So I am turning 24 in a month. And in two days, I leave with my family on for a 5 day trip to Ocean City, NJ. They didn’t ask me if I WANTED to go, they informed me that they were going, and that it would be coinciding with my father’s birthday, and that they’d really like it if I went. Which, in parent-talk, translates to “We’ll be horrifically disappointed if you don’t come with us and your sisters. Plus, not only will you be missing the FAMILY vacation, but you’ll be missing your father’s birthday. Oh, and we’re not going to work this around holiday, you’re going to have to take three of the 5 vacation days you are allotted a year.” They’re paying for the hotel, which is, I believe, a Coast Guard hotel, so it’s wicked cheap for those in the service, of which my father is retired.
I know I’m probably just a spoiled little brat, but I wanted to use those vacation days for a real trip. To someplace warm. With palm trees. But because I’m too much of a chicken to stand up to my parents and say “I’m sorry, but I’m a GROWNUP. I take GROWNUP vacations where I drink fruity alchohol filled cocktails on the beach all day long and sleep with cabana boys.” OK, the last bit is probably wishful thinking, but STILL. Scrabble with my parents and sisters while the cold, northern winds blow off from the Atlantic doesn’t a vacation make in my book.
Dopers, tell it to me straight: does ANYONE take family vacations with the rest of their ADULT family members? Obviously it’s too late to back out of this one, but when the next one rolls around, I’d like to say with some confidence that adults aren’t obligated to go on family vacations. Help!
You’re either being a brat or a wimp. I can’t decide which. You’re still part of the family, but obviously you’re not obligated to go. You distinctly said no one MADE you go, which means you made the choice to go. You don’t have to abide by subtleties like ‘we’d really enjoy it if you go,’ you’re clearly old enough to do what you want, but obviously that doesn’t matter much to you or them. Family is very important, but what you want is more important.
Still, I agree with the assessment that SwimmingRiddles needs to stand up for his/her rights. If you really don’t wanna go, and there’s no big crime if you don’t, then stand your ground. My brother has stayed home while the rest of our family went on “big family vacations” before, and while nobody asked him if he wanted to go where we were going, nobody batted an eye when he opted out, either.
My family frequently travels together, and I"m a good bit older than you. But I’ve gotten to the point where, if my mother asks me to come on a trip, or meet them there, and I don’t want to go, I just say, “I’m sorry, but I have limited vacation time, money, etc., and I can’t go this time.”
My mother is more likely to ask me the night before “Why don’t you take tomorrow off and we’ll go shopping.” I can’t seem to make her understand that my company requires more than calling up that day and telling them I’m taking a vacation day.
Cripes, that was a bit harsh wasn’t it?
Pretty much in the same boat as you, SwimmingRiddles. I hang around my parents and to do tourist-sy stuff, but they’re cool if I decide to do my own stuff in the evening/day. I love opportunities to catch up with my parents, but they’re pretty understanding too.
I left home when I was 19, and the only family vacation I had after that was when they all came to visit me and we did the tourist thing in California. You have to live your own life sometime. You also have to decide when that will be.
Well, I hope this doesn’t make me sound like too much of a dweeb, but I’m over 40 and still sometimes go on vacations with both my mother and my (single) sister and (married) brother (and his family).
Usually these trips are planned by our mother and - and this is crucial - she ASKS if we want to go, too. Sometimes I do, sometmes I don’t. Same for the others.
Of course, she usually suggests really cool trips like horse packing in Morocco or hiking the Inca Trail, not Ocean City!
(The exception is the annual trip to her house in Florida for the week between Christmas and New Years, but it’s a slow time of year and, again, tough to turn down free lodging in a warm climate in the winter.)
I also get enough time off that I also go on other, non-family vacations with my friends and/or SO, so it’s not such an either-or choice.
So, SR, I’d say it’s not unknown or wrong to go on vacation with your family as an adult, but you should be asked, and it should be because you want to go, not because you’re guilted into it.
Maybe the rest of your family would like to go to Cancun, too?
I think of it as more of a family reunion. I go with my husband and kids. All my sibling attend, alone or if they have them, along with spouses and kids.
Occassionally someone can’t make it, but that is a big disappointment for everyone. We try to discuss it ahead of time as to where and when we all should meet.
My family takes vacations together. I turned 37 today.
We will take a long weekend and go on a golf holiday. We took my parents with us to Disney a few years ago. My sisters and I took my mother out to San Francisco for her birthday. We are talking about the whole family going to Jamaica in a few years.
But its different. My parents live twenty minutes away from me (and the hubby and kids). But my sister and her husband are six hours away in North Dakota. And my baby sister (31 years old) is in Denver. So we vacation together because the baby wants to see something with her vacation time besides the same old Christmas tree in the same old living room every year and its a chance to get the family together. And I get something more than five days of vacation.
I quit going on any a few years ago and still don’t. How about “No, I have to work/already have plans/have limited vacation time/am just not in the mood to go to a beach where you can’t go swimming cause the water is horrifically cold (if I remember correctly)”?
I also am about to turn 24, and yeah, I still go on trips with my family. But, they always ask first, and while I know they’d like it if I could go, they understand that I may choose otherwise
(In otherwords, no one ever calls me up and says, “well, Eonwe, we’ve made plans for this trip, and have a room for you, and would really like it if you could come.”).
So, I guess the answer is yes, I do, but I also agree with Moo the Magic Cow in that if what you’ve described is your folks’ MO for planning family trips, at some point you’ll just have to disapoint them and be firm about it. “Hey, mom and dad, I only have 5 days vacation for the year, and while that sounds like fun, I think I need to save my vacation time. Thanks anyway.”
I get where you’re coming from, SwimmingRiddles, when I was around your age, my vacations were all about Montego Bay, Negril, Las Vegas, etc.
But I must say that one of my best vacations ever came when I was older, 31, and it was with my immediate family, Mom, Dad, and little Bro visiting my recently retired Aunt & Uncle in Florida over Christmas. Christmas Day, 85 degrees, on my Uncle’s boat in the Gulf of Mexico. Awesome!
That said, I would use your precious vacation time to do what YOU would enjoy, but remember, your ideas about “family vacations” will probably change over time.
My husband’s family takes a vacation every year over Thanksgiving weekend. Every year, we opt out. Frankly, I think they’d be hell to travel with, and my husband (who has, of course, had the pleasure) agrees. And why spend all that money and battle the crowds on the busiest travel days of the year if you don’t have to?
This started in 1999, when SIL was in England as a foriegn exchange student, and they wanted “the whole family” to visit her. Well, sorry, we didn’t have the money, we said, especially for a whirlwind four-day-tour of a vacation that our then-three-year-old wouldn’t even remember. “So, just put it on the credit card” :eek: :rolleyes:. Sure, my husband probably (no guarantees) did have a Christmas bonus coming…but we had that earmarked for our new computer (the very one I’m typing on now, in fact). Well, MIL loved traveling so much over Thanksgiving that she now plans a trip every year, and it gets easier and easier to say no. In fact, I don’t even think they bothered to ask us this year. Or, maybe they’ve run out of house equity to finance these forays.
So, absolutely, you can say no. In our case, the aggravation of saying no is, IOO, much less than the aggravation of saying yes.