For not wanting to holiday abroad?

[chocolatelog]

Myself and 4 out of 5 of the children haven't been abroad. We don't even have passports.

Dh and the 3 oldest all want to go on holiday this year. Dh has found a holiday for 10 days in Spain and is pressuring me to go but I've got zero interest. My eldest (17) has been with her friends family so she's got the bug and is begging me to go.
A part of me feels like I should go because before long the kids will be older and won't be interested in going with us, but I just can't be bothered with it all. I filled in one passport form and that was enough to make me go 🙈 it took 5 attempts at getting it wrong, so the thought of filling in 5 people's worth is enough to put me into an early grave!

The two youngest are 5 and 2 and I feel like it won't really be an enjoyable experience for me, dh is very hands on with them but I'm a stress head and get into rage pretty quickly 😬

Plus the money for passports and the actual holiday for 7 people makes me think we could use it for better things, we both need a new cat each and I'm thinking I'd rather those than a pissing holiday 🤦🏻‍♀️

I don't know if my attitude to it all is because I've never been abroad, I'm quite happy to spend a week in Cornwall or Dorset or anywhere else that this country has to offer. The thought of flying and watching the kids like a hawk just doesn't appeal to me in the slightest. Is it a case of what you've never had you never miss? Or should I just put my happy face on and agree to going?

it's bloody expensive to travel and a whole helluva lot of people cannot afford to do so. Or are able to. It's utterly shit to assume such people are small-minded and ignorant

Agree with this. Also there's a thread about climate change on this site with people saying they are going to fly less. Does that make people uncultured and ignorant because they are choosing not to go abroad anymore? OP is actually doing the planet a favour by not flying. She said she does UK holidays so what's the issue?

clearly your DH can fill forms in considering he goes abroad often - why cant he apply for the passports?

tbh I think its that you just CBA which is what you said in your OP

Why aren't people queuing up to congratulate the OP for her contribution to not adding to the devastating effects of climate change?

I get where OP is coming from.
I didn't go on holiday abroad as a kid although I did do a bit of independent travelling within Europe as a young adult.
I always found it confusing, anxiety provoking and isolating. Being somewhere where you don't really know what's going on. Struggling with language. Getting frustratingly lost in bus stations.......
On a deeper level: that sense of being cut adrift from everything familiar that you hold onto in order to maintain a sense of yourself. I do realise that this is precisely what other people enjoy about the experience but for me its only one step removed from debilitating homesickness.
I did eventually go a package holiday in my early 30's and remember thinking "Oh...this is much easier- now I see why people like it" when the lovely rep met us at the airport with a taxi. Even so.. I'm still much happier in the UK if i'm honest.
So..I can well see your anxiety about this OP and I don't think your being unreasonable.
However....I think you should still try it once for the kids sake and because you don't really know unless you try.

@chocolatelog

This then is the nub of the matter, the context for the whole thread that has been missing. You have depression.

That is why you feel so anxious and are so joyless, can't see the benefit of exploration and downtime, struggle with something like filling in forms. That is why you struggle to control your volatile emotions when stressed. You are ill. Why you tried to deny this or dismiss it as just being 'set in your ways' I don't know. It is the missing piece that makes everything else make sense.

I feel very sorry for you, depression can suck all the pleasure out of life for you. I lost my own mother to her depression last summer, so I fully appreciate how severely it can impact on somebody.

However, from the child's perspective, I also know how the weight of a parent's depression can tilt the whole balance of your life and your own mental health.

You owe it to your five children to seek treatment for your depression. You also owe it to them to ensure it impacts on them as little as possible. That is a heavy burden to bear when you have your own wellbeing to manage, and you didn't know when you had them you would become ill. You didn't sign up for this battle or this burden. I'm sorry. But it is still your duty to protect them from your illness, because no-one else can.

Forget this holiday (although again I'd suggest you try and persuade DH to take the older children on his own). Focus on getting your depression under control. It is not easy and it is not a one-size-fits-all solution - you may be helped by medication, counselling, therapy, mindfulness, some combination of all of these. And it may work for a while and then it may stop. Try something else. Keep trying.

Depression is like cancer; it's unfair, and random, and it can be fatal. You must take it seriously and act. You have to fight it like it's a threat to your life, because it is. And you have to treat it like an infectious disease and practice good mental and behavioural 'hygiene' to try and prevent it from infecting the lives of your children, because if you don't they will be fighting the same battles in 5, 10, 20 years' time.

I know what I'm talking about. Please do take this seriously.

So three generations of your family have never left the UK (you, parents, children)? I'm flabbergasted tbh. Didn't think people like that actually existed.

I need to go back to the UK this summer for a rare visit and am dreading it. How about you take my place and I'll go to Spain with your DH?

I don't see how that is fair to her when she clearly doesn't want to go.

Because it isn't just the OP is it? It is her DH and DC too. She is being a blocker to the whole family having a holiday abroad because it isn't what she likes, no thought for them and what they want to do or how they might benefit.

Sorry but all this 'getting stressed' and 'flying off the handle' seems to me to be done so she can get her own way so they stay home.

There are plenty of things you could do separately from the rest of your family while in Spain that you would like. It would take a bit of planning, if you cba that is.

You have huge age gaps in your family and i think you’re ignoring what the older ones want. It’s not even that you’re focussing just on the little ones, because this seems about you more than anyone. Because of your wariness of ‘abroad.’ All the kids would no doubt love it. A villa with a private pool is far better than a big busy pool because you can properly keep an eye on the kids. Pick a villa with a securely fenced pool and a pool alarm.

Honestly it sounds as though you’re making excuses and going against the majority vote here. It’s not your older children’s fault you decided to have much younger kids too, and they’ll resent it if they feel their whole childhood has been about fitting in with what you think is easiest with the little ones. The eldest are unlikely to even be coming on many more family holidays. Go on- let them at least have this

I know I won't enjoy it because there will just be rows and arguments

No, you know you won't enjoy it because you have made up your mind that you will hate it. You could be in the best 5* hotel in the word, with historic sites on your doorstep and 24/7 entertainment and you'd still be sitting there with a face like a slapped arse because you're "abroad". That weird, mystical place which is most definitely FOREIGN.

Your poor DH and your poor kids.

If you'd mentioned that you are generally anxious about holidays and that you'll argue with DH and he'll leave everything to you, you'd have got an easier ride - your posts in the first half of this thread make it very much sound like you just can't be bothered.

Everyone now needs to stop slagging off the OP, she has depression. Yes she should have said so at an earlier point but now we all know can we lay off the name calling and be constructive please?

@weekfour finally someone who gets me!
What you've just described is what I've been trying get across (my wording is tragic though) for me a holiday is not a holiday for a mum!

It will be me doing those forms, packing all the luggage, organising the kids, deciding what we eat, making sure I've got everything and giving myself a migraine in the progress!

I'll get there and while dh is having a fab time I'll be the one left with the two little ones (because he likes what the teenagers like) sweating, stressed, angered and having a shit time. They'll be no fun memories for me. Just thousands down and with the same shit car!

Now if it was just me dh and the teenagers going it might not be such a big deal. But dh has said he will not leave the little ones behind so that's out of the question. I just wish he would take them so they could have their experience and leave me alone 🙄

Op if this genuinely isn't a wind up then answer this: do you want your kids turning out like you? Would you be proud of them having five kids apiece and no desire to see beyond their environs or ashamed? Because you can try and expand their horizons or you can leave them to fester in brexit Britain. What's it to be?

Oh and when I've forgotten to pack something I'll get the blame and it will cause another drama Cos no one else here has a mind of their own and it's always left to me to be superwoman and remember the fucking wipes!!!

I also think it's a awful snobby and sneery to bang on about 'seeing the world' and lambast people who don't because it's bloody expensive to travel and a whole helluva lot of people cannot afford to do so. Or are able to. It's utterly shit to assume such people are small-minded and ignorant.

But that's not the issue here though is it? Travel and reading are two of the things that broaden your horizons the most...if these opportunities arise then I don't see why you wouldn't at least want your children to experience.

Oh and when I've forgotten to pack something I'll get the blame and it will cause another drama Cos no one else here has a mind of their own and it's always left to me to be superwoman and remember the fucking wipes!!!

It sounds like you have much bigger issues than where to go on holiday.

maybe its your depression / anxiety clouding this, but I don't think its as hard as you think its going to be.

You're going on a beach holiday - packing is pretty straight forward. print yourself a list off the internet, or get DH to do it. Make that one of the conditions of you going.

Go somewhere like eurocamp. Its like being on a caravan site in the UK but warm. Plenty to do, not far to travel, whole site usually walkable. Not that different to a UK hol IME.

It also wouldn't be fair to take the older ones unless YOU are going to take the younger ones somewhere as well, which you wont.

‘The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page’

I don’t understand anyone who doesn’t want to see anything outfit of their home country, and I think you’re doing your children a massive disservice here! Stop being so selfish

Could you afford a holiday nanny? Probably about £500 for the week, maybe as little as £300 if you just hire a student or something rather than a qualified childcarer. She would need her own bedroom (or may be happy to share with the youngest). Then you could either go, and do more active sightseeing without the others, or stay at home.

@jameswong and my grandparents never went abroad either so 4. Although my siblings do a lot of holidaying now but one db hates it and only been the once.

OP, I get where you are coming from.
IMO, your DH should sort out the passports and take the teens on his own.
You and the little ones can have a restful time on your own at home, with your own bathroom and kitchen, early nights, simple food and peaceful evenings.

I have fond memories of the time DH took our eldest to visit relatives for a week, leaving me with one 2 year old at home.
We had a lovely time and I managed to read a book for the first time in 4 years.

It isn't not travelling that is ignorant, it is the reasoning behind it. That abroad is all the same and not worth seeing.

Tbh, tell him to crack on. If he wants to sort passports and go then great, because you're not going. So he can either take the big kids, or all of them...up to him.

Maybe in a few years your younger ones will be easier and you'll feel differently.

i wouldnt want to go either.
i would be so stressed and worried and wouldnt like it

is there a compromise
somewhere without its own pool for example,
somewhere not so hot?
france? they have eurocamps

But I do find it jaw dropping that there are still families where 4 generations have never left these shores.

It's pretty awful, this entire thread slagging off a woman, who has admitted she struggles with anxiety and depression, for being a shit parent to her kids for not taking them abroad when she's also stated that her husband CBA'd to take them on his own.

She's fine with that, he's 'having none of that'.

Bet he's not! He'd have to do the grunt work.

weekfour, FUCK THAT! I'd have put a stop to that the first time round. NFW. You just tell him, I'm done being the holiday donkey. Nope. YOU take them. You do it all. Go on, go for it.

DH and I both agree where we're going, when they were younger (the older two can now completely pack themselves, the youngest still needs supervision but he's getting there) we divided the work to go - insurance, packing, forms, medications and food, etc. Otherwise, we wouldn't have gone.