D2, who lives 60 miles away (through traffic,) is here more than D1, who lives 3 blocks away. But we all text often. They both held to our annual summer vacation (shorter, this year, to accommodate their work schedules.) And both and SO’s were willing to go out to a concert venue we visit each summer (though that one changed to dinner at D2’s, since the weather was uncertain.)
I made it clear I hoped we held to some routine family time together, however brief. But like many here, we make sure all this is voluntary. And pleasant. It works. Both now find a way to make Thanksgiving, Christmas, and other days work in how they split their time with SO families. It’s really wonderful when they hit the age were you feel the mutual interest.
Dh and I both grew up in households with few expectations. It also ended up that neither of us are as close with our respective siblings as I would hope for my kids. My oldest lives 30 minutes away and we try to get together about once every two weeks. She has our dog and needs him to stay with us on occasion and she also likes to borrow our extra car periodically so, sometimes those visits aren’t as much planned for purely social reasons as practical ones. D2 lives on the opposite coast and she knows she’s always welcome but never required to come home. Fortunately for us, she likes to visit and is also allowed to work out of our (somewhat) local office and, in addition to Thanksgiving, has come for a week the last two years and worked from here. Youngest is still in college and, unless she has something planned, comes home during the usual times.
I would have said I never say “should” until one of my D’s told me that’s how I worded it when dh and I organized a dinner for my in-laws’ 65th wedding anniversary. Perhaps this is something I need to work on!
I assume by adult you mean out of school and independent. Technically 18 is an adult (but we all know better).
Decades ago my inlaws would make months long trips to the US every few years, now my MIL technically lives with her D but may spend months with a sister-in-law, us or in India. My father was tolerable for only a couple of days, now we’re in Tampa, he’s in WI. Memory shot and saw him this year- talk on the phone (repeating myself a lot). Holidays became call schedule dependent so no rules- and we don’t do religions.
Son moved to Seattle after we moved here. Still single. Around 3000 miles - as far from parents as he can be in the lower 48. We find the PNW an excellent escape from a Florida summer. We hotel it (his studio- arrgh to space and cleanliness) and do some dinners or days with him while doing our own thing. He comes for a week when our weather is good and his rainy. The distances are too great- spend the better part of a day coming and one going- to do the trips more often. He actually had tech call for his company last Thanksgiving so came the week before when his grandma was still with us.
My sister has two kids, each with a kid now. They can do a long weekend drive to see one. Sometimes they do that drive then fly to see the other (in the same direction, unlike their colleges). Sometimes the kids return to their hometown. No fixed schedules.
We grew up 70 or so miles from parents’ hometown. I swear I spent 25 Christmases visiting my father’s sibling for the afternoon but rarely my mother’s. Boring.
My brother’s kids live in their hometown and are always expected to do Thanksgiving at their parents’ house. The last time I commiserated with my niece (dysfunctional family, sigh) I said at least when you visit them you can leave when you want to. If my kid thinks I try to control things he should talk to those cousins!
Once a kid finishes school and gets a job things change. They no longer are part of your household. In college an apartment means they have a place so they do not need to come home but they still tend to for breaks.
Extended families who spend time together seems to be part of a culture where everyone stayed in the same city. In my family every generation seems to be in a different city, state or country, marrying someone from a different place. Nuclear families change as the kids age out of them.
Talking on the phone seems to work better than physical visits most often.
We have a lot of expectations in my family, and extended family. Kids are expected to be home for certain holidays, birthdays, mother/father’s day, and various get togethers. All of our kids are working, self supporting adults now, but when they travel (for work or pleasure) to where their cousins, aunts/uncles, parents live, they are expected to have a meet up. I don’t see D1 that often even though she lives in the same city as me, but we do try to get together. The flip side, we are all quite close and we do have fun together. D2 is going out to Palo Alto to visit a law school and my brother’s family is there, so they are hosting D2 and making sure she has a nice weekend.
Tomorrow night the girls and their SOs are coming over for a crab feast. It should be fun.
My Mom always demanded Christmas and my MIL made it very clear that she expected everyone for Thanksgiving. When my parents passed away my siblings didn’t make as much effort to get together and that is sad. I sometimes go over a year without seeing my brothers. We are not close and I would never pick up the phone to call them. I do call my sisters and we try to see each other several times a year.
I have two of my kids living back in town. One we see fairly often. In the summer months she will usually spend Saturday afternoon at the beach with her Dad and she will stay for dinner. I’m spending the day with her tomorrow. When she lived in another city I talked to her daily. Now she will text but I don’t talk to her as much. In her old city she walked to and from work and she would call when she was walking. My S on the other hand will go weeks or longer and not call. If we invite him to dinner he will come but he isn’t the sort to just call to talk. Now that it is football season he will spend some evenings and Sunday afternoons with us watching football with my H. When he is here he is totally present. His fiancé is much more of a source to what is going on with them. He loves being with my inlaws and his cousins and does not want to miss Thanksgiving with his family. I can see it will be an issue for discussion once he is married.
Kid 3 lives a 6 1/2 drive away. Our airport is a regional one and there are no direct flights so we don’t see her as often as any of us would like. She comes down for Thanksgiving and usually after Christmas for a few days. She tries to get another visit in during the spring. We also go to her several times a year. The last few years we have also met her and her BF in vacation spot. I do talk to her everyday at least once if not twice or some days I talk to her to many times to count. Plus she texts both me and her Dad a lot. Her BF has a Mom who puts lots of demands on them going to see her and family events. His family is about 75 minute drive. Close enough that she feels like they should come. My D doesn’t love his family and would much prefer to spend time with us. They would like to move to our city but cost of living is expensive and lack of jobs in BF field make that unlikely.
I think I’ll use runnersmom idea of telling both S and D and fiancé we are going out to dinner and if anyone wants to join us.
My inlaws live 45 minutes away. I know that unless we make the effort time goes by and before you know it you haven’t seen them in a long while. (H sees his Dad once a week for work)
My two grown kids live in distant parts of the country. Both have full-time jobs with limited paid time off. One is married.
There have been times when I haven’t seen my son for as long as two years at a stretch because he lives so far away and has changed jobs several times. New employees don’t have any time off coming to them, and he has been a new employee three times in the last six years.
I’ve been lucky enough to see my daughter more often, but now that she’s married, she’s a member of two families, not just one. And she has a job with very limited time off. She and her husband had to postpone their honeymoon because she didn’t have enough time off coming to her. She was lucky to have enough time off to be able to go to her own wedding earlier this month (which took place in the area where she and her husband grew up, not where they live now). I think it’s going to be a long time between visits with her from now on.
And sometimes it’s not only kids who have limited ability to travel. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am about to start a new job. The company I’m going to work for is as stingy as my daughter’s employer in the paid time off department, and I have lots of health care needs. Most of my paid time off will be used up by doctor and dental visits, medical tests, and the like. I’m not going anywhere any time soon.
It’s challenging to keep up your relationships with your kids when you can’t see them very often. If they live in different time zones, as mine do, it may be challenging even to find a time when you can talk on the phone. I make an effort to keep in touch with both of them regularly, but it’s not easy. Adding expectations and demands to our already complicated lives would make it worse.
Marian - just FYI, when you change your job it is fairly normal to negotiate for amount of time off. There is no reason why you should give up your old job’s vacation days when you go to a new job. It is all part of the package. As an example, I had to take 2 weeks off for a family vacation (all paid for before I joined) a month after I started. My new employer and I agreed I would borrow my future vacation days. I also had 25 vacation days from my previous employer, so I asked my new employer to also give me 25 days the first year, instead of waiting for 5 years to get 25 days.
I think it is a bit harsh for employer not to give additional days off when it is someone’s wedding. Just my view.
I have also been on the other side of negotiation. If I really liked an applicant, I would also give additional perks as long as it is not too unreasonable. HR would defer to the hiring manager most of the time.
I do not see it “harsh” to not give additional days for personal events. Rearranging time away is different than extra time off. Unpaid time off may even need to happen with a new job. It is not the employer’s duty to accommodate a new employee’s social life. Negotiating the time off or having the family accommodate your schedule, not expecting it seems fair.
Time zones do change communications! If a kid starts later in his morning and a parent goes to bed reasonably early they can miss each other. At least we’re retired and rarely can catch son before his workday starts. Walking also seems to be a good time for son to talk. Calling as late as we can may mean he is just starting his meal. Picking a weekend time means it is bound to disrupt a day for either or both.
We know he reads his emails from us (and is alive) when we occasionally get a brief response to a sent link.
Extra time off (by any name) is a matter of your position. Senior staff hires can pull different strings. For lower mortals, an extra day or two or asking for a specific week might fly. Or they may very well call, “Next!”
This is a bit off topic…but people are more into work life balance now. When there is major family/life event, employers are generally more considerate. At the same time, they also do expect their employees to work long hours when work needs to get done. It works both ways. As one of managers said to me, “You had a life before you came, why should it stop now.” When I was younger as a manager, I used to play by the rule more and I learned from some seasoned HR who told me it was better to have happier employees than to make sure they don’t get more than they deserve, a bit you give you get 10 times more back.
Negotiating for time off is not just for senior staff, but if you don’t ask you won’t get. Of course, it is not something you would discuss until they are ready to make an offer.
Both kids live on the opposite coast, thankfully they are close to each other. We expect to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with family so we fly to them for Thanksgiving and they take turns coming to us for Christmas. My daughter always hosts Thanksgiving because she has a bigger place, she likes to cook and her H is Canadian so he has no family obligations on that day. My S and DIL take turns with her family (who lives local) for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
We make several trips a year to see them because we have more time but we keep in touch regularly with texts and phone calls.
For my older girls, one is here in town and I see her quite often, the other is 1000+ miles away but we still manage to see her every 2-3 months. I wish I could see her more.
The discussion about time off is interesting. D1 is a nurse and can rearrange her schedule to get time off when she needs it. Working 12 hour shifts helps with that but I know it’s exhausting for her when she does 3 of them in a row. D2 has more conventional hours and feels like she has less time off. Having a long weekend is nice but when everyone else has the same long weekend, travel can become so difficult and expensive that it’s not worth it. She officially has only 1 day left for 2017, plus the federal holidays, so I guess we’ll be venturing up into the frosty north to see her for Xmas if we want to see her!
Workplaces with flexibility are a great find. Smart employers will appreciate the value of a happy employee, as oldfort said, but not every employer is that smart.
Our three sons and their wives, fiancee and child all live within 45 min. of us (metro area). We have Sunday dinner and whoever is free comes. Sometimes it’s all, sometimes it’s some and sometimes it doesn’t work out. No expectations. They have busy lives and lots of friends and outings and get togethers themselves. That’s okay.
I did negotiate, and time off was one of the issues I negotiated about, but I was less successful there than with salary (where I managed to get an increase). The most they would do for me was to give me the amount of time off allowed to people with more than 5 years of work at the company – which means one extra day of paid time off per year. So I get 18 total days of PTO (meaning vacation/sick leave combined) instead of 17. And they’re also allowing me to go to medical or dental appointments that come up before I’ve earned enough PTO to take time off for them (something that’s definitely going to happen – I have essential appointments already scheduled). But I have to make up the time by working late on the same day (which will be fairly brutal after painful dermatological procedures, but you gotta do what you gotta do). Apparently, the option of making up the time on a different day during the same timesheet period is not permitted.
I’m a fairly low-level employee, @oldfort, mostly because I was a stay-at-home parent for many years. And I’m a government contractor, which means that even exempt employees have to keep extremely accurate timesheets, which limits the flexibility an employer can give you. I’m grateful for even the little bit of consideration I’m getting. I’m also grateful that I could get a new job at 62, and that I didn’t have to turn down the offer because of my medical needs. My old employer lost the government contract I worked on, and I knew it was only a matter of time (probably weeks) before I would be laid off for lack of work. I’m just amazed that I won’t be unemployed.
Adult kids and visits obviously depend quite a bit on employment, the children’s and the parents’. I have a generous amount of vacation (25 days per year) and I’m allowed to carry over a certain amount, but my job is so demanding that it can be hard to use the time. In addition, I can’t afford to travel frequently nor can my daughters. Between my and their financial and time limits, what is most likely is that I pay for their travel so they can come home. That way, we can see each other, no one has hotel expenses, I can still work some of the time during their visits, and they are more likely to get to see their father. He is his parents’ caregiver, a job from which it is extremely hard to get a break. (His sister, the only sibling who lives in state, has already informed him that she will not be available at Thanksgiving or Christmas to visit their parents and thus also won’t be available to sub for him.)
My kids are not local, so we’re happy whenever they can come visit. We try to visit them on their turf in between, sometimes as a layover on a business trip or something. We try to cover costs if their finances are such that visiting would be a burden, and have been delighted that as they age, they actively resist our efforts to help out in this way!
I guess we have an expectation that they should do their best to be here for at least one big extended family holiday each year (Thanksgiving or Passover, usually) and attend significant family events like a cousin’s wedding or a funeral, but we also understand that the demands of their work may not allow that to happen. Two of them work in the entertainment business, so something like New Year’s Eve may be a contractual obligation.
DS and his partner live close to her parents, and spend a lot of time with them. We may not get quantity, but from what I hear between the lines, we may get the quality…
DS lives literally half way around the world and I rarely hear from him though I feel we have a loving relationship. DD is local and I see her at swim practice (I pay her master’s dues. One way I can see her!) and she mostly invites herself over every week or two, sometimes with a friends. I do need to remember to make a point to take her out for a meal or invite her over. I just don’t want to impose