Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD did a 3 week backpacking trip with a friend last summer after graduating. They both worked all school year to have enough money to do it, planned it out themselves. Parents paid for the round trip flights as their graduation gift, kids otherwise fully funded it. Both spent the rest of the summer working too.

Discovered during the trip that they thought you booked hostels by nights instead of arrival day / departure day so there were a few nights they had to scramble to find a place to sleep. They got a Euro-rail pass and crammed quite a lot into their three weeks! Was a great experience.

Definitely not rich.

If you have money to buy your kid a r/t ticket to Europe, you are rich.

It was $680, and her high school graduation gift. We own one car, live in a 1000 sq foot apartment, take camping trips for vacation. You make a lot of assumptions about one plane ticket.

I don’t have any extra money after paying bills. Ditto for most of America.

It doesn't mean that someone who can spend $680 on one plane ticket is rich. . .there's are people who can't pay all their bills, ever. There are some people who drop $30k on an international vacation for the whole family every single year, sometimes more than once. I promise you, in real life, you wouldn't look at my life and judge me as "rich". . .but you do you.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD did a 3 week backpacking trip with a friend last summer after graduating. They both worked all school year to have enough money to do it, planned it out themselves. Parents paid for the round trip flights as their graduation gift, kids otherwise fully funded it. Both spent the rest of the summer working too.

Discovered during the trip that they thought you booked hostels by nights instead of arrival day / departure day so there were a few nights they had to scramble to find a place to sleep. They got a Euro-rail pass and crammed quite a lot into their three weeks! Was a great experience.

Definitely not rich.

If you have money to buy your kid a r/t ticket to Europe, you are rich.

It was $680, and her high school graduation gift. We own one car, live in a 1000 sq foot apartment, take camping trips for vacation. You make a lot of assumptions about one plane ticket.

I don’t have any extra money after paying bills. Ditto for most of America.

Not one person in my HS class did this (I graduated in 2011). And as an adult, I don't know anyone whose kids are doing this.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 18 DD traveled to London, Belgium and France for 3 weeks but went with us as we are not trusting her along with flakey 18 yo’s to make decisions. We had a great time!

Helicopter parenting at its finest!

Imagine thinking your 18 yo is flakey. Parenting fail.

Your parents failed at teaching you to spell.

We are taking our kids after HS graduation- family trip. Past summer was filled with school stuff, test prep, community service, etc. I call the summer after HS graduation “the summer of fun” for my kids .

I see it after college graduation more frequently.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 18 DD traveled to London, Belgium and France for 3 weeks but went with us as we are not trusting her along with flakey 18 yo’s to make decisions. We had a great time!

Helicopter parenting at its finest!

GMAFB. It’s helicopter parenting to travel with your 18 year old?

To insist on accompanying your adult child rather than let them travel independently and develop some life skills? Yes it is.

No. My kid who graduated from an independent school in June went to the Caribbean with most of their class (and 50 parents) for beach week. All of their friends are working and saving money for college this summer. If there were trips to Europe it was with parents.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD did a 3 week backpacking trip with a friend last summer after graduating. They both worked all school year to have enough money to do it, planned it out themselves. Parents paid for the round trip flights as their graduation gift, kids otherwise fully funded it. Both spent the rest of the summer working too.

Discovered during the trip that they thought you booked hostels by nights instead of arrival day / departure day so there were a few nights they had to scramble to find a place to sleep. They got a Euro-rail pass and crammed quite a lot into their three weeks! Was a great experience.

Definitely not rich.

If you have money to buy your kid a r/t ticket to Europe, you are rich.

It was $680, and her high school graduation gift. We own one car, live in a 1000 sq foot apartment, take camping trips for vacation. You make a lot of assumptions about one plane ticket.

Yeah…similar price for my kid.

This isn’t the guilded age where your kid went to Europe via first class steamer ship.

My kid did. Went to a country where one of the friends has family, and then the group of friends traveled around independently. They had a ball and as far as we can tell were pretty responsible and mature.

I can understand wanting your kid to wait until they’ve had the experience of being independent in college before taking a trip like this. For my particular kid I wanted them to have a jolt of independence and growing up before they went to college. The risks of independent European travel for 18 year olds are pretty low in most countries. However, the risk of Freshman year flailing and failure is real. I wanted my kid to experience total freedom when they didn’t also have to take an Econ exam in the morning.

We’ll see how that works out!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD did a 3 week backpacking trip with a friend last summer after graduating. They both worked all school year to have enough money to do it, planned it out themselves. Parents paid for the round trip flights as their graduation gift, kids otherwise fully funded it. Both spent the rest of the summer working too.

Discovered during the trip that they thought you booked hostels by nights instead of arrival day / departure day so there were a few nights they had to scramble to find a place to sleep. They got a Euro-rail pass and crammed quite a lot into their three weeks! Was a great experience.

Definitely not rich.

If you have money to buy your kid a r/t ticket to Europe, you are rich.

It was $680, and her high school graduation gift. We own one car, live in a 1000 sq foot apartment, take camping trips for vacation. You make a lot of assumptions about one plane ticket.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 18 DD traveled to London, Belgium and France for 3 weeks but went with us as we are not trusting her along with flakey 18 yo’s to make decisions. We had a great time!

Helicopter parenting at its finest!

Imagine thinking your 18 yo is flakey. Parenting fail.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those of you whose kids are "working to have money for college" --are your kids contributing money to the cost of college tuition?

No, but saving for books, supplies, spending money, and gas. Hopefully they will be able to also find a part time job at college to pay for extras while we take care of tuition, room and board.

Hopefully they will be able to travel after graduation or do a semester abroad. I had to do the same thing while in college because there just isn't enough money to cover everything.

FYI…nobody buys books anymore in college. Either the class doesn’t have them or they get the book for free online.

Literally every college textbook including the most recent additions are online for free.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No. Not enough money to do that and pay for college. Went after college.

Isn’t it insane that Americans pay so much for college but then think that this routine travel is the expensive part?! What a scam!

Yes. Agree 100%. Just returned from Europe and there were packs and packs of very young Europeans traveling together. Of course they won't be paying $40K or 90K for college--more like $10K.
American is so messed up.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 18 DD traveled to London, Belgium and France for 3 weeks but went with us as we are not trusting her along with flakey 18 yo’s to make decisions. We had a great time!

Helicopter parenting at its finest!

GMAFB. It’s helicopter parenting to travel with your 18 year old?