It seems like “are we there yet?” is a common thing for kids on TV to say during a trip, especially a road trip.
I’m wondering how common this saying actually is in real life. It seems a bit odd to me that kids would ask that, since I imagine they can look out the window and physically see if they have indeed arrived.
As a kid, did any of you ever say “Are we there yet?” If you’re a parent, have your own children ever said that during a trip?
Yeah, me and my siblings said it all the time when we were kids in the 1950s and 1960s.
It doesn’t mean so much “Have we arrived yet?” but “Are we almost there?” or better “Is the trip almost over so we don’t have to sit still any more?” And if you’re going to someplace you’ve never been before, kids won’t necessarily recognize it even when you arrive. If it’s someplace you’ve been before, they won’t necessarily recognize it when you’re getting close. And time is different for kids: a long car trip seems like an eternity, so they won’t be able to tell when you’re almost there by elapsed time.
They say it all the damn time. Even when they know the answer. I see them look up from their iPhone’s and preemptively call them out by mimicking what they are about to say “Are we there yet?Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”. Do you see all these trees; does it look like we are their yet?
When are we going to get there? The answer is tomorrow, late, and we are going to have to sleep on the side of the road.
It does no good to explain to them the time line of upcoming events before we leave; the outcome is always the same. Are we there yet?
I said it all the time when I was a kid. We did a lot of road trips, and like Colibri said, when you’re a little kid in the back seat, your sense of time and distance is not really all that great.
I’m pretty sure I drove my parents batty. Very much a common saying, at least in my house. Heck, I still say it to my husband when we’re on long road trips!
I said it, but then I heard it on TV and was being deliberately cheeky.
With the exception of driving to school, LittleDivine says it on Every. Single. Car. Trip. However, he phrases it as “How much longer before we get there?”
[QUOTE=si amigo]
When are we going to get there? The answer is tomorrow, late, and we are going to have to sleep on the side of the road.
[/QUOTE]
When we asked “When are we going to get they?” My parents always answered “We’ll be there as soon as we get there.”
To the OP, yes my siblings and I said it and my own children said it. I agree with Colibri that its not really a literal question but more a “When in the hell am I going to be able to get out of this god forsaken car?!” My family took a cross country trip the the Grand Canyon when I was young. Five kids and both my parents for days in a station wagon. I wanted to gnaw my own arm off. Good times.
We said that and variations as kids in the 60s. I’m sure there were kids saying it as the pioneers crossed the plains in their Conestoga wagons, the kids on the Mayflower were saying it, and in some early form of language as hominids wandered out of Africa the kids were saying it then too.
So I guess little Jewish kids were saying it for 40 years as their parents wandered the desert. I can just see Moses smiting them with his cane saying we’ll get there when we get there; keep walking.
Miiiister Moooooseeeeeees, are we theeere yeeet!? I’m having a midlife criiiisiiiiis!
I said it as a kid. Driving to our cottage in northern Michigan, there were just mile after mile of pine trees. It was very hard to gauge distance. If I read in the back seat my sisters would get car sick. So we’d sing songs and play car bingo and recite state capitals. It was impossible to know how much longer we had.
StG
I asked “Are we there yet?” when I was a kid as a joke or out of frustration. I remember saying it once when we were stuck in a traffic jam that turned a 3 hour trip into a 5 hour trip - I used it simply because I was frustrated. Much more frequently I would ask when we got in the car “how long does it take to get to (X)” and my parents would tell me, and then I’d know when it was over. I’d usually not bother them as long as I knew when we’d get there.
After spending 40 years wandering around such a small region I’m sure the adults were saying it too.
This always confused me as a kid, when I saw kids being cheeky on TV and saying it.
Maybe I was more literal-minded. I always said “Are we almost there?”
I couldn’t understand why anyone would ask that for the same reason you said- that if the family were actually there, you could look out the window and see for yourself.
Remember that kids have the attention span of a gnat, and are equally clueless about time and distance.
My parents would take us to a great lake resort for summer vacations…it was probably about a 3 hour drive, tops.
However, after about half an hour, we would already start asking, “Are we almost there?” and my parents would try to explain it was going to take another 2 hours or so - and of course, that seemed like a lifetime to us.
So maybe not the exact phrase “Are we there yet?”, but enough annoying variations to drive parents crazy during the trip.
Also, don’t forget the eternal, “I have to go pee pee…” or “I’m thirsty…” or “Can we stop at that McDonalds!” or whatever else we could see from the windows in the back seat.
Of course, going home we were usually more sullen and would rarely ask if we were getting close to home.
I said it all the time. So often in fact my dad had a standard reply which we still joke about it. His answer no matter what was “two hours away.”
I banned the phrase in my car but it only drove them to creative versions of the same question.
“How long until we get to ?”
“What town are we in? How far is it from X to Y?” etc.
I do remember my father’s way of dealing with it. When my brother asked “Are we there yet” for the millionth time one trip (Yes, I counted) he pulled over to the side of the highway and said “Yes, this is where we’re spending the next week”
I never asked because I read in the car and my brother wasn’t allowed to bug me. Driving time was heaven for me 
I did Montreal - Québec every other week when I was a kid, I knew the way the length of the trip and still I would ask my parents if we were almost there or more exactly when are we going to be there!
And god forbid if I asked to stop to pee…
My dad’s response was always “It’s just over those trees.” In Northern Michigan the trees go on forever.
StG
Friends of mine say this even now, as a joke. I usually respond “Yes. Go ahead and get out.”
While driving 45 MPH.