Double outfits for children, food reserve, XXL pharmacy kit … The way to suit your suitcase often hides much more than foresight, according to a psychoanalyst.
Before each departure on vacation, a ritual is repeated in thousands of households: packs the suitcases. A trivial gesture? Not really. For psychoanalyst Christian Richomme, he says a lot “On our way of living, loving, protecting us”. Parents are on the front line. Having a suitcase is not just filling a bag: it is juggling between fear of forgetting, desire to do well and stress. A real mental charge, often carried by mothers. Some go there a week before, lists in hand, clothes rolled, outfits “in case” and XXL first aid kit.
Éloïse, mother of a 3 -year -old boy, is one of those very provident mothers: “During our last family trip, in a foreign country, I took the double of outfits for the little one, compotes, snacks, a full pharmacy kit … All this in case it vomits, in case it gets dirty, in case it is hungry or falls sick … Result: an entire suitcase just for him”, she told us. It’s quite revealing. According to an Easyjet study of 2023, 63 % of women recognize too much business on vacation “just in case”. And 1 in 3 French people, however, forget an essential object.
Others wait the day before, even the same morning, to throw in a hurry in a bag some clothes, a toothbrush, a blanket, hoping that everything else follows. Between the two, there are those who want to plan everything and end up on their suitcase, fighting to bring a last pair of shoes “in case”. These strategies are not trivial. They can reveal “Our interior wounds, our unconscious needs or our deep desires”, underlines the expert. Those who anticipate almost obsessively seek to control everything, to avoid any possible flaw. “It is a response to anxiety in the face of the unknown, a need for absolute security”he explains. Conversely, the followers of the all-to-money-minute sometimes translate “An emotional disinvestment, a refusal to engage in the departure or a form of denial of the reality of the trip”.
And what can we say about what we take in these suitcases? Wasted stuffed animals, notebooks never used, four novels for five days, outfits that will not be put. For Christian Richomme, “The suitcase becomes a transitional object: it contains not only objects, but also our security, our provisional identities”. In other words, it reassures. “Too full, it can symbolize a fear of facing the void, of missing or an inability to choose”explains the psychoanalyst. This is the case with many parents. A lightened suitcase, conversely, can reflect a need for detachment or a desire to prove yourself that you don’t need anything, “Even if this nothing is sometimes a avoidance”.
