grace (and a few conversations with my neighbor-mom friend), I finally started treating my anxiety with Zoloft. I've grown more as a person since last year and only called at bedtime each night. Because I knew he could handle it and… you guessed it—trusted my instinct.
Go alone. At the start of this article I mentioned that it was women getting together with other women and taking a trip together. Sure that also sounds nice… and I know I’m going to go and blab about my kid and my partner. Going alone gave me courage I didn’t know I had until I had to. I ate alone at restaurants, I shopped until I nearly dropped, I didn’t (gasp) call every hour home to check in. I went alone and checked in with Deb… she’d been missing for a while, and it was nice to find her again.
To the dads who are reading this: don’t worry, my partner took his dadcation a few months later to the place that recharges him… Universal Studios, and he’s had a stay-at-home dadcation. We’ve committed to (and budgeted for) this part of our journey every year, be it a staycation and one stays home while the other takes our kid on a special trip, or we take ourselves on one. We discovered that to be our best selves, we have to take care of ourselves. And for us that means that we need to unplug from the responsibilities of parenthood, work existence, chores, and life… and just do something that fills our bucket.
Prioritizing myself and scheduling annual momcations has definitely made me a better mom, wife, friend and colleague. Counter to what society often tells us, self-care is not selfish. As a mom, it’s essential. I highly recommend every mom finds the courage and support to take a momcation. You deserve it, mama.
Deb is a mom of 1 (5 1/2 years old) who has worked for the past 15 years in higher education in both student housing and Greek life. Outside of work, she enjoys all things Disney, baking, and college football (Go, Dawgs!). You can also find her often watching grainy livestreams of Taylor Swift concerts, booking the family’s next Disney trip, and making sure there are more Lightning McQueen’s present in her house than her son knows what to do with.
