FGC First-Timer's Tips for Parents

Last year, a couple of moms from my monthly meeting went to FGC Gathering with their kids for the first time. I take my kids most years, and these moms kept saying to me, tiredly, "How do you do this?" and suggesting I write up tips telling moms how to make it look easy and fun, like I apparently do. This year, the Gathering is a mere two hours from us, and I hope and expect more families will take advantage of that to attend, so I thought I maybe I would try to write something.

Sadly, I'm not sure that what works for me and my kids, and makes Gathering one of our favorite parts of the year, applies to anyone else. For instance, I had attended Yearly Meeting, FGC Gathering, and FLGBTQC events for years before I started having kids. This meant that by the time Eric and I attended Gathering together when he was about 14 months old, I had many friends and acquaintances. For me, having lots of people to say hello to, even just passing on the path, means I don't end up feeling isolated because caring for kids keeps me away from some activities.

Having attended in the past means that not only do you know people, but you know the Gathering, its basic offerings and schedule, and don't have to waste energy on figuring out how it works. Your kids, having been there several times, also know the check-in routine, and they know how much they have to look forward to, which makes the dull arrival-check-in-and-unpacking part more manageable for them. So my first piece of advice would be, "Go back in time and attend on your own a half-dozen times first; it really helps."

If that's not practical, there are usually many Red Cedar Friends around. So the first piece of advice I would give any parent attending for this first time is: Don't be afraid to ask for help. People from my meeting have sometimes watched my kids for an hour or two so I can grab a nap, or helped the kids fetch their food at meals (the cafeteria can be the most challenging part of the Gathering), or invited my kids to their table so I can eat my lunch in peace.

I have gotten so good at asking for help that, especially in the cafeteria, I have almost no qualms about asking complete strangers for small favors. Friendly strangers have refilled our drink glasses, sat with one kid while I ran another to the bathroom, and bussed our table. Usually they seem happy to be asked, and to help. Only once did the person I asked seem the least bit taken aback, but even that person collected himself and said he was more than happy.

I had to learn the asking-for-help lesson the hard way over several years--I used to be so invested in seeming capable I would say "No, thank you" even when I was juggling two cafeteria trays, my toddler had just disappeared behind the drinks station, and my older kid was sitting cross-legged in the line of traffic declaring that he would not eat anything at all if they didn't have grilled cheese sandwiches. The day Carl threw up on me in a very crowded and public place got me over my misplaced sense of self-sufficiency, but you don't need to wait for that extreme. Don't make things harder for yourself than they have to be, please. Ask for help with small things before you even think you need it, and it will help preserve your energy and sanity.

You will be housed near other families with kids, and can request to be near families you know from home. Even if you don't know the parents nearby, be friendly and get to know them. Leave the door to your room open and say hello when they pass by. If you and your kids are going out to ride bikes or throw a ball around after lunch, invite the kids from down the hall, too. Then, when that family is playing frisbee the next day, they'll invite your kids, and you can have a little quiet, or take a nap.

My third piece of advice would be to take your kids' needs, and yours, seriously. Until this last year, we missed a lot of activities because too much time with people can just be overwhelming for Eric the Introvert, and so we usually chose to spend our afternoons either quietly in our room or doing something together just as a family, like taking a walk or riding bikes. We missed out on Family Center activities like story time, we never got to play capture the flag, and we've never been on a field trip. But we didn't go insane from over-scheduling, which is important for us. (Last year, eight-year-old Eric surprised me by being much better able to handle the groups, and choosing to spend even our available free time with his friends instead of having down time.)

We also usually prioritize getting enough sleep, which means that no matter how interested I am in the plenaries, I probably can't hope to get to more than one, or at the very most two. This was true even before I had kids, and is even more true now that I do.

I'm also the person who, last year, rolled my own fridge into the dorm on a hand truck, and I'll do it again this year, because being able to have an occasional lunch in our room instead of going to the cafeteria can give us a really welcome break. This is how seriously I take the idea of making sure we can get our needs met. (Also, having a cold can of sparkling water to offer other moms near the end of the their rope does wonders for building relationships.)

My third piece of advice applies to anyone, really, and it is: Accept that you can't do everything. There is great stuff happening at the Gathering starting with 7 a.m. yoga and ending with contra dancing until midnight. It helps me to start thinking even before I arrive about what I want to prioritize. This year, I'm leading a workshop, so being fresh for that is important, and that probably means no late nights. There's a field trip I'd like to take the kids on, so that may mean planning a quiet afternoon the day before so they're up for it. I used to try always to attend FLGBTQC worship, but it ends at 5:30. Last summer I discovered that if the kids and I go to dinner when the cafeteria first opens at 5, it's much less crowded and we cope much better. (Not everyone is as bothered by the cafeteria as we are; as a group, we're awfully sensitive to noise and crowds.) So getting to the cafeteria at 5 became a higher priority for me than worship, at least on most days.

My fourth piece of advice is to not be too discouraged by the rough moments. I have learned, from many years now of traveling with my kids to the yearly meeting, FLGBTQC Midwinters, and the summer gathering, that a low point for me is right after arrival time, when the kids are wired and wild from being in the car, and I'm worn out from driving, and the unloading seems impossible. It is very common for me to think, "Why did we come? This is not going to be any fun at all. I don't know why I put us through this year after year." Your moments of discouragement may be different, but it's a long conference and there are likely to be low points. Don't make too much of them, and ask for help when they come along.

Just in case anybody thinks I'm super-good at this and never lose it, I'll tell a story from the Gathering in 2008. Yehva was not quite a year old, and it was my first Gathering with all three kids. The cafeteria at that Gathering was the worst ever in terms of crowding, noise, and horrible traffic flow between the six different stations you had to go to for the various parts of your meal (I saw a woman from my meeting who didn't even have kids almost reduced to tears by that cafeteria, if that tells you anything). In addition, I'd injured my knee and couldn't walk distances. Was that also the year I'd had emergency oral surgery the day before we left? Yes, I think it was. So...challenging.

The dorm they put FLGBTQC folks in was charming--one of the best we've had for group hanging-out space close to the bedrooms, so parents could put kids to bed and then go down and visit with grownups. But the walls were like paper--you could hear conversations two rooms away as if the people were standing next to you. Since all the families with kids were in one hallway, this made getting your kids settled challenging.

One day, about halfway through the week, I was trying to do something impossible like get Yehva down for a nap, and Eric was "stuck." When Eric gets stuck, it means that none of the available options are acceptable to him, and he can't accept new ideas. He has lost all flexibility and is demanding, loud, whiny, weepy. I was tired, cranky, out of clever peaceful parenting ideas, and right on the verge of losing it, when there was a knock on our door. It was our friend Jude, from a few rooms down the hall. "Hi!" she said. "The girls and I were just thinking of taking a walk and wondered if Eric and Carl wanted to come with us!" "Yes! Yes, they do!" I said, and pushed them firmly out the door.

I don't know for sure whether Jude and her daughters were really just thinking of going for a walk and thought the boys might like to go along, or whether she heard the escalating noise and thought, "I'd better get in there right now, or Su's going to end up smacking one of those kids," but either way, she saved me from a regrettable thing. Single-parenting your kids at the Gathering is not the easiest thing you'll ever do, perhaps. But, for us, it's always been worth it, and we always want to go back.

Which brings me to my final piece of advice: Make a habit of it if you can. For me, the Gathering got better and better the more times I went; my first Gathering was only OK, and wouldn't have been compelling to me if I hadn't happened to be in a workshop that was a very good fit for me and from which I was learning many exciting new things. But over the years, for me, more and more pieces of it are worthwhile. Two years ago was the first time I had a workshop that just didn't speak to me, but it was more than made up for by the great time I had with kids that year (not just my own), and with my adult friends, and singing Sacred Harp.

For the boys, too, attending over the years has made the Gathering better. They are used to the things that are hard or tiring about it, and ever-more-excited about the stuff they like. They have old friends both among the adults and the kids, though especially among the kids, and both Carl and Eric will talk excitedly about looking forward to seeing certain friends again.

I know the Gathering is expensive; if it weren't so close to home, and if I weren't getting a cost reduction for leading a workshop, and if my Quaker meeting weren't contributing $720 for my kids to attend, we wouldn't be able to go this year. We'd go a lot less often if I weren't a stay-at-home mom, but had a job with limited vacation time, or if we had family out-of-state and needed to save vacation time and money for visiting them, as I know some families in our meeting do.

But it is worth it, in my experience. As well as deepening your own relationship to Quakerism, exposing you to Quakers from outside your own monthly meeting with all their quirks and different points of view, and giving you the opportunity to get together with possibly the only 12 liberal unprogrammed Friends who share some interest or concern with you, getting your children out into the wider Quaker world can be life-changing for them.

Edited to add:

Don't be shy about asking for financial help. Even though FGC does everything they can to keep costs down, like offering a family rate for registrations, letting the little kids eat for free, this year even experimenting with making the Gathering one day shorter, the cost really adds up. Your monthly meeting may have travel funds, and FGC offers scholarship assistance. The last couple of years, our family has been experiencing tight cash flow, and we've been helped by FGC scholarship funds. Don't be shy about asking for it; that's what it's there for. Someday when you have a little extra, you can offer it to the scholarship fund as a contribution when you register. This year, I didn't need to ask for scholarship help; next year, I hope we can contribute a little to the fund when we register.