Taking all of your minor children on vacation together

[Anonymous]

How important is it to you, or should it be, to take all of your children together on a trip for fun at least once a year? This is a high priority for me, but that's probably because I had such positive experiences doing this as a child. But I notice now that I'm an adult that my peer parents don't all do this even when they have plenty of money for travel. (I say they have plenty of travel money because they do travel a lot, and to expensive places, just not together. For example, one child might do a $8K music camp for a few weeks, and one parent and a teen might do mountain climbing in Nepal. The other parent might spend two weeks in Sedona at a yoga retreat that same year.)

I grew up lower middle class and I always associated the ability to do at least a modest trip together as a family with something everyone who is not "dirt poor" does every summer. I'm now wondering if my view of how the other half lives was warped by too much Brady Bunch, and in reality it isn't a norm for parents and all their children to vacation together annually.

[Anonymous]

I don’t know any family personally that isn’t prioritizing family travel with children every year. That wasn’t even the case growing up and we were lower middle class. Our vacations were modest, driving to national park and camping type weeks, but we always had at least that.

[Anonymous]

Didn't you post this yesterday?!

[Anonymous]

I have a MIL that wants us to vacation with her and SIL every year (both are single). Our kids are the only grandkids. Everyone is well off but we have more money than the in laws.
I don’t mind an occasional vacation with them but they expect it every year and we end up footing 85% of the costs. It’s gotten to be too much and I don’t want to take every European vacation with my in laws. MIL was offended when I told her I wanted time alone with my husband and kids. I know the trips mean a lot to her but it’s not our responsibility to have to provide them. We have lots of quality time together. We don’t do the same trips with my parents and I told her I was uncomfortable with the perception my parents had of us taking all of these fancy trips with her and not them.

Vacations with parents or in-laws are lovely it don’t expect it every year and realize the dynamics are more complicated than you think.

[Anonymous]

I don’t know anyone who vacations separately from family members. Most people I know take a summer trip at the very least. Even if it’s camping or a National park.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a MIL that wants us to vacation with her and SIL every year (both are single). Our kids are the only grandkids. Everyone is well off but we have more money than the in laws.
I don’t mind an occasional vacation with them but they expect it every year and we end up footing 85% of the costs. It’s gotten to be too much and I don’t want to take every European vacation with my in laws. MIL was offended when I told her I wanted time alone with my husband and kids. I know the trips mean a lot to her but it’s not our responsibility to have to provide them. We have lots of quality time together. We don’t do the same trips with my parents and I told her I was uncomfortable with the perception my parents had of us taking all of these fancy trips with her and not them.

Vacations with parents or in-laws are lovely it don’t expect it every year and realize the dynamics are more complicated than you think.

100% agree and I have a similar situation. However — is OP talking about taking vacations with in-laws/parents?? Now I’m confused about the OP’s post lol.

[Anonymous]

Yea she posted this yesterday. She’s judgy AF and can’t understand why others don’t think and do exactly as she.

[Anonymous]

It's crummy to travel with one child if the other wants to go but in something like music camp. You need to talk to your kids about it. My parents used to travel with my sibling and not me, as young adults and it was really crummy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How important is it to you, or should it be, to take all of your children together on a trip for fun at least once a year? This is a high priority for me, but that's probably because I had such positive experiences doing this as a child. But I notice now that I'm an adult that my peer parents don't all do this even when they have plenty of money for travel. (I say they have plenty of travel money because they do travel a lot, and to expensive places, just not together. For example, one child might do a $8K music camp for a few weeks, and one parent and a teen might do mountain climbing in Nepal. The other parent might spend two weeks in Sedona at a yoga retreat that same year.)

I grew up lower middle class and I always associated the ability to do at least a modest trip together as a family with something everyone who is not "dirt poor" does every summer. I'm now wondering if my view of how the other half lives was warped by too much Brady Bunch, and in reality it isn't a norm for parents and all their children to vacation together annually.

Um, the examples you provided all sound highly specific to individual preferences and not some generic crowd pleasing family vacation. I mean, mountain climbing in Nepal--not everyone would like that, so why not only take the kid who wants to do it? And expensive music camp, again, highly specialized. I could see myself going to a yoga retreat for a couple of weeks where my H would rather go fishing with one of our kids during that time.

[Anonymous]

I believe OP is the parent of adult children. It’s not clear if any of the adult children are married or have kids. I was the PP with the MIL and wanted to ensure the OP considers the perspective of the adult children (and their spouses). That view may conflict with her perspective of family vacation.

[Anonymous]

My children all still live at home and annual nuclear family vacations are a priority for us. Thinking quickly about my friends who I know don't religiously take an annual vacations, they're all dual income with busy kids so maybe it's a scheduling issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I believe OP is the parent of adult children. It’s not clear if any of the adult children are married or have kids. I was the PP with the MIL and wanted to ensure the OP considers the perspective of the adult children (and their spouses). That view may conflict with her perspective of family vacation.

She says “minor children” in the subject

[Anonymous]

It's nice when it happens, but it's not a priority. We spend a lot of time together as a family already.

[Anonymous]

Why do you care what anyone else does?

People, and families, are different. To each their own.

[Anonymous]

LOL! I'm OP. Yes, I posted yesterday. But a bunch of people didn't read my post carefully enough and thought I was talking about multi-family vacations, or that I was talking about adult children. I clarified this in the follow up comments but it seems people don't read those any more than they read the OP before responding. I was hoping to get responses to my question this time. It's funny, but in this thread somebody already disregarded the fact that I specifically stated MINOR children in the title.

I'm not trying to judge. I'm genuinely curious about whether I have a warped image of what middle class and UMC families do. I grew up on the lower end of lower middle class. My notions about how the other half lives are often based on watching too much Brady Bunch and Dirty Dancing instead of reality.

A PP noted that the activity examples I gave are very niche and aren't likely to be things that an entire family would want to do together, and I agree. My question is really whether most families with kids under 18 and still living at home would prioritize an all-family trip together over travel for just one family member and/or subgroups of the family. Obviously, if you have enough time and money you can do it all. But what do you do when you don't have tons of time and money?