Are my expectations for cross-country visits unreasonable?

[Anonymous]

It's the time more than the money, I bet. Getting back from the west coast means a day basically vanishes from your life. And if the hometown is boring or you're wanting him to do boring things, then there's that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are unreasonable.

We Airbnb a place for holidays so we can all meet somewhere “in between”.

You should visit 2x a year. Do you do that?

He shouldn’t be expected to come home necessarily but you guys should see each other 4x a year 2 bring u travel, 1 somewhere else vacation or wedding, and home once a year.

This. Meet in a cool place somewhere in between. And pick up the tab for everything. Make it enticing for him.

[Anonymous]

When I was fresh out of college, I moved away from my family. My parents got upset with me not coming home more frequently, but I hardly made any money and it was super expensive. They never offered to pay, nor did they offer to come visit me. You have to meet in the middle at least.

[Anonymous]

He is an adult and working. So was I at that age. I was lucky to get home once every 2 years.

Mom: He grew up!

[Anonymous]

If you want to see him, go visit. If you can’t travel, that’s on you. It sounds like he’s spending more than a reasonable amount of time visiting family.

[Anonymous]

Do you and your husband still work? If not then you have more than enough free time to make the trek to visit your son

[Anonymous]

Why do kids have to be bribed to stay connected to the aging parents who spent 20+ years setting them up for a lifetime of success? 🤔

[Anonymous]

At 26 my parents had been married for 6 years, Dad had served 4 years in the military, they bought their first home and had me. Mom had finished college and launched her career. No time to go visit long distance relatives. Gotta meet deadlines and make the mortgage payment.

At 26 I had Thanksgiving Thursday off but not Friday. Only the senior-most employees had earned that privilege.

Why oh why are 26 year olds seen as still children??

Cut those apron strings.

[Anonymous]

Unless you are truly disabled, you shouldn’t expect him to visit you more than you’re visiting him. Getting time away from work is especially hard when you’re first starting out in your career.

[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.

With metal in your body, you just choose to get patted down. My husband, in a wheelchair, does that every time he flies.

[Anonymous]

I have fake knees.
DH has cervical vertebrae fused with metal.
Just tell TSA before you get to a scanner.

[Anonymous]

Buy him a ticket.

[Anonymous]

You’re not close and you make little to no effort. So, yeah, be glad he’s visited at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I was fresh out of college, I moved away from my family. My parents got upset with me not coming home more frequently, but I hardly made any money and it was super expensive. They never offered to pay, nor did they offer to come visit me. You have to meet in the middle at least.

I moved away too and made close to nothing. I drove home 2x a year on my dime. It was important to me so I made it priority. When I saved enough, I would fly.

[Anonymous]

yes