In 1977, Joan Didion decided to take her 11-year-old daughter Quintana Roo on book tour. There is a part of travel that can ​bring out the worst in us as parents​, as we’ve talked about. ​The “airport” version of us comes out​—the one who is stressed and rushed, anxious and short with our kids. You can imagine Joan Didion, as unflappable as she was, falling prey to this. She was going to be, after all, performing night after night, day after day, in front of reporters and audiences on top of all of the indignities of travel.

But she didn’t.

Instead, she took her daughter aside at the beginning of the trip and told her, “We are going to miss planes, we are going to lose luggage, we are going to miss meals.” But what will we do?, Q asked in surprise. “We will stay calm,” her mother told her, “because everything will work out. We will be fine.”

Can you say that to yourself? Can you say that to your kids? Things are going to go wrong. Trips almost never go exactly as planned. But so what? As we’ve said, ​this is part of it.​ This is an opportunity to spend time together. This is a chance to experience things. It’s also a chance, as Didion was showing her daughter, to be resilient and to handle your business. It’s a chance to show them that everything is going to be fine.

Because you’re going to make sure it’s fine.

P.S. For more wisdom about embracing life’s unpredictability with calm assurance, ​The Year of Magical Thinking​ and ​Blue Nights​ are really great parenting books disguised as memoirs (​grab both at the Painted Porch!​). ​And over at the Daily Stoic Podcast​, Ryan spoke with Evelyn McDonnell, ​who wrote an excellent biography on Didion​, about how staying calm can be contagious and preparing for emergencies as a parent.