To think it's normal for post-pubescent children to not want to holiday with their parents?

LOL! You won’t have it that your experience isn’t the only normal will you? Re ‘parents treating their kids like children for younger’, you are probably right that there are more young people attending university now than in the 70s, and that in the absence of grants, they are relying more on their parents for funding. Not the case for all though - my DS was working at 17, moved in with his partner at 19, but he still likes to spend time with us, including holidays.

If you are actually reading what many posters are saying, life with teens is different nowadays and shared interests between teens and their parents isn’t unusual. Life has moved on since you grew up. You perhaps also need to consider that there are many more ways that people holiday now than there were years ago, and it is common for people to have more than one holiday as internet bookings and low cost airlines mean people can do more short breaks, meaning that young people (17+) can get away with their friends, their partners and also their families.

Agree with this. It also depends on personalities. My early teen individuation was all about being a moody, sarcastic "existentialist". If I'd had social media, my updates from family holidays would have been wordy laments on themes of desolate hillsides, isolation within the chattering crowds, the futility of human endeavour as illustrated by ruined castles, beaches as the grave-dust of life ... etc. My family didn't find me good company 😂 The feeling was mutual.

The first time my parents left me at home during the family holiday, they probably expected me to mooch around reading Nietzsche on my own and perfecting my purple eyeshadow technique. I had a party. I was lucky the damage was superficial! It would've made for a livelier SM update, though 😏

I have to say, I think I am a pretty good parent but also good and engaging company. We do holidays that we all enjoy. We are going to NYC next week with the adult kids (20 and 22). We have always chosen to have holidays which roughly catered to all our wants and needs and liked hanging out together. It’s quality time which is harder and harder to get as they get older.

Are you worried about your kids not wanting to spend time with you in the future OP? Is this what it’s about?

To add, attempting to normalise poor relationships between teens and their parents seems like a rather lazy way of letting parents off the hook.

I skipped family holidays from 16 onwards but I was very much a loner. My sister took a friend instead and that suited everyone. My 14 year old is now picking and choosing what holidays to come on (she stays home with wider family oversight) but she is also very much a loner (ASD) who likes her routine.
Nothing wrong with it. My sister enjoyed family holidays until she left home and now we are all grown up we still vacation toether as a family now and then and I cope with the noise.

See, I don't agree with wanting to normalise the idea that it's natural for teens to find their parents boring and embarrassing. Of course, it's true that lots of teens do feel like that, but more often than not, I think that's down to parenting failures rather than any "natural" developmental stage.

Why would we want to normalise poor relationships between teens and their parents? Wouldn't it be better to encourage parents to interact with their teens in ways that promote healthy parent-child relationships that change and evolve to accommodate the teens' growing independence and maturity without compromising on closeness?

But why is it so important for you to ‘normalise the ideas that it is entirely natural for teens to find their parents boring and embarassing and not want to be forced away from their friends for two weeks and into 24/7 parentsville’

Why?!

Mine went on holiday with friends for the first time at 16 . She still came on holiday with us that year as well, though.

You kinda seem to have an agenda 😅

Teens socialise online so they can still keep up with friends when away and keep up with all sm. Teens will meet other teens on holiday. We barely saw my dc when she was 17 on a cruise, she was in teen area and still keeps in touch with them. Posting pics in your cute outfit at Disneyworld/New York/Thailand etc on sm is popular with teen girls. They are usually keen to shop and try new foods/drinks - my dc sends me things off tick tok they want to get.

The mollycoddling theory is weird.

Not every holiday is three weeks in Spain lying down on the beach.
Many families have more interesting/active holiday, taking into account teens interests.

Teens can get independence in many ways, it isn't stopped by going for a week somewhere with their parents.

If something I see it as a sign of healthier relationships, if parents and teens or even adult children are willing to go somewhere together.

Mine’s 19 and loves coming on hols with us. Had a lovely holiday earlier this year. She travels with friends, uni, working abroad too.
We have similar interests so do holidays we all enjoy. We have a city break booked next month. Lovely to spend time together. I envision her coming for foreseeable future. Tbh if my mum was taking me on an all paid for holiday I’d jump at it.

I think maybe you just don’t really enjoy spending time with your family?

i found a lot of things cringe as a teenager but i still enjoyed family holidays. My parents were good fun and i knew this really. They made an effort to find holidays my brother and I would enjoy.

When I got to my 20s they’d book a villa for the summer and we’d go for as long as we liked, just paying for flights.

I’ve got a family of my own now, as does my brother and we still all go on holiday together. But my parents are a brilliant laugh so we all enjoy it.

When people mention going away with friends, are your 15 year olds flying to majorca with mates? I'm confused.

What is your agenda OP? With your persistence, and excessive use of capitals in your posts, you have a real point to prove here. What has triggered this?

Some kids clearly don’t like going on holiday with their parents and some do. Mine still love it, as well as going away with their own friends of course.

You seem to have a lot of emotion invested in this and I’m trying to work out why.

Bickering and minor arguing is normal. But not to the extent that they would refuse to go on holiday with me.

My parents were terrible and I was forced to go on holiday with them every year and hated it. But that is completely a reflection on their shit parenting. My kids have been on holiday with us every single year and we have had some of the best memories of our lives. And continue to do so as they navigate University.

Can somebody tell my young adult kids who love having a paid-for holiday with us?!

I would consider it a failure of my parenting if my teen children did not want to go on holiday with me.

As regards your question whether it is ‘normal’ or not, I don’t know a single family where the teens did not go on holiday with their parents at least till 18.

My kids are now 17, 24 and 27 and we absolutely love all going on holiday together and always have done. We have the best time. Even when they were early teens they always jumped at the chance of a holiday. I just wish I had the money now to take them all away more often .

I just wonder what teens are expected to do if not on holiday with families.
I wasn't raised to be the "more around the streets with friends achieving nothing and probably getting tangled up in gossip, smoking and drinking" type teen and have no intent to let my children become that either. Neither do I see many of my friends' teens be that way.

Friendships are important to teens but just letting them mope is surely unhelpful? Special interest courses like music, dance, sport etc make sense if they have a serious hobby as does meeting with friends regularly but letting them mope around for weeks on end doing nothing? Not a chance.

In our case holidays are generally an opportunity to connect with family living abroad so I can't see letting them off that just to stay home and mope.
Both DH and I enjoy nature, museums, activities of all kinds and so far our kids do too. I hope they continue to be like that.

"Ever again" is a very long time. Even kids who do feel that way are likely to be less emphatic about it once they reach adulthood.

I went on a camping holiday with siblings in my late teens and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Have since been on short holidays with my bachelor brother, sharing a holiday cottage etc. More fun than going on my own and he feels the same way.

My parents were never much interested in holidays or travel but did share various day excursions with their adult kids.

kids are increasingly mollycoddled which means they are less keen to fly the nest / do their own thing compared to what I was like in the late 80s

Some of that is housing costs and more time in compulsary and higher education.

Some parents do go OTT in my view and actively discourage independence but not all by any means or even most.

My teens go out more than I did as a teen but less than DH - we had very different teen parenting in 90s. IL with DH wanted a peer and actively encouraged and faciliate DH and his friends underaged drinking. He didn't work at all till p/t till he was 23 finishing his PhDand staying with parents till he got full proper job. I had summer jobs from 16. My parents were really strict older sibling rebelled I complied and frankly been more independent than siblings most of adult life.

We try and find the middle ground. Honestly both sets of parents had huge issue with us being independent adults - especially when we near 30 became parents - and then when we bought first house - all of which TBH I am hoping we can avoid with our kids.

I think you should just accept you had a shit relationship with your parents as a teen - not uncommon but not universal - and be glad it's improved with age - rather than trying to insist your dated experices in one family have some universal insight.