Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would suggest you start letting go of the “family vacation” idea at this point, especially one that requires a lot of expense and advance planning. That’s not really compatible with adult life.

This.
But if you feel the need to do a family vacation and HE LIVE WITH HER, then yes. You need to pay for her the same way you’re paying for the other “kids.”
Ona side note, going on a vacation with my parents when I was 25 would have been the last thing I’d want to do. With a newish career and limited vacation, I’d rather be with my SO or friends

Girlfriend is (1) not a kid and (2) not the OPs kid so……

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would suggest you start letting go of the “family vacation” idea at this point, especially one that requires a lot of expense and advance planning. That’s not really compatible with adult life.

This.
But if you feel the need to do a family vacation and HE LIVE WITH HER, then yes. You need to pay for her the same way you’re paying for the other “kids.”
Ona side note, going on a vacation with my parents when I was 25 would have been the last thing I’d want to do. With a newish career and limited vacation, I’d rather be with my SO or friends

Anonymous wrote:Unpopular opinion: This is OP's first time in this situation. It will set a precedence for her other kids as well. "How come you paid for Dave's gf and not mine?" Soon OP will be footing the bill for multiple GFs/BFs and there's no way she can say "I'll pay for yours but not yours..."

I think they should have a convo with DS and say they're planning to buy his ticket. If you want GF to come, here are the flight numbers to book her own. No one is entitled to their BF's parents' generosity.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks- and also I said several times it would be ok if they didn’t go! And that we’ll probably just end up paying. But I think people are getting out their own in law issues here…. so go for it if it makes you feel better! I’ll be the anonymous punching bag.

One thing I’m stunned by is this idea that once you are married or partnered off you never have any alone time with your family. That’s so sad. My husband and I (married a long time) both try to make that happen with our aging parents, on our own time. No one demands it of us and I’d never demand it either. I just asked if it was selfish to want it!

It’s not selfish, OP. I carve out alone time with both my mother and father, and my husband encourages me to do so, because he loves me and wants me to have good relations with my parents.

Anonymous wrote:Thanks- and also I said several times it would be ok if they didn’t go! And that we’ll probably just end up paying. But I think people are getting out their own in law issues here…. so go for it if it makes you feel better! I’ll be the anonymous punching bag.

One thing I’m stunned by is this idea that once you are married or partnered off you never have any alone time with your family. That’s so sad. My husband and I (married a long time) both try to make that happen with our aging parents, on our own time. No one demands it of us and I’d never demand it either. I just asked if it was selfish to want it!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op, how often does DS see his siblings? GF or no GF, coming on this trip/or not, I hope DS is seeing his siblings once in awhile. That would be a huge reason to try to keep the tradition of a family trip going. For me, I generously finance visits of siblings spending time together. It's across country and quite expensive for them as young adults.

sure fine - but at some point you have to realize that mommy’s dream of her kids “spending time together” doesn’t take precedence over her childrens’ adult lives.

Sincerely, what makes you think that planning a trip and extending an invite to enable time with parents and siblings amounts to expecting that to take precedence over the child’s adult lives?

Adults generally spend their vacation time & money on themselves. A long family trip would be an exception.

That doesn't really answer the question. Why does the invite itself make you think that the parent offering is somehow expecting their desire to "take precedence"? In other words, why do you think that somebody who cares about the family enough to want this trip is also necessarily somehow not understanding that their child is an adult and may not want to or be able to do exactly what is offered when it is offered?


It would be unusual for my parents to offer to take me and my kids, along with my siblings's family, on a two week safari beach vacation in Africa. I would receive that as an awesome opportunity and see if I could make the timing work. I would not receive that as my parents imposing or putting their wishes above my own.

right - that would be unusual and likely vetted well in advance by your parents, knowing that the adult kids’ vacation time and grandkids’ school schedules take precedence even if grant parents are paying. this is a very different vibe than I get from OP who seems to think that she gets to have her adult child solo on every family vacation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unpopular opinion: This is OP's first time in this situation. It will set a precedence for her other kids as well. "How come you paid for Dave's gf and not mine?" Soon OP will be footing the bill for multiple GFs/BFs and there's no way she can say "I'll pay for yours but not yours..."

I think they should have a convo with DS and say they're planning to buy his ticket. If you want GF to come, here are the flight numbers to book her own. No one is entitled to their BF's parents' generosity.

This isn’t a bad take. But if OP can’t afford to take partners on family trips, she can’t expect a command performance from the kids.

It kind of is a bad take though.
Would their offer be different if the DS were married to her? If they would cover it for DS and his wife, then they should cover it for DS and his live-in girlfriend. (And I do agree that they need to have a consistent standard. It seems reasonable that the standard is, for adult children over 21, "we will pay for you and your significant other to join us, if you would like." The adult children should be the ones to determine whether the significant other is "significant" enough in their lives to include in the scenario, not the parents.

Anonymous wrote:I would suggest you start letting go of the “family vacation” idea at this point, especially one that requires a lot of expense and advance planning. That’s not really compatible with adult life.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op, how often does DS see his siblings? GF or no GF, coming on this trip/or not, I hope DS is seeing his siblings once in awhile. That would be a huge reason to try to keep the tradition of a family trip going. For me, I generously finance visits of siblings spending time together. It's across country and quite expensive for them as young adults.

sure fine - but at some point you have to realize that mommy’s dream of her kids “spending time together” doesn’t take precedence over her childrens’ adult lives.

Sincerely, what makes you think that planning a trip and extending an invite to enable time with parents and siblings amounts to expecting that to take precedence over the child’s adult lives?

Adults generally spend their vacation time & money on themselves. A long family trip would be an exception.

That doesn't really answer the question. Why does the invite itself make you think that the parent offering is somehow expecting their desire to "take precedence"? In other words, why do you think that somebody who cares about the family enough to want this trip is also necessarily somehow not understanding that their child is an adult and may not want to or be able to do exactly what is offered when it is offered?


It would be unusual for my parents to offer to take me and my kids, along with my siblings's family, on a two week safari beach vacation in Africa. I would receive that as an awesome opportunity and see if I could make the timing work. I would not receive that as my parents imposing or putting their wishes above my own.