“Being a parent and traveling have something in common: Both open up new perspectives.” So far, so potentially banal. But Katharina Finke has a very unusual story to tell about the attempt to lead life according to your own ideas and at the same time wanting the best for your child.
While other children play in the backyard or in the zoo, Finke’s daughter Yva gets to see penguins, elephant seals and armadillos in the great outdoors in Patagonia before her second birthday, has deserts as sandpits, sleeps, screams and laughs in buses, ships and airplanes. There are hardly more than a few finger dolls as toys, because Finke always gives preference to experiences over possession.
The freelance journalist also found this outlook on life through traveling. She has lived in New York, Beijing and Lisbon and has seen almost every continent. Since 2012 she has only lived on two suitcases and a backpack, parting with almost everything else except for her bicycle and a moving box. She also published the book “Let go”. She wrote the sequel “Losleben” during the pandemic from Berlin – as a review of three adventurous years and as a very personal inventory of the family.
“Completely sure that I can do it”
The pregnancy surprised her and her partner in Myanmar. Finke is 31 and initially shocked: “My life is over now,” was one of her first thoughts. But the overwhelming demand quickly turns into the desire to make this change the best. She repeatedly quotes Astrid Lindgren, for example with the sentence: “Freedom means that you don’t have to do everything like other people.” Finke tells about pregnancy, childbirth and family life along the places where she experiences them. With a baby and parasites in her, she returns to Berlin from India, after many worries the daughter is born healthy there.
What follows is not a glamor story of the casual young couple who jets around with or in spite of their children. It is the story of a woman who “doesn’t stop herself from fear”, but wants to be guided by the Pippi Longstocking motto: “I’ve never tried that before, so I’m absolutely sure that I can do it.” Finke barely leaves out a single detail in the book, either out of shame or in favor of an arc of tension. Packing lists with the exact number of baby bodysuits and tights are listed as well as annoyed discussions next to the nagging child, the imposition of driving on gravel roads or a hike through the cold and hail with the ailing one-year-olds. There are also delicate moments that shape the tours through Europe and South America.
Wondering how others deal with it
Finke knows that she can never do it all when it comes to the hot topic of family. “I talk about other options for family life and parenting and I want to give inspiration,” she writes. But she is also looking for inspiration and advice herself. Whenever Finke doubts her own priorities, she tries to create a better basis for decision-making by comparing it with other educational cultures or scientific studies. Those who follow her through the book will actually learn interesting facts about obstetrics, parental leave regulations, playground standards, pressure to perform, gender roles and their changes in countries such as China, Portugal and France, in Poland and Argentina.
And as much as it is a matter of taste to get an insight into the most private moments, almost in the style of a diary, the narrative also captivates with its variety of perspectives. “I wonder how other mothers and fathers deal with it, which is exactly why I am so grateful for the exchange with parents from other countries,” writes Finke – and in times of completely poisoned debates, one is grateful to her for this calm approach. Thanks to her many contacts and stations, the author can actually compare parenting on an intercultural level and let very different people have their say.
Almost incidentally, “Losleben” is also about the strife of a world traveler with her own climate balance. It is not easy for Finke to get away from flying, but by the end of the story she will have been on the ground for two years. Not because of the pandemic, politics or family constraints, as she emphasizes. But because she wanted it that way.