Going Back to Kenya: Taking My Kids to Where They Began
My kids were born on the other side of the world. Going back isn't a vacation — it's bringing them to a place they don't remember but came from. Why the return matters more than any trip.
One of my kids asked me recently where she was born, the way kids ask things — mid-snack, not really looking up, expecting a one-word answer. I said "Kenya." She said "where's that." I said "very far away, near the ocean, and one day I'm going to take you there." She nodded and went back to her crackers, the entire exchange over in about fifteen seconds. I sat with it a lot longer than that. Because the answer is both completely true and completely enormous, and she has no idea yet how big it is. Somewhere in those fifteen seconds I stopped thinking of the trip as a someday and started thinking of it as a plan. We're going back.
They Came From Somewhere They Can't Remember
There's a strange, tender fact at the center of my kids' lives: their story started on a continent they have no memory of, among people they've never knowingly met. Their beginning is real and specific and located — a place with a name, an ocean, a smell, a set of faces — and to them right now it's just a word I say. "Kenya." Like it's the name of a color.
One day it won't be abstract. One day they'll want to stand in it. And I'd rather be the one who takes them than the one who only ever described it.
Why Go Back at All
It would be easier not to. It's a long, expensive, complicated trip to a place we don't live. But this isn't a vacation, and treating it like one misses the point. Going back is about connecting them to their own origin — not as a story I tell, but as a place they've felt under their feet. Their whole journey into the world ran through that country, through people who made my entire life possible, and I want my kids to know that beginning as something real, not folklore.
You can hand a kid their history in words. Or you can hand it to them in a place. The second one stays.
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What I Hope They Take From It
I'm not going for a lesson. I'm going to give them an inheritance — the simple, grounding knowledge that they started somewhere specific, that they were wanted enough to be brought into the world across an ocean, that their story has roots in real soil. I don't need them to understand all of it at five, or eight, or twelve. I just want it in them, the way a place you've been lives in you even when you can't articulate why.
Some of what we give our kids is explanation. Some of it is just standing them in the right spot and letting it soak in.
The Logistics Are Real
None of this is romantic when you're actually booking it. It's a serious trip — long-haul flights, big time zones, small kids, a long way from home and from anything familiar if something goes sideways. I don't pretend traveling that far with two little ones is easy; I've done enough big trips with them to respect exactly how much it takes. The planning is its own project. But "hard" and "worth it" have never been opposites in my house, and this is the clearest example I've got.
Going Far Is How You Root Them
Here's the counterintuitive part: taking kids across the planet isn't the opposite of giving them stability — it's part of how you build it. Roots aren't only about staying put. Sometimes they're about showing a child exactly where they come from so they can carry it everywhere they go. My kids will be more grounded, not less, for having stood in the place their story began. That's the whole reason we're getting on the plane.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why take young kids on such a long trip if they won't remember it?
Memory isn't the only thing that lasts. Standing somewhere that matters can shape a kid even if they can't recall the details later — and as a parent, being the one who brings them, rather than just describing it, changes the relationship to their own origin. Some of it is for them now; some is for the person they'll become.
How do you travel that far with twins?
The same way you do any big trip with little kids — serious planning, low expectations for any single travel day, and accepting that hard and worthwhile aren't opposites. Experience with long-haul family travel helps enormously; the first one teaches you most of what you need for the next.
What do you tell kids about where they were born?
The truth, scaled to their age. Start simple — a place, far away, near the ocean — and let the bigger story unfold as they get older and ask more. The goal isn't one perfect explanation; it's that their origin is never a secret or a source of anxiety.
Joseph Tito
Creator of The Dad Diaries. Gay dad of twins. Writing about fatherhood, surrogacy, and the beautiful mess of real life.
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