To not want to do a week with DHs family

While we are strict with routine and bedtimes, when on holiday we relax the structure a bit. We have friends who are hopeless with boundaries and their daily lives are dictated to by DC so we do feel doing this occasionally is fine.

Tbh they got so tired on holiday they were so ready for their routines when we got home.

Can't you go with the flow a bit more for jist a week?

But what sort of holiday is constantly supervising the kids?! Bloody hell, I'd rather not go at all!

Diabolical!

I have stayed in French self catering accommodation with private pools twice and both were fenced (with gates a toddler couldn't open) and one had an alarm (which the owners said they'd been required to install - whether for insurance or by local regulations, I don't know).

The first property was marketed by Tots to Travel, a company started by a family whose toddler drowned in an unfenced pool.

I may be being dense but I've never been anywhere with a fenced pool. We just constantly supervise the kids. We have had a few villa holidays and the pools aren't fenced. I'm surprised this is such an issue for people.

The pool is the number one problem. If there’s no way that can be sorted out (can they rent a different place?) I would say that you need to stay somewhere else nearby when the kids are small. It takes constant vigilance to prevent drowning around an unfenced pool. Might be worth sharing some sad stories with the DH to help him understand.

The way you both have to see it is that this is a long haul. You’ve married across cultures and will need to compromise forever. The kids will not be small for long and in 5 years will thoroughly enjoy the whole thing. In fact your DH is probably remembering these holidays from when he was 10 and forgetting that your kids are tiny. So you need to agree that for a few years he needs to compromise (staying elsewhere; going every other year). After that you can be all in.

So I would say that for most of this, you need to try to suck it up and accept for one week you need to try and fit in with his culture- but he needs to take his share of dealing with the kids when they get tired and dysregulated due to the late bedtime.

The pool thing needs more discussion tho. I have been on similar holidays, last year there were 23 of us including 14 kids and we had an unfenced pool at the bottom of the garden. We had an absolutely hard rule that not a single child could be in the pool if there wasnt an adult down there and we were constantly all checking in with each other to make sure the pool was covered by somebody who was actively watching them. The kids were told they weren't allowed near it at night, we really drilled it into them and there would have been consequences for anyone breaking that rule

Honestly it sounds like your DH has lovely memories of holidays like this as a child and your kids will too - but that doesnt mean you should be the only one doing childcare or dealing with them when they get tired etc. I do accept it must be hard for you if you can't converse easily but I would commit to learning the language so that will get easier

When you do risk assessment you are told to assess both the risk and the seriousness of the outcome.

So: risk of grumpy, overtired children - high; outcome - trivial (although miserable for the OP)
But risk of drowning - even if low - outcome - catastrophic.

This.

I’m surprised so many people are so worried about the pool. Admittedly I only have one DS who has never been a wanderer, but we went on many villa holidays when he was a toddler and none of them had a fenced pool. We just always supervised him? I never felt on particularly high alert because he was never unsupervised anyway.

The eating and bedtimes I do sympathise with somewhat because my DS wasn’t good at staying up later than usual until he was a bit older than yours. But it’s only a week a year and it is very normal in most of Europe to eat late and stay up late, so I would try and do it if it were me. Give the kids lots of snacks to keep them going on food, bring the buggy round to the table so the younger one can go to sleep in the buggy if need be.

It may be his culture, but it’s not your children’s. I know they share a culture with you and your DH and they always will because of the both of you. However your young children are used to living in the UK where they eat at 6pm and go to bed at 8pm etc. They are too young to ‘adjust’ for a week and be expected to get on with it. Just the same if his friends young kids were bought over here for a week, they would struggle eating at 6pm and going to bed at a reasonable hour. It sounds to me like he is using his ‘culture’ to emotional blackmail you to be honest. You have genuine concerns and your husband is dismissing them and I would not be putting up with that. You’ve said yourself you go over several times a year. I think you spend more time with your husbands family than I do with mine and we live 10 minutes drive away!

I think you should be flexible, kids staying up late for a week on holiday isn't the end of the world. Very British attitude and the kids are half his culture.

Also they're not going to be little for long so hardly a long term problem. I think he's right.

@ilovepixie I mean that's lovely if your child actually sleeps in. Mine woke at 5.45am on the dot for years. Including in a pitch dark basement flat in Canada where she woke at 12.45am... amazing really.

A week is also not long enough to settle in and go with the flow. We used to keep to roughly the same timings for food and bed etc when DC was this age and it was hard enough with the time difference, different food, beds etc without moving everything hours later. My DC would also have woken at the normal time, just considerably underslept!

I would go and enjoy it! Let the children stay up late. They will love it! They can slept late the next morning! It’s only for a week! As your husband says it’s making memories!

Well, I wouldn't want my DH to have to endure a week every summer that was miserable for him, where he had to work really hard to keep the kids safe, stay sober (because no-one else will) and couldn't have a proper conversation with anyone. I think THAT would be selfish.

I'd exploring compromises such as an apartment nearby, as pp have suggested.

I had the experience as a teenager of staying with a large family in the summer in France. I was with a friend whose French was fluent and ahe knew them fairly well. My French was passable but not up to massive multi person discussions about politics etc. No-one spoke to me much - they just couldn't be bothered to speak a little slower or more simply.

You begin to feel like you don't exist after a while. It's a most disconcerting feeling.

I think this is just part of marrying someone from a different culture, and FWIW I think it sounds a fantastic one for children to grow up in.
Can you cut back on some of the other visits so you keep the big family one but only do one other visit to his family? Or you all go on the August one but he takes the kids alone to visit his parents on one of the other occasions.

I’m not normally this rude on here, but your husband is an idiot. Your kids are 2 and 4 years old, they aren’t capable to staying up late and making the best of it. They lack the physical and mental abilities to do that!

if they were 8 and 10, I would say you were being unreasonable and to let them stay up, but not two littles like you have! I wouldn’t be taking my kids either, particularly with the added dangers of a fenceless pool and drunk adults who clearly don’t accept that young children need caring for (dinner at 8pm?) I would be telling my husband straight, he can go alone or not at all, but the kids will not be going until they are old enough to ‘slot in’

Sorry OP but I think you are being selfish here. 51 weeks of the year the kids are in the UK and being British and for one week a year your husband wants his kids and wife to be with his family and directly experience his culture (I wouldnt count a few weekend visits).

He compromises every day to live in the UK (whether this is his choice there are cultural elements for his children) and you don’t. Unfortunately that is marrying a foreigner.

You sound rigid and unwilling to go along with his family. Make food for the kids earlier and go with the flow for bedtimes. Kids all over Europe often eat later and go to bed later and they are fine. Culturally Brits are seen as rigid on these things but both aren’t wrong.

Also you are catastrophising about the kids. Do you honestly think your husband wouldnt watch them or ensure they are safe?

Agan sorry but I think you are being unreasonable and need to look at this from your husbands point of view. I say this as a foreigner married to a Brit.

Go on the holiday and don’t endlessly complain abiut it. How do you think this makes your husband feel that he wants one week with his family and you just want to find fault and hate it?

I can see why you find it a challenging week with a 2 and 4-year-old.

I think what I’d do is go for the next two to three years and also get your children signed up for swimming lessons at home. Mine started as toddlers and it’s definitely a relief when they’re competent swimmers.

Once they can swim and are slightly older (maybe 6 and 8), you might be more comfortable staying at home while your DH takes them.

My DH and I are from different countries and we’ve regularly visited family without each other, including holidays involving pools and beaches. But it’s so much easier with slightly older children, you’re at the toughest ages to supervise right now. So I think you’ll have to grit your teeth for a few years. 💐

I even remember an awful case in the UK where a family with a toddler were renting a holiday villa with a hot tub - the toddler managed to get in and drowned. Just unspeakably awful

YANBU.
Regarding late meals I would dislike that too but of course it’s cultural differences etc.

The swimming pool, on the other hand, would really REALLY concern me. My husband was involved in attempt to resuscitate multiple children that drowned in a single incident when unsupervised by adults - how he doesn’t have ptsd I don’t know. Dr Beachgem , a paediatric consultant in Florida, regularly posts on social media about the dangers of kids at the pool with multiple adults around… it’s a common phenomenon that when there are lots of adults around there’s a false sense of safety that they’re all “keeping an eye” when actually no one is constantly watching. Adults check their phones, engage in conversation, reapply sunscreen etc etc etc - naturally they end up not constantly watching. Throw alcohol into the mix and it’s even worse. Theres cases every year where there’s a pool party/family bbq and a child will drown despite multiple adults being present.

Sorry for the essay! But the pool thing would be massive issue for me and for that reason I wouldn’t let DH take kids without me