Have you ever gone on vacation with another family and left feeling deflated and inferior?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why the hell would adult children with their own fiancés want to spend vacation time with their parents’ friends and their children? I thought you were going to be telling a story about ten year olds and tweens not being into it. Your children are adults and surely would prefer to pick who they vacation with. I would have been surly too, if I was being asked to spend all my meals with other random adults I was not friends with. What were the circumstances of your kids coming? Did you ask as them to do you a favor where you would pay for it? And they didn’t realize how much of it would be spending time as a big group with the other families?

The whole thing just seems utterly bizarre that 31 year old children would be part of a “families” vacation organized by the parent generation

Totally agree. it is hard to believe this is even a serious post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did I read this thread right--that OP went from feeling inferior with her adult children's lack of social grace to looking down at the other families and thinking they're fake and less independent?

What a turn!

Gotta get more clicks!

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Why the hell would adult children with their own fiancés want to spend vacation time with their parents’ friends and their children? I thought you were going to be telling a story about ten year olds and tweens not being into it. Your children are adults and surely would prefer to pick who they vacation with. I would have been surly too, if I was being asked to spend all my meals with other random adults I was not friends with. What were the circumstances of your kids coming? Did you ask as them to do you a favor where you would pay for it? And they didn’t realize how much of it would be spending time as a big group with the other families?

The whole thing just seems utterly bizarre that 31 year old children would be part of a “families” vacation organized by the parent generation

This is common in families from a generationally wealthy/old money set

Not even the wealthy. It’s the way to get everyone together during their busy lives and handful of breaks off at the same time.

Whoever has never noticed that must really stay home a lot during breaks. Oh well. At least narrow minded people are easy to spot.

I don’t like to ski. I didn’t grow up skiing. Many of my childhood friends, my kids and their friends and just lots of people we know love to ski.

Because of limited winter breaks during ski season, ski trips are organized and people are available at the same times usually week after Xmas, MLK, Pres Day weekend and spring break. My best friend loved to ski and married into a ski family. It was very common for a large group to go skiing together.

So what.

There are still tons of extended families and family friends meeting up during breaks at beaches, lakes, destinations, cruises, mountain resorts to catch up, relax, celebrate and build memories.

Homebodies and people who dont like to socialize or explore much should save their money and stay home. At least be honest about it.

I’m responding to people saying adults wouldn’t want to go on a vacation with their parents’ friends and their adult children. I’m just saying that it seems relatively not uncommon for people to do this. That is all.

We get a few open ski invitations every year. They often include extended family of our friends.

Again - if your adult children in these "old money worlds" that your travel are lifetime friends with the other adult children, OF COURSE these intergenerational family vacations are normal. But that is not the case here. The OP's children are in their mid to late 20s, with fiances and lives of their own. And are barely passing acquaintances with their peers on this trip. As demonstrated by the fact that her children spent the whole weekend avoiding the other families, OP's children clearly aren't friends with the other kids. They aren't like the Kennedys and Kopechnes hanging out at Hyannis Port every summer.

And honestly, most old money wealth families I know - including through my own extended family - are highly clique-ish with themselves, yes - and all the adult kids do all their vacations with their super large extended family. But they're not looping in other families. They're protective and insular.

Extended families of all income strata go on vacations together.

Not just old money or wealthy whatever.

Look around and get out more. Disney, beaches, national parks, camping, beach weeks, ski trips, cruises, grandmas house, lakes, houseboats.
Everyone stuffs in, gets along and has fun with their cousins, old friends, grandparents

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Why the hell would adult children with their own fiancés want to spend vacation time with their parents’ friends and their children? I thought you were going to be telling a story about ten year olds and tweens not being into it. Your children are adults and surely would prefer to pick who they vacation with. I would have been surly too, if I was being asked to spend all my meals with other random adults I was not friends with. What were the circumstances of your kids coming? Did you ask as them to do you a favor where you would pay for it? And they didn’t realize how much of it would be spending time as a big group with the other families?

The whole thing just seems utterly bizarre that 31 year old children would be part of a “families” vacation organized by the parent generation

This is common in families from a generationally wealthy/old money set

Not even the wealthy. It’s the way to get everyone together during their busy lives and handful of breaks off at the same time.

Whoever has never noticed that must really stay home a lot during breaks. Oh well. At least narrow minded people are easy to spot.

I don’t like to ski. I didn’t grow up skiing. Many of my childhood friends, my kids and their friends and just lots of people we know love to ski.

Because of limited winter breaks during ski season, ski trips are organized and people are available at the same times usually week after Xmas, MLK, Pres Day weekend and spring break. My best friend loved to ski and married into a ski family. It was very common for a large group to go skiing together.

So what.

There are still tons of extended families and family friends meeting up during breaks at beaches, lakes, destinations, cruises, mountain resorts to catch up, relax, celebrate and build memories.

Homebodies and people who dont like to socialize or explore much should save their money and stay home. At least be honest about it.

I’m responding to people saying adults wouldn’t want to go on a vacation with their parents’ friends and their adult children. I’m just saying that it seems relatively not uncommon for people to do this. That is all.

We get a few open ski invitations every year. They often include extended family of our friends.

Again - if your adult children in these "old money worlds" that your travel are lifetime friends with the other adult children, OF COURSE these intergenerational family vacations are normal. But that is not the case here. The OP's children are in their mid to late 20s, with fiances and lives of their own. And are barely passing acquaintances with their peers on this trip. As demonstrated by the fact that her children spent the whole weekend avoiding the other families, OP's children clearly aren't friends with the other kids. They aren't like the Kennedys and Kopechnes hanging out at Hyannis Port every summer.

And honestly, most old money wealth families I know - including through my own extended family - are highly clique-ish with themselves, yes - and all the adult kids do all their vacations with their super large extended family. But they're not looping in other families. They're protective and insular.

Extended families of all income strata go on vacations together.

Not just old money or wealthy whatever.

Look around and get out more. Disney, beaches, national parks, camping, beach weeks, ski trips, cruises, grandmas house, lakes, houseboats.
Everyone stuffs in, gets along and has fun with their cousins, old friends, grandparents

Again you're conflating. Of course extended families go on vacations together. Not weird. And people do big extended vacations with lots of family friends where everyone is friends.

That's not the case here. Here, OP's children are adults and not friends with the other adult children. When you're at disney and see a group of 14 people together (2 grandparents, 3 kids with both their spouses, and 2 little kids per family (6 kids total - age 14 and under)), that's super common. Very different than a trip with three couples all in their late 50s/early 60s who are friends, who each have 2 kids per couple in their 20s and 30s, some with SOs, and none of whom are friends with each other.

[Anonymous]

So hard to understand why this is so difficult for some of you to get.

We are three sets of parents all of us very friendly, we meet at least once a month for dinners/lunches, celebrates, bdays togethers, belong to same club, etc.... We were planning a ski trip out west (adults only) one of the parents one night at dinner while we were planning, said why don't we ask all the kids to join us. We all thought that sounded like a fun idea and asked them.

Between the three its a total of 10 kids all young adults- 30 yrs old. They all wanted to go and almost all are skiers. They all know each other and have on some level or another been together before but are not "close" as is minimal socialization on their own. NOT that they do not like one another, they just have different lives.

The dynamic between my family and what I OBSERVED (I could be wrong) seemed different. Their adult kids seemed much more willing to go along with things (not all) than mine. My kids maybe didn't want to hang out with them on the slopes as my kids are all expert skiers (have skied all their life) and they did join in for some activities. But again 2 of the 3 had their SO with them. There were a few things they didn't want to do. One of my kids was slightly more cooperative to be fair.

It made me feel bad but as I have written out my thoughts and recollection of how things played out, I am realizing we are just different, we operate differently as families, and thats OK. Could my other 2 have been more cooperative? Yes, there was room for improvement to be sure. Was I annoyed with them as I viewed it to be selfish? Yes I did fair or not.I didn't like being put in the position of having to make excuses. By the end I just said X and X already made a plan to go work out at the gym, etc...

I also know I could have done things differently too. I could have outlined the schedule and made my expectations a bit clearer. Hindsights 20/20. At least we got in a some great skiing and I enjoyed the time with our friends.

I think family trips of this sort with other families however are not our jam. Lesson learned.

[Anonymous]

Soo long troll. Too long.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why the hell would adult children with their own fiancés want to spend vacation time with their parents’ friends and their children? I thought you were going to be telling a story about ten year olds and tweens not being into it. Your children are adults and surely would prefer to pick who they vacation with. I would have been surly too, if I was being asked to spend all my meals with other random adults I was not friends with. What were the circumstances of your kids coming? Did you ask as them to do you a favor where you would pay for it? And they didn’t realize how much of it would be spending time as a big group with the other families?

The whole thing just seems utterly bizarre that 31 year old children would be part of a “families” vacation organized by the parent generation

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So hard to understand why this is so difficult for some of you to get.

We are three sets of parents all of us very friendly, we meet at least once a month for dinners/lunches, celebrates, bdays togethers, belong to same club, etc.... We were planning a ski trip out west (adults only) one of the parents one night at dinner while we were planning, said why don't we ask all the kids to join us. We all thought that sounded like a fun idea and asked them.

Between the three its a total of 10 kids all young adults- 30 yrs old. They all wanted to go and almost all are skiers. They all know each other and have on some level or another been together before but are not "close" as is minimal socialization on their own. NOT that they do not like one another, they just have different lives.

The dynamic between my family and what I OBSERVED (I could be wrong) seemed different. Their adult kids seemed much more willing to go along with things (not all) than mine. My kids maybe didn't want to hang out with them on the slopes as my kids are all expert skiers (have skied all their life) and they did join in for some activities. But again 2 of the 3 had their SO with them. There were a few things they didn't want to do. One of my kids was slightly more cooperative to be fair.

It made me feel bad but as I have written out my thoughts and recollection of how things played out, I am realizing we are just different, we operate differently as families, and thats OK. Could my other 2 have been more cooperative? Yes, there was room for improvement to be sure. Was I annoyed with them as I viewed it to be selfish? Yes I did fair or not.I didn't like being put in the position of having to make excuses. By the end I just said X and X already made a plan to go work out at the gym, etc...

I also know I could have done things differently too. I could have outlined the schedule and made my expectations a bit clearer. Hindsights 20/20. At least we got in a some great skiing and I enjoyed the time with our friends.

I think family trips of this sort with other families however are not our jam. Lesson learned.

Your responses confirm over and over that this trip was bizarre. You keep saying “what don’t you understand? This is normal for a trip!” But it’s not. Your kids are acquaintances with the others. It doesn’t matter that they don’t dislike the other kids; they aren’t friends with them. And Now they are all 30? It’s not typical that thirty year old children would atttnd a vacation with their parents friends and their adult children who they are only acquaintances with.

When you say that intergenerational trips are common, you’re conflating trips involving a single large family, or multi families that are all extremely close. That you have coffee with these other moms once a month does not make your families close.

I’m guessing your kids understood other families would be there but thought they were vacationing with you. And when they got they and realized they were expected to sit around in big group dinners with virtual strangers, they opted out. Seems totally normal.

[Anonymous]

We’ve met up with 3 other families every winter break since the kids were 7 yo. In Idaho. It’s been great and everyone gets a long. How everyone’s kids are mid 20s.
We also go back in early August with everyone.