Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To feel terribly guilty that DD will probably never go to Disneyland?

178 replies

JeremyKylesEyebrow · 19/11/2014 20:09

I know I am BU, but have PMS and due to unforeseen financial difficulties, we're looking at a tight Christmas.

DD's best friend is going to Disneyland this spring. She has been going ON and ON about it. DD, therefore, has also been going ON and ON about it.

DD's friend has really been rubbing it in a bit. She comes in to play at our house most days (they are 6) and the Disney talk is constant. She is understandably very excited. DD went to her house one day, and friend was showing her lots of videos of the place.

DD has been full of questions. Why can't we go to Disneyland? EVERYONE ELSE has been, etc etc. I've tried to explain to her that DH and I don't have much money, that different parents like to spend money on different things, that lots of children don't go to Disneyland. And also that I didn't want to hear any more about it, and that if we do go, it will be when she is older and can appreciate it more.

Tonight she ended up in tears, saying her friend was going on about it again, that she feels jealous.

This is all pretty unusual for DD. She isn't particularly fussed on Disney as a rule.

Anyway, I have just watched one of those bastarding Disney adverts and burst into tears. Because we're poooor, and I can't take DD to Disney and waah wah.

It doesn't help that DD's bio dad (who doesn't have any interest in her and doesn't pay maintenance) has been to Disney about six times with his current g/f and her daughter (DD doesn't know this)

I know I need a slap. I don't even WANT to go myself!

OP posts:
SavoyCabbage · 19/11/2014 20:31

I've never been and I doubt my dc will.

There are so many places in the world, some of them close by that we don't even visit. I was walking through the park on the way to school thinking that. As I saw the light coming through the branches I was thinking if I had paid to see that I would have thought it was worth it.

Could you take her to London on the train and do some stuff with her?

ExitPursuedByABear · 19/11/2014 20:32

I would rather eat my own shit than go to Disneyland.

Dd can please herself when she can afford it.

ThatBloodyWoman · 19/11/2014 20:32

Take her to a festie next Summer as a mum daughter thing and watch the sun come up....

Vikingbiker · 19/11/2014 20:33

The thought of spending one second in Disney land makes me want to vomit. Just awful and commercial.

Great opportunity to discuss behaviour like jealousy, showing off.

Also you could put things (her living standard) in to context by making a shoe box for properly poverty stricken people or putting a Christmas box with various items together for the food bank.

Could you plan the holidays ahead. So get her excited about your Christmas. You could have game playing nights, crafty days, friends over. You could even count in a secret surprise mystery day out which could be somewhere cheesy like poultens park or the zoo

HeeHiles · 19/11/2014 20:33

I did Disney on the cheap! We live near St Pancras station so got £69 return tickets - booked a cheap (but clean) hotel near gard du nord which was also on the train line to to Euro Disney......we bought sandwiches!! Spent all day there and the touristy thing for 2 more days then home. We also went mid week so travel was cheaper, might be doable just for a couple of days?

OutragedFromLeeds · 19/11/2014 20:33

I took myself at 21. I went with a group of friends, we were all too poor growing up to be able to go, but could afford it once we were working. It was fab (although grown-ups going to Disney is something that people get judgy pants about weirdly!).

Seriouslyffs · 19/11/2014 20:33

My kids have never been, tacky hyped up crap blah blah blah.
But it hurts when you see them upset, even if unreasonably so, so for that alone have some Flowers and a Brew

LoisHatesChristmas · 19/11/2014 20:34

There will always be something EVERYONE else does/has/is allowed. YANBU to be upset though if it is something you would like to do. Maybe you will go one day? Disney in Paris is doable if you camp.

HaroldLloyd · 19/11/2014 20:35

My parents could never afford to take us, we had holimarine holidays until I was in my teens then Majorca if we were lucky.

I honestly didn't even think about it then or now and care.

Vikingbiker · 19/11/2014 20:35

Can you also empower your DD to say something to her friend like 'can we talk about something different now please' when she rabbits on about the awful place

Original poster
JeremyKylesEyebrow · 19/11/2014 20:36

Thank you for the grip Grin I know I'm being terribly silly. I am very touchy when it comes to feeling like DD is missing out or doesn't have what other children have. And I have RAGING PMS!

Though I've been watching Disneyland Fails on youtube and it has made me feel better. Those voices the princesses put on! Fucking hell!

Sylvanian once upon a time my DD was the child who didn't get anything for Christmas. Well, unless you count the few books and Happyland bits I picked up from the charity shop for a few pounds. Even getting those turned out to be a bad idea, after another benefits fuck up, I ended up having less than three pounds in my bank account to last most of January. Those were the days....

OP posts:
blackeyedsusie · 19/11/2014 20:38

mine have never been either and I am not planning on taking them.

I think you feel it worse as you have pmt and you have the misfortune of having a twunt for an ex. if her dad had not taken his girlfriends dd then you would not feel half as bad.

your dd's friend is not beingkind.

help your dd with her feelings. say it is ok to feel jealous sometimes but it is better to deal with it by remembering what you do have.

RiverTam · 19/11/2014 20:40

I never went. DH wants to take DD sometime, but I'm in no hurry to do sound, it sounds ghastly (though I'm sure DD would love it!).

wigfieldrocks · 19/11/2014 20:41

We've never been and not because we can't afford it, just because there's about a million other places i'd rather go and spend the money on. Try not to feel guilty, they'll be plenty of other things she wants to do/to have that you can't afford over the years, kids do have to accept that that's just the way things are sometimes. She'll forget all about it a week or do after her friend comes back.

chocogirl77 · 19/11/2014 20:42

I love Disney World and Disneyland California but hate Disneyland Paris. It's expensive, the food is awful, the service isn't great and it's full of the most entitled people in Europe who never learned to queue or that flicking their cigarette ash onto someone's buggy might be considered a bad thing. You are doing her a favour by not taking her :) .

Nightboattocairo · 19/11/2014 20:42

I Think I'd need a holiday after Disneyland. Really, really doesn't appeal. My children haven't even mentioned it, it's not on their radar.

BastardGoDarkly · 19/11/2014 20:44

If I won the lottery, I'd pay someone else to take mine! Grin

I honestly can't think of anything worse.

Fullpleatherjacket · 19/11/2014 20:44

Mine have never been and have thrived into their twenties.

Having hammered circles of hell theme parks to death here on the Tesco clubcard pass scheme Disney has never really appealed. Just sounds bigger, sparklier and more hellish.

Mintyy · 19/11/2014 20:47

How good of you wigfieldrocks to reassure us that its not because you can't afford it Grin.

pointythings · 19/11/2014 20:47

We went and it was lovely, but we only went because we had a windfall - before that our DDs understood that it would not be possible. However hard it is, you have to manage expectations. It's very hard when they're so young, but it does get better as they get older.

ShakeYourTailFeathers · 19/11/2014 20:48

I think my parents would have rather gouged their own eyes out than take Dsis and I to Disney Grin

We too had the most fantastically fun camping trips - cheap and cheerful, literally.

evmil · 19/11/2014 21:06

YABU. Disney is not actually that good. My mum took me and DS(3) to disney land Paris as a treat for him a few months ago and he hated every minuet of it. The characters scared him, he didn't like the food, it was too busy. And from my perspective it was a bit drab and didn't feel very magical at all.

(Probably didn't help that DS was sulking because my mum took me and DS but didn't invite DH or any of the DSS's and he wanted his brothers to come!)

Don't feel guilty, I'm sure you do (and will continue to so in the future) lots of nice things with your DD. If it helps, my DS 'favourite ever thing' was when DH turned the front room into a bat cave (bit of cardboard, paint and paper) and let him watch the movie from the 60's. DSS favourite thing is staying in this dilapidated lake house by a lake near FIL. They spend their time making camp fires, rolling around in mud, dirt biking and staring at the stars at the night - and its the cheapest holiday we go on!

Coyoacan · 19/11/2014 21:15

When the nice weather comes along again take her on nature walks and, if possible, to see rock pools, all that stuff is much more interesting that Disney Land.

If you can teach her to enjoy the simple things in life, you will be setting her up for a rich and varied life. If we teach our children that the only good things are what we pay for, they become adults who are terrified of being poor and spend their time dreaming of being rich.

LindyHemming · 19/11/2014 21:29

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Darkandstormynight · 19/11/2014 21:32

Probably never? She is 6! Maybe you can go when she is older. Really it's all relative. We've been to Disney World twice and dh and I loved it more than ds, then 6 and then again when he was 9. He preferred Cancun at Christmas!

He has friends that go to Hawaii twice a year, that goes to long holidays overseas with their class, etc. He is older now and I know he realizes he won't be one of those that goes to Europe (we're in the States) for three weeks with his class.

I think you can tell her you won't be going Now but you might in the future. Even if she goes at 14 (8 years!) she'll have a great time.