Do you suppose the Doctor’s vacations ever go to plan?

There have been a few times here and there where we’ve witnessed him taking his various Companions off to some particular (intended) place and time for the sole purpose of relaxation and recreation. Most often, the results are less than ideal, as the TARDIS crew gets pulled into some brand of local trouble.

For example, in the eponymous tale, the Fourth Doctor took Romana II to the Leisure Hive to make use of its famous facilities. Of course, they find themselves smack in middle of serious political machinations instead. More recently, Ten took Rose off to New¹⁵ York in New Earth, only to discover something seriously wrong with the medical research facility. Even when he merely takes a moment out of his otherwise full schedule to fish (see, e.g., The Androids of Tara or The Two Doctors), things soon go all wahooney-shaped.

So I couldn’t help but wonder this week, as my extended family gathered for our quasi-periodic escape from the mundane, whether or not we’d be doomed to the same fate. With three young kids, life is always an adventure. Sometimes someone slips off the dock into the lake, and has to be showered and changed unexpectedly. Sometimes disappointment leads to screaming, which leads to being further denied the original object of desire. Sometimes someone feels left out of a mutual game, and exhaustion escalates the hurt.

And of course every household’s rules are different. In one house, pets get fed off the table; in the other, they don’t. In one house, we dip little pancakes by hand into a puddle of syrup on our plates; in the other, we pour syrup over the pancakes and use forks. In one house, it’s time to climb into bed at 7:30; in the other, it’s time at 8:30.

While the fate of an entire world never rests in our hands, we adults can often feel overwhelmed by our circumstances just as the Doctor and his friends do. Similarly, we muddle through to the best of our abilities, and strive to focus on the positives of human nature rather than the negatives of a particular situation. After all, these kids won’t always be 8; we should both appreciate the uniqueness of this phase of their lives and allow them the freedom just to be kids.

That’s the kind of thing the Doctor excels at, whether he’s in the thick of things or not. Let’s hope we can follow his example.