Are my expectations for cross-country visits unreasonable?

[Anonymous]

Your expectations are unrealistic and will only get worse with time. Once I graduated college and moved away, I didn’t want to spend vacation time in my hometown. I would fly home once a year for a 3-4 weekend at the maximum. Once I got married and pregnant, all Christmas’ spent in my own home. I see my parents 2-3 times a year. They usually come to me (I often pay) because they are retired. My life is anchored here due to work, kids school, and kids sports. If my parents wanted to see me more, they would have to move closer. Kids who grow up and move that far away don’t want to come back often. They left for reason.

[Anonymous]

You need to pay for the trips and also do your best to visit. You are wrong.

[Anonymous]

He's just not that into you. I live on the West Coast and my parents (now just my father) live on the East Coast. I was last on the East Coast in 2022, and will go again in January. Spending time with my father just isn't that much fun. After an hour, there's nothing really left to say. He is kind of a boring guy, doesn't want to do much, isn't particularly interested in my life, and I feel trapped there when I visit.

Maybe your son doesn't enjoy visiting with you and that's why he doesn't. Also, if he's new to his job, he may have minimal time off. If he has a significant other, he may want to spend that vacation time with them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here.

To clear up a couple of points. We have offered to pay for his airfare, but he hasn’t accepted. He is very independent and has never been willing to take money from us/others. He has a notebook of the 2-3 times we paid his rent during college (because he was broke). He keeps saying he wants to pay us back, but we haven’t let him because we don’t feel like he owes us anything.

I am able to fly to see him, we did do a big family trip to DC two years ago, and are currently planning another trip. However, thanks to a drunk driver, I have a significant amount of metal in my body that makes it hard to get through security.

Your expectations is he pays for things. Why did you expect a college kid to pay rent? I don’t see my parents and they are close due to how they treat me. Money, I’d never take a dime for a reason.

[Anonymous]

It's not unreasonable to want him to visit once a year. But it doesn't actually matter if what is reasonable. He doesn't want to do it, and he's allowed to visit as much or as little as he wants. So how do you handle your quite reasonable feelings about a situation you can't change? Counseling for you, finding other ways to connect with him, traveling to him (cross country train could be an adventure if you wanted to try it!), etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here.

To clear up a couple of points. We have offered to pay for his airfare, but he hasn’t accepted. He is very independent and has never been willing to take money from us/others. He has a notebook of the 2-3 times we paid his rent during college (because he was broke). He keeps saying he wants to pay us back, but we haven’t let him because we don’t feel like he owes us anything.

I am able to fly to see him, we did do a big family trip to DC two years ago, and are currently planning another trip. However, thanks to a drunk driver, I have a significant amount of metal in my body that makes it hard to get through security.

Get tsa pre. That's the dumbest excuse I've ever heard. And my brother has 30 titanium screws in his body so don't say I don't know anything.

[Anonymous]

He manages to attend family events but you don't?

[Anonymous]

When I was a young g adult I didn’t visit my family often because frankly it was unbelievably boring and I didn’t want to waste vacation that way. Does your son have friends and things to do in your home town?

Maybe think of times and places to get together elsewhere that would be more appealing.

[Anonymous]

You could be describing my husband when he was 26. After we got married and had kids, the visits increased because it was important to both of us that our children know their grandparents. Just a thought.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here.

To clear up a couple of points. We have offered to pay for his airfare, but he hasn’t accepted. He is very independent and has never been willing to take money from us/others. He has a notebook of the 2-3 times we paid his rent during college (because he was broke). He keeps saying he wants to pay us back, but we haven’t let him because we don’t feel like he owes us anything.

I am able to fly to see him, we did do a big family trip to DC two years ago, and are currently planning another trip. However, thanks to a drunk driver, I have a significant amount of metal in my body that makes it hard to get through security.

You are totally contradicting yourself. You posted originally, "For the record, my son can afford to fly out (and has admitted it), and if he couldn’t, we would absolutely help him financially." That is far different than what you post now- "we have offered to pay for his airfair". It sounds like you didn't really offer.

Your post is bizarre. He had to pay his own rent during college? You only paid his rent two or three times? And that is your crazy excuse for not visiting- you have metal in your body? It isn't that hard to get through with a doctor's note or you get patted down. But now you are planning a trip?

My bet now is that he is never going to fly back.

[Anonymous]

You are the problem OP
You could have gone to visit with your husband
You could have gone to the family reunion
You could have gone to the wedding

Get to the airport with an extra hour so you can go through security, and get over yourself, it’s going to get worse and you aren’t making any efforts.

[Anonymous]

Also you make visits into obligations and burdens. No one wants another obligation or a burden. Make visits fun and enjoyable. People who go on vacation want a vacation. Not to come back needing another vacation

[Anonymous]

Going to a wedding is more fun than visiting a parent. You want to see him- pay for a vacation- maybe Mexico which would be a short flight for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can you cook?

I love how you skipped past this question while responding right under it.

Nobody is going to see a momma who can’t cook on major food holidays. Not men with big appetites anyway. Why don’t you aim for July 4th or Labor or MLK or Memorial Day and not the holidays where people are expecting some major spread.

[Anonymous]

I gather you don’t live in Southern Cal (or another warm destination) or a cool city or vacation type place (say Tahoe as example).

While kids love their parents and want to see them, they are humans and don’t have much interest spending a week in Bakersfield (as an example) or Eureka or other places where no reasonable person would visit from across the country.

I suggest you consider renting a vacation place in a cool area that is easy to fly to and easy for you to drive.

I guarantee my kids would visit if I told them I rented a house in La Jolla or at Tahoe or equivalent.