how much family time is reasonable?
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Anonymous
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We live very close to my parents and see them very frequently. We live on the other side of the country as my in-laws and, of course, see them much less frequently. But seeing them takes all our vacation time: we go out to see them in December, for spring break, and over the summer (for a week at a time). They come to see us two or three times a year, for a long weekend each time. The kids love seeing their grandparents and I feel some responsibility to making sure that they get time with their grandchildren, since we moved to DC for my family. But I'm becoming increasingly resentful that all of our vacation time is being spent going to see them.
What's reasonable here? (This post brought to you tonight because we're visiting them now, DH just went out for the second night in a row to see friends, and I'm home cooking for the kids and trying to keep them from snacking on the cookies that FIL is eating, 30 minutes before dinner). |
Anonymous
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Whoa. You are at your in laws and your DH has gone out two nights in a row leaving you there? Have the grandparents babysit and go with him. Or just take yourself out to dinner alone. That will help a lot in the short term.
In the long term, yes, spending all your vacations with the in laws is excessive. Do you have any vacations with just DH, you and the kids? |
Anonymous
Aw hell no. Inlaws + cooking is NOT a vacation. |
Anonymous
I am the poster that posted recently about my DH wanting to vacation with his family, but I don't. I am sympathetic. My DH does this but goes out with his brother. I hear you! |
Anonymous
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In my opinion and in my world where I try to stay sane and vacation helps me do that, spending all my vacation days with my ILs would be a non starter.
At a minimum I would need one of those 3 trips to not happen and would need it to be either a vacation for me and my H sans kids or a just our nuclear family vacation where we go somewhere that does not involve me cooking for everyone and watching the kids by myself while my H goes out with friends. (I have ILs across the country. At most we go out there once a year, and often not even because the plane tickets and car rental eat up our vacation budget for the year and they come here twice. Plus, they are both retired and very wealthy. We are limited by job demands and the school calendar on when we can travel, not to mention our budget.) |
Anonymous
What the fuck. Sounds like a nightmare! Not a vacation at all. Next time you go on a girl's trip. Why are you cooking?!! Why? |
Anonymous
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Not ok. I grew up within a half day's driving distance from my mom's family and we only went up once a year during summer for a week. They came to visit us three times in my entire life. It was also really important to my dad that we take a family vacation once a year, even if it was going to a local hotel for a weekend. I really appreciated that and will do that with my family.
Op, you should suggest taking a vacation to somewhere fun, and nowhere near ILs. You shouldn't spend ask your vacation time cooking for your hosts. |
Anonymous
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1. Do what they do. Stay for a long weekend rather than a week.
2. Send the kids on the plane alone. |
Anonymous
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OP here.
Thanks for the sympathy. We can't stay for only a long weekend because it takes my youngest 3 days to get over jet lag (i.e. not wake up at 4:30 in the morning). I'd love to send them by themselves. How old do you think kids need to be to fly cross country by themselves? Maybe my real problem is that my FIL is an ass. My MIL (who is wonderful) had to work tonight, so I was putting the kids to bed by myself. My older child, who has just learned to read, asked to read to FIL while I read to the younger child. After a few minutes of her reading, he got bored and wandered out of her room. |
Anonymous
| Per your 22:54: Don't go so frequently. Possibly invite them to come one more time to you, say in the summer, and let them have special time with the grandkids while you and DH still go to work, thereby saving vacation time. |
Anonymous
| My parents, sister and her family live across the country. We visit for one week in the summer and occasionally for spring break or Christmas. My parents come see us about once a year, including Xmas every other year. I'd love to see them more but it wouldn't be fair to DH to use all our vacation time and money to visit my family. The rest of our vacation time is used for a trip with just me, DH and the kids plus long weekends with his family (a 3hr drive). |
Anonymous
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Love my in laws (and my own family) but I would not want to spend all of my husband's annual leave visiting them. Especially if he just upped and ditched me and the kids to go off and do his own thing while I stayed behind caring for children...
That is not a vacation. And you are also missing out on the opportunity to build memories spending vacation days off going on adventures together - just you, dh and the kids. That's important too. |
Anonymous
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Gosh, that is just so much visiting! We have (very) young children, so we don't really fly right now, but when we did it was half a week to a week to each in-laws once or twice a year. And that even seemed like a lot. A week is just so long to be a guest in someone else's house.
I hear what you are saying about the youngest and jet-lag, but we always solved that problem by just getting up early with the kid. It stunk, sure, but I almost find it preferable than (1) staying a full week) and (2) then having to adjust back to the home time zone after the trip. |
Anonymous
. I think you're putting the blame on the wrong person. Your husband went out twice without you. Your MIL chose work over grandkids visiting. At least your FIL is home with the kids. The question isn't how many trips you take, but what you should put up with while you're there. |
Anonymous
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OP, some critical information is missing here: What does your husband say and think? If he's swanning off with friends while you're there -- I would bet he's just fine with these arrangements. Do you feel that he gets to go "home" to mom and dad and be the son who goes out with buddies, while you are stuck cooking and trying to undo your FIL's jerkiness around the kids (as mentioned in two of your posts on this thread)?
If you bring up the idea that "I would like to now spend spring break weeks with just our nuclear family on a trip--us and the kids, not my folks and not yours," how do you think he'd react? If he would immediately whine about how "We moved to be near your family so MY family gets all our vacations or its' not fair!" -- OP, if he would do that, then you have a larger problem here than having to cook on "vacation." If instead he sometimes indicates it's tedious to spend EVERY free vacation day with his folks, then you might have an opening to compromise. Don't let this go on and on. You are spending an excessive amount of your vacations with his family (plus they come to you as well!). To me, "family time" is about time for mom, dad and the kids -- not extended family on every single holiday and spring break too. I would tell your husband that you and he need a talk. Don't do it when he needs to get out the door somewhere else and can blow it off, or when the the kids are there at home distracting you. Be careful not to bring up the fact his dad's an ass. Make it about needing to get to spend time as a family where the family means the two of you and your children. You really do need time with your own kids, without either your parents or his around, believe me. It's fine for kids to get to know grandparents but kids also should build some memories and experiences with their own parents. One other thing. Your kids sound pretty young. As they get older, this is going to happen: They will become more and more invested in whatever activities they love to do (sports, dance, arts, academic team at school, whatever) and those activities will demand more of their weekends and yes, even time closer to the holidays or over spring break. They also will have more homework and your own family might get more involved in local things like a place of worship or local volunteering. In short, as your kids get older, they are going to have more things that keep them nearer home, and they are going to have opinions about wanting to go places that are not grandma's. And that is perfectly normal! If your husband is going to have issues with that, they'll resent it. And so will you, if you realize when the kids are nearly ready to leave home that you and they never had a trip together anywhere that wasn't the grandparents' house. Time and the kids' growing assertiveness about what they, themselves, want will take care of some of this. But I wouldn't wait for that. I would talk to husband about how you need time that is neither with your family nor with his but with your own family, somewhere you can all focus on each other and not on grandparents from either side. A big factor will be how mature your husband is or isn't, when it comes to "going home" and being with his old friends and probably being coddled by mom. |