Are We There Yet?

I would like to report that my family travels well--that my three daughters do not bicker or pull hair or invent songs in which a sibling's name rhymes with smell-ah. And that our station wagon never veers from lane to lane as my husband peers over his shoulder to see whether the girls are cannibalizing one another in the back seat. But I would be lying. As summer approaches, I wonder whether we will survive another vacation.

For years, I have suspected that others among the 88 million families who take annual vacations know magical ways to transform an unruly brood...