Holidays with grandparents

We do holiday with MIL, but she lives with us so holidaying with her isn’t a big deal.

We also holiday without her. She’s currently on holiday with my two elder DDs (she’s their step-grandmother, but has been Nana to them for many years) as the three of them love hiking.

We’re very, very fortunate though as we have two main holidays a year - a big group with us, adult kids, MIL and a few other extended family members and then just us and the non-adult kids.

I don't believe there's a rule? As long as the parents treat all their kids equally, I've seen any kind of set ups.

Parents inviting kids, kids treating parents, it's made clear at time of booking and invitation?

Most common holiday with grand-parents is usually at the grand-parents house, it's a free holiday for the kids and grand-parents are happy to see family. Then everyone goes away separately to recover 😂

Spending a week at your parents a few times a year is the most common holiday around me

We do and we pay for ourselves, we are more likely to rent a house or villa though so that makes the shared cost cheaper than going alone, we are also fortunate to be able to afford more than one holiday a year. My in-laws are also lovely, we have been away with my parents too but that feels like harder work

We would not expect our children to holiday with us. They need to have a time without stress. Occasionally they do come with us. We have 2 children and they both have grandchildren. We pay and it is always a second holiday for them. When this happens, we don’t always go out all the time together and the kids have date nights when we babysit.

@gettingold55555Both FIL and my dad were similar. They didn’t enjoy it so we’re not doing it again with them.

Can you outright ask her what the issue is?

My mum will say ‘oh I would have come with you’ whenever we tell her we’ve booked something so I try and include her in some things she’d like but can also say ‘but you weren’t invited/this is just for DH, LO and me’ and she accepts it.
Here I think she just wanted to be included some times.

I love holidays with PiL! We do our holidays together every few years - eg rent a little holiday home and a car in Tenerife or the Algarve and we pay our own share of costs including self catering

PIL usually go for two weeks and we join them for one week.

That way we can still afford another week eg a break at Easter.

When I was a kid we went away with my dad’s mum after her husband died but she paid half and was genuinely helpful to my mum.

my mum had a great relationship with her.

when I had my kids we went away occasionally with my parents - maybe three times in ten years, but this was more them joining us at a U.K. place for the weekend if we were there for the week.

pil insisted on a weekend get together of the whole extended family every year which technically was a holiday but felt like a mix of I’m a celebrity get me out of here and big brother. It was an endurance event. Everyone paid their share.

i fucking loathed it (csn you tell?) and one of the upsides of divorce is that I never have to go again.

I never had holidays that included the grandparents when I was a kid. I think it depends on the kinds of holidays people like to, my maternal Granny didn't like being out in hot sunshine, my mum wouldn't be up for holidaying with me either because she really hates the sun these days. When I was a kid, my parents went ion sunbathing holidays to Menorca etc but my paternal grandparents were sight seers and explorers and like travelling around some of firner Yugoslavia and went to places like Innsbruck and Tunis. I've taken after them as my partner and I are explorers that like to go to all sorts of countries. I think not everybody would have that working dynamic of being into the same holidays and it depends how well you get on with each other.

Did you used to holiday with grandparents when you were young? Is she expecting you to replicate that?

I did holiday with my parents when DS was young (single parent) and it was lovely! They're awesome though, not overbearing and really laid back but also super helpful and they paid. Now I have a younger DC as well with new DP and he doesn't want to holiday with parents so we don't any more - it's reasonable that DP doesn't want to but is a shame as well. My parents took DS skiing this year as he's now a bit older so I'm happy that he can get an extra holiday in and they all had an amazing time!

I think definitely don't go on holiday with your mum if you don't want to. Maybe you could just do the odd long weekend away or something with her rather than a main holiday if you wanted a compromise (or a test to see how it goes!). ETA sorry I missed that you've already done that!

We holiday with grandparents if they’re paying - they get to choose the destination and we follow their schedule and do what they want to do (within reason). If we’re paying then we do our own thing to our own liking (which wouldn’t suit grandparents).

We’ve done seperate (weekend, cheap Haven caravan) holidays with all 4 sets of grandparents and will now repeat with the 2 sets that it worked well with (both grandmothers funnily enough).

We all paid for our own caravan (and absolutely didn’t share). MIL paid for a few meals out and came prepared with money for our LO to spend in the shop and arcade.
My mum doesn’t have a lot of money so we all paid for our own stuff then she bought ice creams at the beach.

It worked for us as LO enjoyed it and it was nice having an extra pair of hands. My mum took LO for a walk so me and DH could have a little break too which was nice.

I wouldn’t use my one and only holiday going with them and both me and DH agreed that the 3 day weekend was probably our limit (pretty sure MIL and DM would agree too).

I wouldn’t be guilt tripped into doing it, you don’t need a reason and it doesn’t matter what others do. You would be splitting time between you, partner, kids and that’s work especially as your mom would be on her own.

Perfectly reasonable to want to holiday by yourselves. However I have been on holiday with my parents and we all paid for ourselves, wouldn't expect them to pay as I'm an adult now!

@gettingold55555if the parents weren’t paying do you think your friends would still holiday with them?