Are my expectations for cross-country visits unreasonable?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Cross country is a 2-3 day drive, depending on the final destination. Doing that 2x a year would mean 8-12 days of driving. That’s a lot of driving.

[Anonymous]

In college and for a decade after, holidays were a chance to make extra money either overtime or at that 2nd job. Why would would I blow all that savings/emergency fund on a plane ticket to... anywhere?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need to suck it up and do whatever it takes to visit him. If you really wanted to you could.

You write, "I have never been a good traveler, and have some medical issues that cause traveling, especially by air, a challenge. We all went to visit him in person the first year he was out there, but it isn’t realistic for us to visit him more regularly." Why isn't it realistic? Do you see from his point of view if you were able to do it once, then why can't you do it again? Do you expect him to sit around at home with you?

I think so too. You presumably have more vacation time and $. Make the effort to visit him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like you and him put about the same effort, with you having physical limitations and him the limitation of time/money. So it works both ways. Can you and dh go have Christmas with sil this year? Your dh having seen him 5 times sounds good, better than average even for being this far away.

But OP doesn't even have any physical limitations. She just thinks it's too hard to have a conversation with TSA about the metal in her body.

OP - eventually you will literally be unable to travel because of age. You've got to put in the effort now. I don't know why you'd expect your DS to make any effort when you don't.

[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.

My adult DCs are extremely independent. Fine with zero strings $ since it is practical. Sounds like he has a history of feeling strings attached or any $ remove the possibility of you getting necessary stuff done on the house. IDK. The fact is older people might be retired or have more personal time off and resources to be able to do quick trips. Book flights + hotel for 1 -3 nights and then back you go to wherever. We get dates good for a visit- book and go.

[Anonymous]

Why aren’t you visiting him?

[Anonymous]

OP do you just have phobia or anxiety over patdowns and windings at TSA?
I have substantial metal in 2 places on my body and a place on my shoulder that always alerts on the scanner. I get wanted standing there. They offer a private room but ffs it's not embarrassing to me.
If that's your cross to bear let the dad go and you stay home.. your body your crazy choice..
People fly with ostomy bags, central lines, pacemakers, shrapnel, metal bone replacements.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

This! My parents retired years ago and threatened to get a second home in an attractive location. Well, they never went through with their plan, and they still live in the same god-awful suburb I couldn’t wait to leave. They can’t wrap their heads around why DH and I don’t visit often. Um, we have limited vacation time and disposable income to actually enjoy our time off doing something other than eating sitting in their living room and sleeping in my childhood bedroom on a 30-year-old dusty bed for a week. I envy those with parents who retire to warm beach towns with good seafood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This has already been said but:

I visit my family far less often than they prefer because it is a boring/repetitive use of what little vacation (and vacation funds) we have. I don’t want to spend all of my very limited vacation time in their town and my DH and kids do not either.

This doesn’t mean we never visit. We did more often when our children were very small (we didn’t want to take very small kids that age on vacations and instead spent more time with family). But we visit less often than they would like-especially now, and for shorter periods. We are much more likely to attend large family events where we can see everyone at once and have more fun (and often those are not located in the boring town my parents live in). We want to spend time taking our own kids on fun vacations and having new experiences now that they are old enough to enjoy (and before we run out of time!)

My parents and extended family (like you) do not like to travel. They rarely visit us (far far less often than we have visited them). My parents and extended family (like you) turn down all suggestions of “let’s meet up at xyz interesting location and have fun and spend quality time together”. And it is not a financial issue. I have even suggested meeting up at a fun lake resort town location that is a 6hr drive (or easy flight if they prefer) from their hometown- still leaving the bulk of the travel burden on us- and no takers on that either. For the most part, they really only want to see and spend time with us at THEIR home(s).

90% of the travel, vacation time use, and travel funding burden is on us. So we don’t see them as often as they would like.

I don’t mean to be harsh. But just to give your the other side of this. And it will likely be worse when he marries and has a family (because now he will be working around many more people’s schedules)

+100 you can’t expect an adult son or daughter and especially one with a family to fly to the boring town you don’t want to leave that requires a connection in Atlanta or O’Hare to get to. And what’s going to be the end result? Basically sitting shiva in your kitchen for several days occasionally talking about what to do for dinner. I’ve seen this go down so many times. Then your son or daughter asks you to borrow the car to go to Starbucks for a break from your house. And then they realize while sipping their pumpkin spice latte that they just spent a couple thousand to go to Starbucks in their hometown.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This has already been said but:

I visit my family far less often than they prefer because it is a boring/repetitive use of what little vacation (and vacation funds) we have. I don’t want to spend all of my very limited vacation time in their town and my DH and kids do not either.

This doesn’t mean we never visit. We did more often when our children were very small (we didn’t want to take very small kids that age on vacations and instead spent more time with family). But we visit less often than they would like-especially now, and for shorter periods. We are much more likely to attend large family events where we can see everyone at once and have more fun (and often those are not located in the boring town my parents live in). We want to spend time taking our own kids on fun vacations and having new experiences now that they are old enough to enjoy (and before we run out of time!)

My parents and extended family (like you) do not like to travel. They rarely visit us (far far less often than we have visited them). My parents and extended family (like you) turn down all suggestions of “let’s meet up at xyz interesting location and have fun and spend quality time together”. And it is not a financial issue. I have even suggested meeting up at a fun lake resort town location that is a 6hr drive (or easy flight if they prefer) from their hometown- still leaving the bulk of the travel burden on us- and no takers on that either. For the most part, they really only want to see and spend time with us at THEIR home(s).

90% of the travel, vacation time use, and travel funding burden is on us. So we don’t see them as often as they would like.

I don’t mean to be harsh. But just to give your the other side of this. And it will likely be worse when he marries and has a family (because now he will be working around many more people’s schedules)

+100 you can’t expect an adult son or daughter and especially one with a family to fly to the boring town you don’t want to leave that requires a connection in Atlanta or O’Hare to get to. And what’s going to be the end result? Basically sitting shiva in your kitchen for several days occasionally talking about what to do for dinner. I’ve seen this go down so many times. Then your son or daughter asks you to borrow the car to go to Starbucks for a break from your house. And then they realize while sipping their pumpkin spice latte that they just spent a couple thousand to go to Starbucks in their hometown.

OMG I love this reply so much, especially the very last sentence. A lot of parents seem to have the “expectations” of their children coming home and sitting around trapped in the house doing nothing.

That’s not a vacation. That’s regression to being 16.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

This! My parents retired years ago and threatened to get a second home in an attractive location. Well, they never went through with their plan, and they still live in the same god-awful suburb I couldn’t wait to leave. They can’t wrap their heads around why DH and I don’t visit often. Um, we have limited vacation time and disposable income to actually enjoy our time off doing something other than eating sitting in their living room and sleeping in my childhood bedroom on a 30-year-old dusty bed for a week. I envy those with parents who retire to warm beach towns with good seafood.

Here's the thing...you don't even have to buy a house in a great destination, just rent one for the entire family to enjoy. Even the old parents will find it exciting to explore a new place and everyone can explore it together for the most part.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Cross country is a 2-3 day drive, depending on the final destination. Doing that 2x a year would mean 8-12 days of driving. That’s a lot of driving.

That would have been every single one of my vacation days in my early 20s. Pretty depressing to never do anything except road tripping home to sit in your childhood bedroom. Luckily, my parents never would have had those expectations and I don't have them either for my own kids. OP needs to get on a plane to visit and maybe plan some fun trips.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Cross country is a 2-3 day drive, depending on the final destination. Doing that 2x a year would mean 8-12 days of driving. That’s a lot of driving.

That would have been every single one of my vacation days in my early 20s. Pretty depressing to never do anything except road tripping home to sit in your childhood bedroom. Luckily, my parents never would have had those expectations and I don't have them either for my own kids. OP needs to get on a plane to visit and maybe plan some fun trips.

It was all my vacations. I am one who posted that I sent home when I got more $ I flew and had days to do other things, but for mine, my parents had paid for college and was what I wanted to do. Now would have been easier because can take train or bus and work while going and can better hunt for plane tix and with gas prices, plane tix now usually less than what would be for gas to drive and hotel when stop.

[Anonymous]

OP, I understand that it would be nice if he wanted to visit more. But he doesn’t. So, what’s your move? Be sad about it and maybe lose him forever or get over it and go see him?

Also, please lose any inflexibility you have about where you see your child. My parents place A LOT of emphasis on “coming home”. So, they almost don’t count the times I see them if we aren’t in the house I grew up in. It is exhausting!

[Anonymous]

I think you’re super unreasonable. So you don’t like travel but expect your son to? Sounds like your son likes going to events. Why can’t you go to your sisters Christmas too?

I love my parents but I only take my family once a year to visit. My parents come to us probably 6-8x.