Explaining to parents it’s too hard to travel with them now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you need to approach the situation with a lot more empathy and kindness. You at least need to have a conversation with your parents about it! They have traveled with you for two decades and now are too old to keep up. It will be devastating for them! It’s not like they are going to perk back up in the next few years, they are at the end of their life and are being told they are never again going to do something that brings them joy. How cruel of you and how heart breaking for them. You seem pretty gleeful about leaving them in the dust!

I don’t think you’re obligated to include them in another active vacation, but I do think you should plan an occasional trip that would work for both you and them. Surely there is SOME type of vacation that you could all enjoy? We have a similar situation with my IL. We have travelled all over the world with them, but as they hit mid-70s, they can’t handle the heat or much walking. Instead of going to Europe next summer, we are thinking about a dude ranch out west. The kids can do a horse back riding program, DH and I can go on hikes, and the ILs can stroll around the property and read books and do some activities in the lodge. Then we’ll all meet up for dinner. We’ll fly out together and we can help them with their luggage and planning the details. They spent many years in their 60s helping us carry car seats thru air ports and babysitting in hotels, we don’t mind picking up the slack now.

There are lots of options for inter general family trips - see if you can find one for next year to soften the blow of leaving them out this year.

I am not OP, but in a similar generational bind. My kids are finally old enough to do fun, strenuous outdoor activities. Like most families, we have a limited amount of vacation days, a limited budget for trips, and a limited number of years before our kids’ summer commitments for internships, jobs, and activities limit their schedules even more than they do now.

I get it that it’s sad to get older, but it’s incredibly selfish to suggest my kids shouldn’t get to experience the National parks out west or travel to Asia or Africa because grandma wants to go on a cruise or sit on the beach in Delaware.

What if grandma also wants to visit the national parks, or Africa?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you need to approach the situation with a lot more empathy and kindness. You at least need to have a conversation with your parents about it! They have traveled with you for two decades and now are too old to keep up. It will be devastating for them! It’s not like they are going to perk back up in the next few years, they are at the end of their life and are being told they are never again going to do something that brings them joy. How cruel of you and how heart breaking for them. You seem pretty gleeful about leaving them in the dust!

I don’t think you’re obligated to include them in another active vacation, but I do think you should plan an occasional trip that would work for both you and them. Surely there is SOME type of vacation that you could all enjoy? We have a similar situation with my IL. We have travelled all over the world with them, but as they hit mid-70s, they can’t handle the heat or much walking. Instead of going to Europe next summer, we are thinking about a dude ranch out west. The kids can do a horse back riding program, DH and I can go on hikes, and the ILs can stroll around the property and read books and do some activities in the lodge. Then we’ll all meet up for dinner. We’ll fly out together and we can help them with their luggage and planning the details. They spent many years in their 60s helping us carry car seats thru air ports and babysitting in hotels, we don’t mind picking up the slack now.

There are lots of options for inter general family trips - see if you can find one for next year to soften the blow of leaving them out this year.

I am not OP, but in a similar generational bind. My kids are finally old enough to do fun, strenuous outdoor activities. Like most families, we have a limited amount of vacation days, a limited budget for trips, and a limited number of years before our kids’ summer commitments for internships, jobs, and activities limit their schedules even more than they do now.

I get it that it’s sad to get older, but it’s incredibly selfish to suggest my kids shouldn’t get to experience the National parks out west or travel to Asia or Africa because grandma wants to go on a cruise or sit on the beach in Delaware.

What if grandma also wants to visit the national parks, or Africa?

Then she should join and be pleasant, but not hold anyone back. Or she should stay home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here and it should be noted we are all local, get together as a family at least once a month, and I typically visit alone with the kids 1-2 more times a month, depending.

It’s still not going to replace taking a vacation with them. Just do something shorter/easier for them.

Do they like casino resorts? Those places are more or less a scene in Cocoon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you plan a low stakes long weekend with your parents? Rent a house near a beach or lake. With the understanding in your family that it'll be a slow, relaxed time with the grandparents. Books, board games, slow casual meals, kids swimming, etc.

Yeah, I just am not interested in traveling anywhere with them. Like I said, they behaved terribly in ‘19, and I even gave them a second chance and it was worse. My husband especially works too hard to be tortured this way on his vacation days, and my kids don’t deserve it either.

Presumably they raised you, put a roof over your heads, clothed you, fed you and probably paid for college?

Plan a long weekend away with them. Something low key. Your husband doesn’t have to come.

It… doesn’t work that way.

They have probably babysat the grandchildren a lot too. Now that the kids are older, OP has probably forgotten that.

OP here. You don’t know me, so stop assuming you do. I help my parents in many, many other ways, whenever they ask. Vacationing isn’t the only way you can reciprocate your parents paying for college, feeding you as a child, or babysitting your children (which my parents never did, actually.)

Like paying your taxes and others bills, feeding your children is something you’re supposed to do. 😂

[Anonymous]

You're bringing a lot of this hypothetical backlash on yourself OP. You had to book the "old haunt" out of all the other vacations you could have planned? Why would you do that? I thought this was about exposing your kids to new and active vacations that don't suit your parents. Why this haunt over a new experience which would be much easier to explain away?

[Anonymous]

This has to be a troll.

[Anonymous]

Think you have to be honest with her and just tell her you and DH and the kids will be vacationing alone this year, sans parents. You can't control her reaction; if she gets angry, so be it. No need to get into the specifics about how she and your dad were awful travel companions, etc. Just "we'll be vacationing as a nuclear family this year, on [dates]" and then that's that. I like the suggestion of proposing an alternative shorter mini-vacation with your parents in a different location, if you're up for it.

I recently got back from a big extended family vacation with the in-laws where DH and his siblings will have to tell my MIL some variation of the above next summer. It's getting too difficult for her to travel, and she seems to like the experience less every year. This year, DH says, was the final straw; he is unwilling to deal with her irritability and general unpleasantness anymore. We will propose an alternative weekend trip with her someplace closer, more accessible and better for her health needs (not the hot and humid beach), and shorter in duration. I don't anticipate she will take it well, but at some point we have to face reality and deal with the limitations of aging.

[Anonymous]

They have probably babysat the grandchildren a lot too. Now that the kids are older, OP has probably forgotten that.


OP here. You don’t know me, so stop assuming you do. I help my parents in many, many other ways, whenever they ask. Vacationing isn’t the only way you can reciprocate your parents paying for college, feeding you as a child, or babysitting your children (which my parents never did, actually.)

Surely, the grandparent's babysat OP's children on vacation and assisted with feeding, bathing, and putting to bed when the children were little. I bet OP and husband were able to go out for dinners on vacation while grandparents stayed in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
What if grandma also wants to visit the national parks, or Africa?

Then she can go with her own friend group, spouse, relatives or another group of similar aged people. It's not like old people are prohibited to figure out their own vacations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you need to approach the situation with a lot more empathy and kindness. You at least need to have a conversation with your parents about it! They have traveled with you for two decades and now are too old to keep up. It will be devastating for them! It’s not like they are going to perk back up in the next few years, they are at the end of their life and are being told they are never again going to do something that brings them joy. How cruel of you and how heart breaking for them. You seem pretty gleeful about leaving them in the dust!

I don’t think you’re obligated to include them in another active vacation, but I do think you should plan an occasional trip that would work for both you and them. Surely there is SOME type of vacation that you could all enjoy? We have a similar situation with my IL. We have travelled all over the world with them, but as they hit mid-70s, they can’t handle the heat or much walking. Instead of going to Europe next summer, we are thinking about a dude ranch out west. The kids can do a horse back riding program, DH and I can go on hikes, and the ILs can stroll around the property and read books and do some activities in the lodge. Then we’ll all meet up for dinner. We’ll fly out together and we can help them with their luggage and planning the details. They spent many years in their 60s helping us carry car seats thru air ports and babysitting in hotels, we don’t mind picking up the slack now.

There are lots of options for inter general family trips - see if you can find one for next year to soften the blow of leaving them out this year.

I am not OP, but in a similar generational bind. My kids are finally old enough to do fun, strenuous outdoor activities. Like most families, we have a limited amount of vacation days, a limited budget for trips, and a limited number of years before our kids’ summer commitments for internships, jobs, and activities limit their schedules even more than they do now.

I get it that it’s sad to get older, but it’s incredibly selfish to suggest my kids shouldn’t get to experience the National parks out west or travel to Asia or Africa because grandma wants to go on a cruise or sit on the beach in Delaware.

What if grandma also wants to visit the national parks, or Africa?

She should go and send us a postcard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
What if grandma also wants to visit the national parks, or Africa?

Then she can go with her own friend group, spouse, relatives or another group of similar aged people. It's not like old people are prohibited to figure out their own vacations.

But they feel entitled to have YOU pay for it and let THEM run it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you need to approach the situation with a lot more empathy and kindness. You at least need to have a conversation with your parents about it! They have traveled with you for two decades and now are too old to keep up. It will be devastating for them! It’s not like they are going to perk back up in the next few years, they are at the end of their life and are being told they are never again going to do something that brings them joy. How cruel of you and how heart breaking for them. You seem pretty gleeful about leaving them in the dust!

I don’t think you’re obligated to include them in another active vacation, but I do think you should plan an occasional trip that would work for both you and them. Surely there is SOME type of vacation that you could all enjoy? We have a similar situation with my IL. We have travelled all over the world with them, but as they hit mid-70s, they can’t handle the heat or much walking. Instead of going to Europe next summer, we are thinking about a dude ranch out west. The kids can do a horse back riding program, DH and I can go on hikes, and the ILs can stroll around the property and read books and do some activities in the lodge. Then we’ll all meet up for dinner. We’ll fly out together and we can help them with their luggage and planning the details. They spent many years in their 60s helping us carry car seats thru air ports and babysitting in hotels, we don’t mind picking up the slack now.

There are lots of options for inter general family trips - see if you can find one for next year to soften the blow of leaving them out this year.

I am not OP, but in a similar generational bind. My kids are finally old enough to do fun, strenuous outdoor activities. Like most families, we have a limited amount of vacation days, a limited budget for trips, and a limited number of years before our kids’ summer commitments for internships, jobs, and activities limit their schedules even more than they do now.

I get it that it’s sad to get older, but it’s incredibly selfish to suggest my kids shouldn’t get to experience the National parks out west or travel to Asia or Africa because grandma wants to go on a cruise or sit on the beach in Delaware.

What if grandma also wants to visit the national parks, or Africa?

Then she should join and be pleasant, but not hold anyone back. Or she should stay home.

But that’s the problem precisely. No matter how well grandma behaves, her daughter will want to be free. If the daughter makes only itineraries that grandma doesn’t like, then grandma will be pissy. If the itinerary is inclusive of grandma then others will miss out.

At what point is your desire more or less important than their desire?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you need to approach the situation with a lot more empathy and kindness. You at least need to have a conversation with your parents about it! They have traveled with you for two decades and now are too old to keep up. It will be devastating for them! It’s not like they are going to perk back up in the next few years, they are at the end of their life and are being told they are never again going to do something that brings them joy. How cruel of you and how heart breaking for them. You seem pretty gleeful about leaving them in the dust!

I don’t think you’re obligated to include them in another active vacation, but I do think you should plan an occasional trip that would work for both you and them. Surely there is SOME type of vacation that you could all enjoy? We have a similar situation with my IL. We have travelled all over the world with them, but as they hit mid-70s, they can’t handle the heat or much walking. Instead of going to Europe next summer, we are thinking about a dude ranch out west. The kids can do a horse back riding program, DH and I can go on hikes, and the ILs can stroll around the property and read books and do some activities in the lodge. Then we’ll all meet up for dinner. We’ll fly out together and we can help them with their luggage and planning the details. They spent many years in their 60s helping us carry car seats thru air ports and babysitting in hotels, we don’t mind picking up the slack now.

There are lots of options for inter general family trips - see if you can find one for next year to soften the blow of leaving them out this year.

I am not OP, but in a similar generational bind. My kids are finally old enough to do fun, strenuous outdoor activities. Like most families, we have a limited amount of vacation days, a limited budget for trips, and a limited number of years before our kids’ summer commitments for internships, jobs, and activities limit their schedules even more than they do now.

I get it that it’s sad to get older, but it’s incredibly selfish to suggest my kids shouldn’t get to experience the National parks out west or travel to Asia or Africa because grandma wants to go on a cruise or sit on the beach in Delaware.

What if grandma also wants to visit the national parks, or Africa?

Then she should join and be pleasant, but not hold anyone back. Or she should stay home.

But that’s the problem precisely. No matter how well grandma behaves, her daughter will want to be free. If the daughter makes only itineraries that grandma doesn’t like, then grandma will be pissy. If the itinerary is inclusive of grandma then others will miss out.

At what point is your desire more or less important than their desire?

It's your vacation you decide. If she takes a vacation and she invites you, it's her vacation. She should shut the eff up and sit quietly or take her own vacation and make her own rules.

[Anonymous]

I talk up the things we have planned that they fully know they cannot or will not do - long flights, snorkeling off a boat, kayaking, strenuous hikes, camping, etc.

But it's not too different from talking about a party/or any event that someone else is not invited to. Share this stuff with your friends. Find other people to share this with. Why rub it in? At least consider that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I talk up the things we have planned that they fully know they cannot or will not do - long flights, snorkeling off a boat, kayaking, strenuous hikes, camping, etc.

But it's not too different from talking about a party/or any event that someone else is not invited to. Share this stuff with your friends. Find other people to share this with. Why rub it in? At least consider that.

To keep them from butting in.