<p>I miss my family’s vacations - they were stationed in Africa for much of my high school and college years so we either went on Safaris or took R&Rs in Europe. We drag our kids to reunion/vacations to either St. Johns, VI or Dewey Beach, DE, or a family cabin in VT. They aren’t too fond of the former or the latter - no internet access or even reliable cell phones. Mathson doesn’t like swimming either. They are usually decent sports about it. They bring a lot of books and we play a lot of bridge or board games. Mathson like Cheer’s son isn’t too fond of transitions. The last overseas vacation we went on (Scotland) we took the younger brother and sent him to nerd camp. We had a great time without him.</p>
<p>Another thing that I swore never to do to my kids when I was growing up (and this is related to vacations)-</p>
<p>My parents have a tendency to believe that what THEY like, everyone else should like. There’s something “wrong with you” if you don’t enjoy the same activities they do. Likewise, if you enjoy activities that they do not (snowskiing and roller coaster parks are examples in our family), there’s something “wrong with you”. They would even go as far as to criticize us kids if we weren’t displaying enough enthusiasm for their interesting activities. </p>
<p>My marriage was so liberating, in that my husband never judges me or our kids for not enjoying the same things as him or each other. We’re each our own person. </p>
<p>Politeness is expected, of course, but no acts please. Talk about freedom!</p>
<p>This thread is so interesting, an example of the pull between the individual and group that is a difficult dynamic in American society. As I have gone through a certain amount of hurt over this topic with my own kids, it is good to know I am not alone. </p>
<p>I had years going on family vacations with my dad, camping all over the Colorado plateau in AZ and Utah in my younger as well as later teens. We had done it for years, was expected, I never thought of not going the few times it happened when I was 18 to 20. Yes, I’d have preferred to backpack in wilderness with friends, rather than car camp, but it was what we did as a family, and I never thought to not go. Fond, fond memories now, with those places changed and him gone. I live far from there these days. Travel is what we did as a family, and that love has been passed on to my kids. </p>
<p>My theory has been that if you establish rituals with your kids, it gives some habitual ways to interact for the future, hopefully sharing activities you both enjoy. But, I don’t feel I’ve been especially sucessful at doing this with my own kids. Partially due to the difficulty at getting time off in summer, partially due to the joint custody nature of my life, as well as the fact that spending a certain amount of money on unusual experiences is what we all tend to enjoy. My son has absented himself from travel with us for years, though we went to Asia to take care of my dad when he was sick, and that was about the best thing that could have happened to our relationship, and we’ve been closer since. Ds and I have traveled most spring breaks for years, and I’m hoping we can continue some bit of that when they’re in college…but who knows, maybe college visits were our last times for much travel together.</p>
<p>Finding pleasure together is what binds and bonds people, and I want that with my kids, free from the distractions of home. How can you find mutually fun activities? And to OP, can you find a way to make some of this work for all of you? Compromise on amount of time away, activies during the time away, sights en route? Each choose how to spend half a week? You do much for your kid, and I think a little shared time is not too much to ask. Most human relationships require a little compromise, and that is not a bad thing to both exemplify and point out.</p>
<p>Now ironically, my twin Ds are going on my dream trip next week, backpacking with friends on a route I’ve longed to traverse myself. All their initiative, and I have to work, so could not even approach ‘helping’ with transport. Someday, maybe together?</p>
<p>If I offended by my comment about leaving a HSers at home for a week with parents in another part of the state, mea culpa, I was trying to be funny…and even though my words may have been not apprpriate, I stand by the thought and concern behind them</p>
<p>i will be more careful</p>
<p>It is not a child’s job to be grateful for anything their parents did for them, and yes, they ARE immature, that’s part of being in the teenage transitional years. cgm, there are so many books dealing with the behaviors of teenagers, in them you will find how normal it is for them to be so awful and the logic behind it. </p>
<p>Do not leave your teenager home alone, no matter how good s/he is or matter how trusted. All it takes is for one other person to get in the house and invite the troublemakers, your child would be helpless.</p>
<p>The summer job made it impossible for our son to go on vacation with us his last 2 years of hs. He had to take two weeks off for band camp and church mission project. His college freshman year he did go with us on a winter ski vacation which was scheduled to coincide with his winter break and that was fum.</p>
<p>However in college his summers have been committed and a family vacation has not been possible. This years internship in California, last years on campus summer research project with one of his compsci profs and summer term courses after freshman year. We miss him this summer in California but the two summers in Troy he was able to come home 4 - 6 weekends to spend time with us and his hs buds.</p>
<p>I think the reluctance to go one family vacations is two fold. First summer committments which are important to a for them. With the summer job during hs he knew he had choices to make that would involve compromises. Always a good lesson to learn. Secondly, its kinda like the bird in the nest syndrome. At some point they need to begin their adult life, where friends and responsibilites become as important as the family.</p>
<p>Next year he graduates college and who knows where he will end up. However those sacrificed family vacations have prepped him well for his real world adult career. I just hope he does not relocate too far away and decides to do a family vacation every 4 or 5 years.</p>
<p>Maybe I should add this to the current “I don’t get it thread,” but I don’t really get vacation homes. Well, I’d get a villa on the Mediterranean or a cottage on the shore of Cape Cod, but those lakeside or mountain second homes, usually called “camps” hereabouts, seem like a chance to double your house/yardwork and family aggravation. I know several people who’ve bought a lake cottage when their kids were in elementary school, enjoyed 3 or 4 years of great times, and then found that their teenaged kids had zero interest in going, with or without friends along. I even know a couple who bought a house, sold it when their kids were teens to a couple with younger children, and then bought it back years later from the same couple, who wanted to sell it because their kids, by then teens, never wanted to be there. </p>
<p>I’m not big on pursuing family togetherness unless all parties want it. I’d never want my kids to spend time with me out of a sense of obligation (don’t see much fun in that - and aren’t we talking about a vacation?).</p>
<p>We have had a rather positive response to family time. Ski house with grandparents! During winter it was never an option, no sport/activity allowed over winter. The first few years were a little rough, just the skiing thing with 4 small children, very exhausting!! Once over that it has become everyones favorite thing to do. We always made it open for the kids to bring friends which helps. </p>
<p>Now we are beginning the college search and D loves idea of not being too far from ski house.</p>
<p>It has also created a wonderful bond with grandparents, S2 is there now alone with them for 10 days. </p>
<p>I agree that summer is virtually impossible for family vacation with everyone, scheduals are way to crazy, plus we live at the beach so not much incentive to go anywhere!</p>
<p>lol, my in-laws live at the beach and there is no way my kids would ever go there for fun, although MIL is always suggesting that we could stay with them and not spend money on a vacation. Honestly, they are just not fun to be around (even DH says so). Not active at all (health issues,lots of complaining) so what is supposed to be a vacation turns into sitting in Grandma’s house keeping them company watching reruns of Law and Order which is what we expect to do on a regular visit but is not our idea of a vacation. </p>
<p>We live near a large lake and bought a boat when the kids were young thinking it would be great for family outings. It was great until S1 reached about 14/15 and did not care to go anymore therefore S2 didn’t want to go any more either. We got rid of the boat when S1 was 16 and put the money toward teenage car insurance! </p>
<p>Both boys love to go to the lake with their friends…just not anybody’s parents!</p>
<p>I wasn’t referring to the OPs kids, it was a general comment on the posts by others about pouty, rude, etc kids who whined about having to spend time with their own family…that was my take on others comments…</p>
<p>yues, they are immature, but do we FEED that with succumbing to all their whims? do we let them have their ways all the time? is that what those books are saying? do the books say, yes accept rudenss and snooty behavior because, well, gee, they are teens? or is it better as parents that we expect the best, and accept courtesy and some give and take, or do some think it is better to allow tantrums to get their way and a rejection of their parents?</p>
<p>I can’t imagine that is what the books say, and yes, I understand teens…I just don’t think they should be the bosses of the house and the family</p>
<p>I can’t imagine owning a vacation home by myself. My mother and her sister own a cabin in Vermont and it’s now shared by all the kids and their families as well. So the aggravation is spread around. Still at least a day of every vacation seems to be spent on fridge repairs, tree removal, painting or other maintenance work. It’s sufficiently different from what we do at home though that it’s usually still a change of pace. It’s also very much a cabin in the woods - solar power only, iffy cell phone service, no land line. You really are on vacation when you are there!</p>
<p>How many here took their young children to museums, and musicals, and tried to get them to eat different foods, and to family parties, etc., and it was a good thing…</p>
<p>my H got us tickets to a soccer game tomorrow, he is so excited, BOTH my Ds have other options that most teens would not want to miss, and we gave both girls the option of attending the other parties, but they chose to spend the time with their family…and happily…they said, hey, we can see those people all the time, and as one D is off to college soon, both girls felt it was important to have some time, and grab it when they could, with good ole mom and dad, and each other…and if they had opted, either one, to go to the parties, it would have been fine, but we have over their lifetimes shown the importance and value of being together, even if it is not everyone’s cup of tea…and sometimes one or more would opt out, other times, they brought along a friend, and other times they just hung with the parental units…</p>
<p>this year, we have no time for summer vacation- due to camps, work, college- so we have scheduled out many days of city adventures, put up a calendar,- some are just family, like a show, and others, like sailing, they can bring a friend or two…</p>
<p>yes, I agree that as they get older, long family vacations can be tough, but does that mean, that while they are in your home, they get to decide everything? I guess I think that sometimes our children can do a little something that doesn’t thrill them and isn’t totally exciting the whole time, and should be happy to keep mom and dad company for a few days…</p>
<p>how many times did we go to the zoo and look at the same monkees, or eat at not our favorite restaraunts, or didn’t do something we would have loved to do, so we could attend an event for our child…I would hope that as our teens expect and want more freedoms of choice and want us to see their growing maturity, that included in that is the maturity to see how important some things are to their family</p>
<p>in one breath people say, yes they are immature, and then in the next that they are mature enough to decide how the family is run…this is a generation, where many expect everything to happen fast, to be always exciting, with go go go, and who have, in some cases a disdain for those that raised them, (sure in some cases that is valid), but why does it all have to be about them, their wants, their whatever, one would hope that as they mature, they go beyond themselves and see that others have wants and hopes as well, sad that some kids don’t see that with their own parents…</p>
<p>and again, I am not saying a forced family trip, but maybe a bit of giving of themselves and what they want to be their for family</p>
<p>cgm,
You’re judging and criticizing other people’s children and/or their childrearing styles based on your family dynamic. It’s wonderful that your family enjoys spending time together going on vacations and field trips. Our family does not do a lot of summer vacations and field trips together, anymore. That doesn’t make our kids snotty or bratty, or us bad parents. It’s just different. </p>
<p>We do spend a week at Christmas with grandma in NH.</p>
<p>Some of this is just plain differences in family relationships and traditions. I know a family where all the adult children and their kids still live in the same town, and everyone still eats breakfast together on weekends (at someone’s house). That doesn’t mean that everyone who doesn’t get together for breakfast with their siblings has some kind of character flaw. Or that if one or another sibling decided that they don’t want to do breakfast anymore, they have a personal problem. </p>
<p>Anyway, as long as everyone is happy and functioning, what difference does it make.</p>
<p>I don’t equate taking an adolescent’s feelings into account with allowing them to “decide how the family is run.” I don’t think I’m showing my kids that life is “all about them” when I consider their tastes, personalities, or developmental stages in putting together our family life. Then again, I never exposed them to foods we wouldn’t have put on the table anyway just for the sake of doing so, nor did I care when they didn’t want to eat something new. </p>
<p>I really didn’t see taking them to their rehearsals, the zoo, playdates, whatever, as a sacrifice in the same way that they might see giving up a week of their summer vacation to hang with mom and dad in the wilderness as a sacrifice. I considered it part of my job as their mother (besides which, I like the zoo.) I guess I don’t really consider my kids obligated to return the favor. </p>
<p>In any case, forcing someone to meet another’s emotional needs on the grounds that it’s an obligation is not likely to result in a happy acquiesence.</p>
<p>I love my family, but I do miss living alone during the school year. I control the A/C, I control the t.v., I can watch/do whatever I want, drink whatever I want, stay out as late as I want, etc.</p>
<p>We try to find something that everybody finds acceptable for one week a year and that takes compromise on everybody’s part. Nobody gets their ideal vacation (if such a thing even exists). If we couldn’t find something that everybody thought would be at least some fun, we wouldn’t insist they go (but would make sure a teen was supervised at home if we went; usually the comment that Grandma will come to watch the house makes the vacation sound more palatable). </p>
<p>In recent years, the kids have agreed to a cruise as their desired compromise (Hawaii this year), although even that is starting to run its course in terms of interest. I think we may need to look at some “adventure” options next year like whitewater rafting but I will need to get in better shape to pull that off. </p>
<p>I can see why they rather spend time with friends than with us. S2 is headed to the beach next week with friends and S1 is camping at some three day concert with friends this week-end. I completely disagree that our parental sacrifices create some sort of return obligation in terms of vacation. We will force the kids to be polite to grandparents when they visit, do chores, etc. But, I don’t see any reason to force them to take a vacation they would hate.</p>
<p>I love white water rafting- I started doing it to get over my fear of water- and it is a blast.</p>
<p>My philosophy toward vacations and childrens input into daily life as well as long term plans perhaps is more " pc?" than some would want.</p>
<p>I have tried to present the kids with controlled choices from a very early age- to allow them to learn from their own mistakes, to teach them that decisions affect subsequent choices, and that they are " the captain of their own destiny", to teach them to trust themselves- to know themselves.</p>
<p>Re vacation- we take a big vacation in the winter every year- same one, same place- hasn’t been an issue, although we all have made sacrifices at some point to keep it as a priority for 20 years.</p>
<p>Summer vacations- many summers- the kids have had overnight camps- summer jobs- day classes and work is difficult to schedule around, so the most time we have taken is a few days here and there to go camping-</p>
<p>I suppose if it had been a priority for me to exert my will and prove that I was in “control”, I would have been more adamant that we take a longer break together in the summer.</p>
<p>I have wished that I got to enjoy the kids more in the summer- without the stress and hectic schedule of the school year many times.
But it is exciting to see them so happy about their summer plans and it makes the time we do get to spend together so much sweeter.</p>