Anonymous wrote:PP again.

I just wanted to add that I think there is some good advice in this thread around arranging separate accommodations in the same location and not having the entire vacation joint.

Kids or no kids, most people find not having some personal freedom on vacations unpleasant.

Anonymous wrote:Single aunt here- I don't want to vacation with my brothers kids either. That isn't a vacation, it's a week of them expected me to be a babysitter because they work so hard. Yeah I chose to be child free for a reason and have zero desire to go to OBX when I can be in Belize instead. I go home and visit very frequently (always me flying home, never ever them making an effort to visit me in 10 years) and when I'm home for my 3-5 days I love being an aunt and help out where ever and however I can. But no way am I going on screaming kid vacations to some place in a Carolina where I'm expected to babysit all week. Nope! I'll visit and love my nieces and nephews once a month (a 3 hr flight away) on my schedule. When I get two weeks off, I'm going on s safari. Not being cramped in your beach house from hell.

Anonymous wrote:My own mom would stay in a brothel in vegas if it meant being with her kids for a week. Sorry yours suck.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. The cost isn't a factor. Our kids are 12 months and 3. We go to the beach for vacations because it's the easiest and most child-friendly vacation that both our kids like. Usually beach towns don't have name brand hotels such as the "Ritz." We usually stay in nice but family friendly hotels. They do like the beach, that's not the issue. It's just that they don't want to vacation in non-fancy places. If they were willing to vacation with us it would be a great way for them to see the kids more because it's too hard to go and visit them since my husband doesn't get much vacation time.

I have this dream of the big, warm, loving family vacations where we rent a big house at the beach and spend a fun week together. Sadly, that kind of vacation will never happen, not with my family and not with DH's either.

OP, I am approaching 50 and the absolute last thing I would want to do is vacation with an infant and a toddler.

My kids are a comparable age to yours, OP, and I don't want to go on this vacation either. If you let them plan the vacation would they let you tag along?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. The cost isn't a factor. Our kids are 12 months and 3. We go to the beach for vacations because it's the easiest and most child-friendly vacation that both our kids like. Usually beach towns don't have name brand hotels such as the "Ritz." We usually stay in nice but family friendly hotels. They do like the beach, that's not the issue. It's just that they don't want to vacation in non-fancy places. If they were willing to vacation with us it would be a great way for them to see the kids more because it's too hard to go and visit them since my husband doesn't get much vacation time.

I have this dream of the big, warm, loving family vacations where we rent a big house at the beach and spend a fun week together. Sadly, that kind of vacation will never happen, not with my family and not with DH's either.

OP, I am approaching 50 and the absolute last thing I would want to do is vacation with an infant and a toddler.

Anonymous wrote:Go to a beach that has a Ritz.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Aside from the "fancy" aspect, this was my father.

He tried to tell me that he doesn't dislike any of us or anything (!) but that he raised me, and he has no interest in hanging out "watching us parent" little kids or, horrors, be asked to actually engage with the children in any way. He was a royal asshole and for years I thought my mother felt the same way because he always spoke for the two of them and I could never – literally never – see her alone.

Turns out that he was emotionally abusing her quite a bit and is himself almost a classic narcissistic personality type. We were forced to cut him off several years ago.

My mother miraculously separated from him a couple of years after that and is now free and much happier – and comes to see us frequently and whenever she feels like it, or we feel like it, and she enjoys herself immensely. My kids adore her. I didn't realize until I had kids of my own how much he emotionally abused me for years as well, and then when I saw the way he treated my first child as a toddler the one or two times every other year that he did deign to visit, I called an end to it immediately.

Some parents just don't want to be grandparents. FWIW, my dad went to work at 15 to support his mom and siblings and he felt like he never had any life of his own really – so as soon as his one kid was out of the nest, he decided his life was all his own now and he wasn't going to spend time with anyone unless it was spent sitting around talking about himself. It's sad, but there it is. I think he's off somewhere now traveling the continent in an RV, sucking off the government for unemployment, and reading a lot about conspiracy theories.

It's foul, it is just really is. You have my sympathy, OP, but in a way be glad your kids don't have to be around such selfish people.

I'm sorry, PP. My mom is a lot like this too, and her story sounds a lot like your dad's. She was responsible for others from a very early age. By the time I came along when she was 34, she was just OVER dependents (not sure why she had me then?). Actually, yes I am, it was to worship her and make her feel great about herself. Too bad that didn't work out.

Thanks for saying that – the above portion was my post. That's actually a really good way of putting it. My dad only allowed my mom to have one child – me – and he was great with me apparently when I was a baby, but once I began walking and talking and having opinions (and a lot of my mother's attention), he didn't like that. He was never physically abusive, but mean and manipulative, and I do think he wanted a child that would make him feel important AND important in the eyes of other people. Every accomplishment I ever earned he flaunted to everyone he could as it being HIS accomplishment. He ended up getting what he deserved, thankfully.

Wow. This is my story, too. Sad but comforting in a way to know I'm not alone.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems like on this thread the word "selfish" means "won't do what I want them to do."

OP's parents already raised their kids. They're past the beach vacation with little kids phase and don't care to return to it.

Saying that's not a choice they can make sounds pretty freaking entitled.

No one is saying it's not a choice they can make. But many people think it's a sad and yes a selfish choice because vacations are one of the only realistic times it's possible spend time with grandkids unless grandparents are local.

You can choose to be selfish, but you can't do whatever you want and force people not to have opinions about it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Aside from the "fancy" aspect, this was my father.

He tried to tell me that he doesn't dislike any of us or anything (!) but that he raised me, and he has no interest in hanging out "watching us parent" little kids or, horrors, be asked to actually engage with the children in any way. He was a royal asshole and for years I thought my mother felt the same way because he always spoke for the two of them and I could never – literally never – see her alone.

Turns out that he was emotionally abusing her quite a bit and is himself almost a classic narcissistic personality type. We were forced to cut him off several years ago.

My mother miraculously separated from him a couple of years after that and is now free and much happier – and comes to see us frequently and whenever she feels like it, or we feel like it, and she enjoys herself immensely. My kids adore her. I didn't realize until I had kids of my own how much he emotionally abused me for years as well, and then when I saw the way he treated my first child as a toddler the one or two times every other year that he did deign to visit, I called an end to it immediately.

Some parents just don't want to be grandparents. FWIW, my dad went to work at 15 to support his mom and siblings and he felt like he never had any life of his own really – so as soon as his one kid was out of the nest, he decided his life was all his own now and he wasn't going to spend time with anyone unless it was spent sitting around talking about himself. It's sad, but there it is. I think he's off somewhere now traveling the continent in an RV, sucking off the government for unemployment, and reading a lot about conspiracy theories.

It's foul, it is just really is. You have my sympathy, OP, but in a way be glad your kids don't have to be around such selfish people.

I'm sorry, PP. My mom is a lot like this too, and her story sounds a lot like your dad's. She was responsible for others from a very early age. By the time I came along when she was 34, she was just OVER dependents (not sure why she had me then?). Actually, yes I am, it was to worship her and make her feel great about herself. Too bad that didn't work out.

Thanks for saying that – the above portion was my post. That's actually a really good way of putting it. My dad only allowed my mom to have one child – me – and he was great with me apparently when I was a baby, but once I began walking and talking and having opinions (and a lot of my mother's attention), he didn't like that. He was never physically abusive, but mean and manipulative, and I do think he wanted a child that would make him feel important AND important in the eyes of other people. Every accomplishment I ever earned he flaunted to everyone he could as it being HIS accomplishment. He ended up getting what he deserved, thankfully.