For not wanting to force 17 year old to holiday with us?

[SnotBagMaterial]

DH and I are about to book a holiday for us and our children - 5 nights in New York.

'Our' children are my 15 year old, my 17 year old, his 19 year old and his 20 year old.

However, my 17 year old said he doesn't want to go. For one thing he doesn't want to go on a 10 hour flight there and back for the sake of 5 days and secondly, he doesn't want to spend 5 days with the other boys. He and his youngest brother don't get on and he dislikes the 20 year old. He says he much would prefer to get £100 or so to do things with his mates here.

I think he should be allowed the option plus - he's not much fun on holiday anyway and tends to moan and complain about everything so on selfish grounds - the holiday would be easier without him!

dH thinks I should force him to come with us.

AIBU to allow him to stay home if he wants to? He's mature and capable of looking after himself do that isn't the issue.

I think it should be his choice, it is unfair to force a 17 year old to go on a trip they don't want to go on. I doubt my almost 17 year old will want to go with us this year unless it is an all inclusive hotel where he can fill his face with fizzy drinks and crap junk food all day ! If your ds is sensible and can be trusted at home and you have relatives or friends who can keep an eye on him, then he will be fine.

Twinklestein I'm anything but naive, he's 22 now and been to more than a few "wild parties" since his teens, and the stories he's told about them are fantastic. Thankfully he hasn't had any and trashed my house

So your son got to 22 and didn't trash your house therefore all teenagers should be trusted..? Including his friends who did have wild parties..?

What I said was that some teens can be trusted and some can't. It depends on the individual.

To paint everybody who points that out as negatively stereotyping teens is naïve, and really quite bizarre.

Id let him stay home but i would let somebody know he is home on his own thats what we do when we went/go away just for added security i wouldnt give him extra money though imo it shouldnt be either/ or he was invited on holiday doesnt mean he should get his share of th e holiday to spend on whatever.

I didn't say that though did I - of course people are just giving their own experiences! It is a stereotype to assume not only will a teenager home alone have wild party but trash the house. We've even had someone advising on this thread to check out whether it's legal or not.

Laguna you said that:

It's as if some people have such a negative view of teenagers that they expect this to happen

Which no-one has actually said, they just said it can happen and does.

It's not a 'stereotype' to say a teen may have a wild party or trash the house: it's a fact. And there's a long way between the kind of accidental damage that often occurs with a bunch of pissed teenagers and straight out trashing the joint which is less common.

As a poster who claimed that a 17 yo would have to ask someone to buy alcohol for them, I question your worldly wisdom tbh. As if teens aren't perfectly capable of buying their own alcohol!

Leave him behind. No big deal.

At 17 that should be their choice.

Although isn't it only a 6h flight to NY from the UK not 10h?

No I didn't say a 17 year old would HAVE to ask someone else, I said if they could find someone else to buy it (meaning if they didn't get away with trying to get it themselves), because that's what would happen locally where I stay as the shops have various methods in place to tackle the problem of under age drinking.

And no it's not a "fact" that a home alone teenager will have a party and trash the house. There's been no "may" about the tone of some people here, it's as if it's a certainty. All teenagers are different as lots of others have pointed out.

I don't think YABU. At 17, he is old enough to decide where he wants to go, when and with whom. However whether or not you should leave him alone very much depends on how much you trust him. If trust isn't an issue, then I absolutely think you should just let him get on with it.

I went to a lot of wild parties as a teenager. It's fairly common.

Some parents in 2015 are apparently as naïve as in the 80s.

People are naive if they think all teenagers like going to wild parties .

I was Ego - and I went to boarding school... but as my siblings also went to school obviously family holidays happened in... the school holidays! Did you stay at boarding school during the school summer holidays?

I went home alone by train mid way through a disastrous claustrophobic family boating holiday in the UK at age 15 (ostensibly taking the dog home, she kept falling in/ jumping in when family left the boat to go and eat in restaurants, and not being able to get back out, and was also miserable.) I was then home alone for a few days. After that I stayed home alone on a couple of holidays, then left home a few weeks after my 18th birthday and went directly to South East Asia on my own for the next 11 months.

I had no wild parties, though I know one of my younger siblings had an absolutely destructive monumental one in my parents' home when home from uni while parents were away for a weekend - I heard stories about it but they managed to clean up most of the damage before my parents got home. A large aquarium was destroyed though... Poor fish! That was 20 year old and friends - decades before social media, she knew all the guests ...

I was left alone at 17 and I was a very bad girl < ahem >

Laguna

I didn't say 'will' I said 'may'. And I've seen no poster on this thread saying that OP's son will definitely trash the house when OP's away.

You're exaggerating and misrepresenting what posters have said and then having a tantrum about it, which seems a bit pointless.

What you actually said was with regard to buying alcohol was:

I don't get this "booze money" and the assumption that's what he would spend it on, that's if he can find someone else to buy him it in the first place

'In the first place' means - to begin with - ie in order for the money to be spent on booze your son would find someone else to buy it for him first. No mention of if he didn't get served. You can wriggle now and say that's not what you meant, but that's what you said.

The detail that shops around you have underage drinking measures that work indicates you're not in a big city. Wouldn't work in London, if one offie doesn't sell you alcohol you go somewhere else.

At 17 I never had any problem getting served anywhere - no offie, pub, nightclub.

Loudspeaker:

No-one is saying that 'all teenagers like going to wild parties'!

I remember the geeks well.

My DD1 has always been fairly mature for her age throughout her late teenage years and I would have been confident to leave her alone for a few days, though it didn't happen and she only got a weekend out of us. She is 20 now and on a year abroad in Paris.

DD2 is 17 now and much less mature or streetwise than DD1 was. I'd be much more wary about leaving DD2 to go on holiday (unless DD1 was at home at the same time). DD2 us fine home alone in the day though. She is maturing, just more slowly.

DD3 is still only 13.

DD was left for a week at 17. She invited two friends to stay, and between them they drank two bottles of wine and an inch of gin. The house was spotless.

She insisted we go alone as she reckoned she'd ruined all the holidays since she turned 12 through being a moody cow. So we gave her a kiss and went to somewhere with good WiFi so we could access the security cameras.

Your mileage may vary.

I was left home at 17. I had a couple of friends around and that was about it. I had been to many wild parties and would never have inflicted that on my parents house.

I was left alone at 17 as I erroneously opted for an 18-30 holiday with friends instead of going to the Tuscan villa my parents and sisters went to. The villa looked amazing our grim hotel room in Corfu complete with rats on the beach not quite up to that standard

If they're sociable, it can be too tempting. What starts out with a few 'close friends' can just get out of hand if they're not that assertive.

Dh and I were greeted home by a beaming 17yo dd and a home more spotless than how we left it. If it hadn't been for a chance text from the guys who clean our cars on sat mornings and saw lots of "daughters and sons" leaving the house.. we'd never have known.

KERALA: was that Kavos? That's where DD went for her first independent holiday. It took six months for the bites to fade and her friend wound up on a drip. Character-forming.