Brother in Australia and took off three weeks to visit him with my family. It took two years to accrue the PTO to do this (knowing we would take time off for other things) but scheduled it well in advance. My boss told me to have a great trip and not to check my email. It is possible.

I was just in Italy for 2+ weeks for client meetings. Some of our friends thought I was on an extended vacation the entire time because I only posted pictures of dinners and evening walks, not of myself working every day at sensitive sites.

Just because your DD's friend is in Turkey doesn't mean they're not working. Could be on assignment, working remotely, on sabbatical, or taking time off between jobs.

Anonymous wrote:Man there are some bitter commercial real estate developers on this thread.

Can think of a million options op, here are a few:
Teleworking with local family or nanny support
Changing jobs, delayed start date for trip
Summers off (education-teachers/professors/coaches/admin)
Sahp/working parent joins only part of the time
Sabbatical
They need a break from you and your kid and are avoiding you

+1. Both my work & DH's have 5wks PTO + 2wks extra available for purchase + 2wks annual shutdown

Anonymous wrote:My DD's friend went on vacation (Turkey) and they are still not back a month later!! Both parents work too, what do they do? How does work let them both off for a month?

If they work for the World Bank or IMF they can take up to two months for home leave every three years. Why do you care?

Finally, after 10 years with my company, I qualify for 3 weeks vacation. We are taking 3 one-week vacations this year.

I get 4 weeks vacation but am only allowed 2 weeks max at a time. My employer needs their employees.

So I take (2) 2 week vacations. I love it that way.

My sister gets 4 weeks also and she takes (4) one-week vacations. Their family loves that.

Anonymous wrote:We can do it. We work remotely (but also travel for work and check in to offices on our schedules (not in the summer)) - we sometimes take our nanny and other times target places with great full day kids' camps.

This.

DH works remotely while I SAH. But, we know other families that do this, and I'm fairly certain that it's both a mix of remote worker/SAH families, and remote workers who use daycamps and summer schools. It's no different than spending summers here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My company is ok with 4 weeks off with sufficient lead time. I took 20 days for my honeymoon. We have had people take similar amounts. Not every year but like once in 3 years with shorter trips otherwise.

If you read the responses here, most people are not taking 4 consecutive weeks off. They're working abroad, doing a combo of work abroad and PTO, or own their own business.

Sorry quoted the wrong pp!

Anonymous wrote:My company is ok with 4 weeks off with sufficient lead time. I took 20 days for my honeymoon. We have had people take similar amounts. Not every year but like once in 3 years with shorter trips otherwise.

If you read the responses here, most people are not taking 4 consecutive weeks off. They're working abroad, doing a combo of work abroad and PTO, or own their own business.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Go to any swim meet, scout meeting, etc. All kids activities are run by moms with flexible jobs (me included). My supervisor cares that I meet my deliverables, not how, when, or where I do it. I have enough seniority that I can front load my meetings before camp pickup/swim meet/whatever, and work from the beach as needed. I was selective when I mommy tracked and while I may not be using my Ivy degree to it’s fullest, there’s only one of me at my office and I can set my terms and work pretty much completely independently without micromanaging.

That’s different than a month+ out of the country and you know it.

From the OP, we don't know whether OP's friend was working while abroad or taking a full month off. I'll be doing a combo of that this summer - out of town for a full month, but having some weeks completely off and working from wherever we'll be the other weeks. But I agree that it is outside the scope of standard US business practice to take a full month of leave without extenuating circumstances.

This. And it’s laughable for people to suggest anyone who wants to can just go out and find a job that allows 4 consecutive weeks off at one time.

It’s equally laughable to pretend that those jobs don’t exist just because you haven’t heard of them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH works for a Swedish company on the US side, but they have no problem with us being on European hours.

I work for an American company but my boss is Greek and he goes home to Greece for a month every year.

My best friends husband is high up at a major corp and he is originally from Prague and when he got the job offer, he negotiated that he could work abroad whenever. Wife works in a school so she has summers off. They are currently on an 8 week trip. Right now, they left the kids with the Prague grandparents and are in Switzerland just them to.

It works if people make it work!

I'm the PP who posted about my parents being abroad during the summer while in grad school. I'm thankful that my job allows me the flexibility to work from home a lot and also do things like volunteer at swim meets, but saying that "it works if you make it work" is pretty short-sighted. It obviously just works for certain types of jobs. I get 3.5 weeks of vacation I can take whenever and a bunch of other holidays (including 1 week between Xmas and NY), but there's no actual way for me to get another week of vacation for another few years. I tried to negotiate this and couldn't. I mean, yes, I could get another job, but it's not like there's someone just out there handing out jobs with extra vacation time. Jobs with "unlimited PTO" can also kinda be a trap, where people are actually expected to always be reachable. Sorry for the whining, my point is just to be kind to each other. This is something people have strong emotional responses to.

I'm a PP and I don't think it's short sighted. Sounds like you have a job with pretty standard PTO. If you like the job you are in and want to prioritize that over greater flexibility, that's your choice and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. If being able to take multi week trips abroad was a top priority for you then you'd be working towards that whether that is through job searching, earning some more certs or degree that would yield more flexible jobs, starting a business, or moving towards consulting/freelancing in your chosen field. There's options for everyone. Yes, it make take time to work towards it, but for people who highly value flexibility and travel then they intentionally find jobs that align with that.

Also, there's a VAST area between the black and white 2 weeks PTO and unicorn job that lets you work from anywhere. There's jobs that allow you to WFH, work from anywhere for X number of weeks per year, submit a request to work from anywhere, be temporarily laid off for X weeks, etc. Everything is negotiable but people often only negotiate pay rate. I understand where you are coming from and that was us 2 years ago. Since we made the conscious choice to value location independence, I started a small business and DH moved to an international company that is permanently WFH and comes with a WeWork membership so he can work anywhere there is a wework. We've gotten very involved in the home exchange and world schooling communities and you'd be shocked how much easier many people have found it is to get flexibility. Sure it takes stepping out of your comfort zone, changing things up, getting out of the complacent cycle, but totally worth it!

My company is ok with 4 weeks off with sufficient lead time. I took 20 days for my honeymoon. We have had people take similar amounts. Not every year but like once in 3 years with shorter trips otherwise.

I have a month of leave and could technically do this, but I like to have a couple of vacations a year rather than one big one.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Go to any swim meet, scout meeting, etc. All kids activities are run by moms with flexible jobs (me included). My supervisor cares that I meet my deliverables, not how, when, or where I do it. I have enough seniority that I can front load my meetings before camp pickup/swim meet/whatever, and work from the beach as needed. I was selective when I mommy tracked and while I may not be using my Ivy degree to it’s fullest, there’s only one of me at my office and I can set my terms and work pretty much completely independently without micromanaging.

That’s different than a month+ out of the country and you know it.

From the OP, we don't know whether OP's friend was working while abroad or taking a full month off. I'll be doing a combo of that this summer - out of town for a full month, but having some weeks completely off and working from wherever we'll be the other weeks. But I agree that it is outside the scope of standard US business practice to take a full month of leave without extenuating circumstances.

This. And it’s laughable for people to suggest anyone who wants to can just go out and find a job that allows 4 consecutive weeks off at one time.

I don't think it's laughable. I used to be jealous of others for taking long European vacations, but then we made it a priority and traded off higher salaries for flexibility. One of us set up a small business; the other took a wage cut to work at a nonprofit where they add a huge amount of value and basically set the terms of vacation after proving their value to the boss.

While I miss having more money, we haven't had to sacrifice anything we really care about. We are not big on fancy clothes and other material items, we actively avoid elitist school districts after living in one and absolutely hating it, and we don't subscribe to the big DCUM religion of kids' sports. Our kids do camps and activities, we get to splurge on experiences (while traveling and at home), we have a house we love, so overall I think we have found a balance that works for us.

I think generally if you are talking about educated, skilled workers, anyone can set up a life like this. If they don't, they have different priorities.

Yep this is us too and couldn't agree more. HHI $275k with tons of flexibility (also one with a small business and the other in a field where they had great leverage due to very specific niche experience) and it works great!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Go to any swim meet, scout meeting, etc. All kids activities are run by moms with flexible jobs (me included). My supervisor cares that I meet my deliverables, not how, when, or where I do it. I have enough seniority that I can front load my meetings before camp pickup/swim meet/whatever, and work from the beach as needed. I was selective when I mommy tracked and while I may not be using my Ivy degree to it’s fullest, there’s only one of me at my office and I can set my terms and work pretty much completely independently without micromanaging.

That’s different than a month+ out of the country and you know it.

From the OP, we don't know whether OP's friend was working while abroad or taking a full month off. I'll be doing a combo of that this summer - out of town for a full month, but having some weeks completely off and working from wherever we'll be the other weeks. But I agree that it is outside the scope of standard US business practice to take a full month of leave without extenuating circumstances.

This. And it’s laughable for people to suggest anyone who wants to can just go out and find a job that allows 4 consecutive weeks off at one time.

I don't think it's laughable. I used to be jealous of others for taking long European vacations, but then we made it a priority and traded off higher salaries for flexibility. One of us set up a small business; the other took a wage cut to work at a nonprofit where they add a huge amount of value and basically set the terms of vacation after proving their value to the boss.

While I miss having more money, we haven't had to sacrifice anything we really care about. We are not big on fancy clothes and other material items, we actively avoid elitist school districts after living in one and absolutely hating it, and we don't subscribe to the big DCUM religion of kids' sports. Our kids do camps and activities, we get to splurge on experiences (while traveling and at home), we have a house we love, so overall I think we have found a balance that works for us.

I think generally if you are talking about educated, skilled workers, anyone can set up a life like this. If they don't, they have different priorities.