My holiday was full of tantrums and hangry meltdowns. And it wasn’t the kids who were to blame | Emma Beddington

For 20 years I have made sure everyone gets where they need to be, with the least possible drama. Now suddenly I’m the one who needs looking after, writes Emma Beddington

We’re just back from a family holiday to Japan and after two decades, I’ve developed clear ideas about who does what on these trips. Historically, my husband has been responsible for energetic fun, ensuring we get everywhere too early, asking strangers questions the rest of us are too shy to ask, and keeping hold of all passports. My responsibilities are minutely researched accommodation and food choices, worrying about somehow causing offence, and taking my spouse for an early-morning coffee so our sons can sleep past 6am. They, at least in their teenage years, were mostly focused on staying in bed for as long as possible, crushing our excesses of enthusiasm and finding wifi. That only made the moments when they joined in with energetic fun, enjoyed the obscure bakery I marched them to or conceded that it had been a decent holiday all the sweeter.

But the greatest certainty over the past 20 years was that we were the grownups: in charge, making decisions, handling logistical snafus and emotional upheavals. When one of the kids got upset about the treatment of a street dog or had a hangry meltdown, when they lost their chargers or favourite Pokémon cards, we had the answers.

Although at 22 and 24, our boys are way beyond the sulking and screen time aggro phase, planning this trip, I never questioned that it would be business as usual. After months of agonising over the itinerary, booking accommodation and activities, we arrived jet-lagged but confident, ready to give the kids (and the eldest’s girlfriend) the holiday of a lifetime.

I lost that confidence instantly the next morning in Tokyo, when my husband shook me awake, drooling and bleary: I had somehow slept for 12 hours, causing everyone to nearly miss breakfast. Because it turns out that my sons are the adults now – well-travelled, competent, with functioning brains – and their ageing parents have become the children.

Extraordinary, astonishing Japan is no country for a menopausal woman who barely leaves home and finds keeping track of a single door key impossible, it transpires. The trip felt like a giant escape room: an overstimulating, overwhelmingly confusing succession of puzzles to decode. I was sweatily baffled by bullet train barriers, cryptic talking and singing appliances, Pentagon-worthy Airbnb entry systems and the QR code-enabled Japanese menus I needed to navigate to order a coffee. By day three, my brain short-circuited and I entered a state of childlike passivity, leaving my sons to manage translation, navigation and negotiation – “I can’t cope” became my daily mantra.

My husband was less of a problem child than me, but not trouble-free. Employing his navigational (indeed life) mantra “race off first, ask questions later” meant our sons were often forced to retrieve him after he disappeared in totally arbitrary directions. His general vibe is also, it would be fair to say, “stressy” – I rapidly grew familiar with our sons’ expressions of forbearance as they reassured him over missed metro stops, tight timings and impossible-to-find taxis. We were both also babyishly prone to dramatic blood sugar crashes and needed regular refuelling with coffee (“Oh God, it’s another QR code – HELP ME”).

My planning also proved toddler-like in its incompetence. Lowlights included an Airbnb the size and shape of a bus shelter and the “glamping” site barbecue that gave my son’s girlfriend catastrophic food poisoning (“I thought I was dying,” she said, and she’s a nurse, so she’d know). There was also the time on a road trip when I declared we should push on, confidently assuring everyone we’d find food later, that left us huddled under a parasol in a downpour in a deserted village at 3pm, as a confused, elderly man we had woken from a nap prepared us one tiny sandwich to be shared between five people. My many failings precipitated several tearful, shame-filled toddler meltdowns my sons were forced to jolly me out of, assuring me with patient good humour that they were having fun, honestly.

None of which is to suggest we had a bad time – quite the opposite. It was wonderful. Humbling, yes, but absolutely wonderful. It’s great being the kids, it turns out – I wonder where they’ll take us next?

• Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist

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