Taking Grandparents on vacation with you ?!?! Good or bad? (kids, child, children)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
My husband and I go on a summer vacation once a year with our two young children (they will be 6 and 3).
We have always had this time as strictly family time for the four of us, because my DH works long hours and we rarely spend a lot of time all together as a family.. SO I really hesitate to add more people to the trip..
But my DH's parents have expressed in the past about wanting to go on vacation with us one year, and we are playing with the idea of inviting them this year..
My hesitation being the fact that we will have less family time as the children will fight over spending time with their grandparents and I feel like me and DH will have too much alone time and not enough with our kids. As they are typical "spoiling too much" grandparents.
I wanted to hear some experiences people have had with bringing the grandparents WITH you on vacation...
OR if anyone wouldn't bring them...why do you think so?
I wouldn't bring them b/c for me, its family time for my little family. That said, most of our "vacations" involve visiting family (which really is not much of a vacation for me but heads would roll if we did not go visit them at least once every 12-18 mos or so....). So I would tend to be very very protective of my family time with my husband and kids if we were to go on a vacation somewhere that was not part of visiting family. I could not relax if I had them there (scrutinizing everything from what the kids ate to what time they went to bed).
I guess it all depends on the relationship you have with them.
Been there, done that! it IS a tough decision! My kids are 4 and 6. We've had mixed experiences with this. We have enjoyed camping with my parents. they stay in their RV, and we stay in a tent, so it isn't "too close for comfort." Overall our experiences doing this have been good. I have never felt like we didn't get enough time with the kids. Maybe it is the relaxed atmosphere of camping, but it has worked well. My in-laws, on the other hand, are a different story. They took us to Hawaii a couple years ago, along with my sister in law and her kids. There was a lot of time spent trying to decide where to go and what to do, trying to please everyone, and not step on anyone's toes. My MIL is hard to get along with, so there was some tension. I don't recall feeling like they hogged the time with the kids, it was other issues with them.
Because if the Hawaii experience with the in-laws we decided not to invite any grandparents on our last vacation.
So, I suppose you could try it once and see how it goes. It is kind of nice to get to visit on neutral territory, not your home, not their home. Overall, do you get along with the grandparents normally?
Yes we get along and they are very agreeable people, not overly opinionated. So decisions on where to go wouldn't be challenged etc, it would be likely left up to us.
The only downside is the spoiling...both sets of grandparents will buy things for the kids whenever they ask and spoil them which I suppose is normal, but then the children tend to get whiny and an attitude. So usually their demeanor can suffer and they are always so good for us on vacation...
I just feel like the kids attitudes may suffer and that they will want to spend ALL their time with the grandparents and not us...
To Hopes..My husband and I go on date nights frequently and even just took a weekend trip on our own. But when we spend lots of money to go on "FAMILY" trips we want to spend time with the children together as a family. We don't feel its necessary to have alone time on family vacations...
We take separate trips for that.
Yes we get along and they are very agreeable people, not overly opinionated. So decisions on where to go wouldn't be challenged etc, it would be likely left up to us. The only downside is the spoiling...both sets of grandparents will buy things for the kids whenever they ask and spoil them which I suppose is normal, but then the children tend to get whiny and an attitude. So usually their demeanor can suffer and they are always so good for us on vacation...
To Hopes..My husband and I go on date nights frequently and even just took a weekend trip on our own. But when we spend lots of money to go on "FAMILY" trips we want to spend time with the children together as a family. We don't feel its necessary to have alone time on family vacations...
We take separate trips for that.
This happens to us too. It's like a free-for-all when grandma is around.
You probably have five years and a couple of vacations before the kids don't want to be bothered visiting grandma/grandpa, let alone spend an entire vacation with them.This is the time to take full advantage since they'll be making memories and solidifying those bonds that will prevent that from happening.
Take them along, let your hair down, leave the house rules at home and let the grands do their job spoiling the kids while you and spouse enjoy the time off. So what if they feed them junk and allow them to stay up until all hours of the day? A week's worth of mischief and mayhem will do them all good. Especially the grands!!
Yes we get along and they are very agreeable people, not overly opinionated.
Ahh there is the difference. My ILs are very opinionated. I got holy hell for feeding a child a bowl of oatmeal 45 min after he had had breakfast already, because "breakfast was OVER!!! " even though the adults were all sitting around the kitchen drinking coffee and eating muffins.
There is no way I would voluntarily put myself in that situation again, esp if I were paying for a vacation to relax. If we were to do a vacation like that, I would make sure the other siblings and grandchildren were also along so they could share the "love".
Like I said, it depends on the relationship - I like the idea someone gave of having them meet you halfway, if that is possible.
Well, I have been on vacation with MY parents and HIS parents..... we both agree it was easier with mine. My parents gave hubby and myself ALONE time on vacation- we had two dates the week we were in VA with them and they got alone time with the kids to do what they wanted. THEY got alone time and had dates too.... we split it up nicely. I would go away with them again in a heart beat.....
BUT when we went to Disney with HIS parents we were on a death march of the park and didn't have alone time at all. We had set schedules and meals together.... for 10 straight days!!!! It was horrible. I had to pretend to have a headache to get some time to myself. I had to eat at restaurants my FIL wanted to eat at and they were not all kid friendly or ME friendly (not a huge fan of meat and we did a lot of steak places)..... We are not planning on a vacation with them again ANY time soon..... we both felt it was way too much......
So, it can either be good for everyone involved or just really stink..... I have experienced it going both ways....
absolutely not, when we had vacation, parents, never came with us, ugh, what kind of a vacation would that be for us... LOL. I would rather stay in the office..... eek !!!
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
