To think this holiday plan is just a bit shit for a family with young children?

[Holidayplanisshit]

Background - we’re saving money for a holiday next autumn with twins; not massively expensive (under £2000 for 2 week cruise) but, as a low income family, it will take a bit of discipline to save a regular amount rather than spend on extras for the children. We’ve set an amount to save each month which will pay for the cruise and also give us spending money.

Now for my AIBU…….. DH wants to go away for a holiday this year as well and thinks 10 days to 2 weeks staying with his DF in rural Wales will be “perfect” - for that read free accommodation and he will, no doubt, love spending the evenings in his dad’s garden drinking beers and chatting guy crap!! Meanwhile, the cottage his DF lives in isn’t child friendly - think no proper kitchen or bathroom (he’s been saying for years that he’s going to swap them round or refit both but all he’s done is rip stuff out and cobble working parts together) the stairs are in the middle of the living space and aren’t childproof plus no way to stop toddlers going up or down meaning I’ll have to watch them like hawks. The garden is full of junk and not safe for kids to play in, there’s no boundary fencing and there’s a stream across the Lane which they could easily fall into.

There’s nothing locally for us to do as a family without having to drive miles each way even to a play park! Even the ‘local’ beach is over an hour’s drive away - for context, we live 20 miles from beautiful beaches that people actively seek out to visit for holidays!!

DFiL is lovely but doesn’t really interact with the children when he stays with us and, as an older man, is quite set in his ways so follows quite a rigid routine of wanting his daily paper, having a few drinks in the evening and a couple of smokes in the garden later in the evening. DH readily admits his dad won’t help out with the children and that his home isn’t ideal but he just sees the idea of a free holiday. I see 10 days to 2 weeks of
him having a whale of a time doing nothing as he won’t be at work while I am watching the children, keeping them safe and entertained and making sure they’re fed regularly (not helped by them being fussy eaters so I can’t just give them what my DFiL would usually cook as they won’t eat curries, fish, veg or things).

AIBU for wanting a holiday that gives me as well as DH a chance to kick back & relax; where our kids can play safely, have something to do walking distance away to entertain them a bit either during the day or in the early evening; a pub or restaurant where we can eat sometimes during the holiday so I don’t have to cook every single day. Basically I don’t want my precious holiday time spend being a spare wheel to DH & SFiL having a great catch up while I manage young children in a totally unsuitable environment!!

@Holidayplanisshit P&O cruises are fabulous for young children, super safe and so much for them to do. You will have a proper relaxing holiday. I am typing this from a cruise ship, DCs are teens now and still love them. We've done plenty of other holidays but always come back to them as they are so good.

Well not everybody grew up like this. And I wouldn't want my dc to be passing time only doing this, there should be a mix of things.

You wouldn’t want your children to only pass time being imaginative outposts too much? It’s for a week or two! No one is saying bin all their toys and never take them anywhere again.

When you were two, who the fuck knows? You weren't off roaming the dales and valleys anyway. A better question would be how the mother of two year old twins survived miles from nowhere with nothing to do in a house thats a death trap...and the answer is she didn't have a lovely jolly time,did she?

Does seem strange

Could MIL talk some sense into him - both "holiday" and helping with DC at home a little more when he's not working? Does she help with DC herself if she lives near you?

No, I wouldn't want my toddler twins spending two weeks outside in Welsh weather with just a stick and a bucket to play in along the dangerous stream. I'm just the worst mother 🙄

I would sit him down and make a list of what would need to happen for the week at his dad's to work. And I would call it a week not 10 days or a fortnight. And once the list is up hopefully he can draw his own conclusions.

I would include things like:
You not cooking all the meals
You not doing all the child care
The safety stuff - stream etc
The fact that you have to drive so he needs to pull his weight some other way

Have people who are saying how unsuitable and generally horrible cruises are, actually been on one? You're not "stuck on a boat for 2 weeks without seeing anything" - on this particular cruise OP has booked, they will get to visit Madeira, Gran Canaria, Tenerife, Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, Cadiz and Lisbon, full day at pretty much each location, just going back for dinner and sleeping. Plenty of time to do sightseeing, if you have toddlers. There will be tons of suitable food options for picky toddlers on the ship, plus entertainment and babysitting.

Holidays with toddlers are obviously not the same than when you were childless, but honestly cruises are pretty much as good as it gets. Certainly beats a death-trap house in the middle of nowhere, where other adults won't even consider adjusting their cooking preferences so DC can eat as well.

You definitely not a low income family if your planning a cruise holiday🤦🏻‍♀️

Oh, just push them out the door in the direction of the stream, OP, and then settle down with a good book in the garden while your husband and FIL have a natter! You're unreasonable to be so uptight about water safety and if they fall through the bannister and bash their heads...well, survival of the fittest, isn't it?

Don't worry about catering/food, either. Not your problem. Just take a few things for you and if the twins get hungry wandering about in the wilds, I'm sure a kindly farmer will teach them how to trap a rabbit or two or his wife will invite them in for seed cake and ginger beer. And there's bound to be plenty of blackberries about if they learn to avoid the prickles.

No doubt it will be absolutely idyllic.

Tell him you're not going, for all the same reasons you said above.

I agree with you.
This will not be a holiday for you and you're supposed to be a team, so he should not be going and leaving all the grunt work to you.

Goldbar
LOL this just reminded me of this old thread where OP wondered why some people were complaining about credit crunch and not enough money for food, when they could just go pick blackberries..

Low income families can still go on holiday. It’s allowed 😂

He obviously wants to see his dad which is perfectly fine and you say FIL is lovely so could you compromise and go five days up to a week?

There's nothing stopping him going on his own, with a bit of organisation (by him) and planning with his father. The fact is he doesn't want to do anything which doesn't involve effort by his wife.

Additionally, together with other PP, I can't see why he can't invite his father to their family home, which OP is open to. That has the added advantage that the children would be in a safe and comfortable environment with plenty of things to do much closer than FIL's deathtrap sounding home.

OP I hope you've made your feelings abundantly clear and are sticking to your position. Having something for free which is of no value (the opposite) is no inducement to do something you really do not want to do. 🌹

@Orangello . There are definitely shades of 'Better drowned than duffers' about some of these responses 😂. Two little urchins wandering around the Welsh countryside with blackberry juice trickling down their cheeks...the picture of happy childhood. While the OP, clad in a flowered apron, whips a cut and come again cake out of the oven just as the little cherubs wander in from their unsupervised explorations past their dad and grandad snoozing in deck chairs in the garden. What could possibly go wrong?

Spoken to DH this morning and said I’m not happy going and listed all the issues with DFiL’s home, lack of things for twins to do, how it won’t be much of a holiday for me if I’m constantly worrying about what they’re getting into or that they’re wandering off towards the lane and the stream.

He appears to be listening as he’s admitted it would far more of a break for him than me and that the twins will probably be bored as anything. Plus he dropped into the conversation that DFiL has a cat living at his - and he’s worried he’ll spend the holiday sneezing/eyes streaming as he’s allergic to cats!! He thought I wanted to go as well which was why he didn’t mention the cat!!

So the plan now is to look for a week’s holiday in a caravan or holiday park and see what the cost would be then take it from there either to go away or just do days out. DDiL is always invited to stay - DH mentions coming down for a few days every time he speaks to him on the phone!

And, for those saying being able to afford a £2,000 holiday (booked 18 months in advance which allows us time to save) doesn’t class us as a low income family - DH earns under £20,000 and I don’t work so I wouldn’t say we’re even a middle income family!!

I missed the updates by OP. Having seen them I think she’s right in not wanting to go, she knows her partner than any of us here.
I know I wouldn’t want to go either.,
Cruise holidays are great, they do early meal sittings for kids, the food is varied and plentiful, kids entertainment on board,. Stairs…not a problem, they have lifts!
Plus, unless you really want to stay on board you’re not on the ship all day long. Day trips to explore the countries the ships are docked at.
Boating holidays are great too, we’ve done three with our kids, starting at roughly the same age as ops would be by September ‘23. They loved it, Life jackets on when out on deck if we were moored up, if we were moving they stayed inside mostly, we’d sometimes let sit outside at the pointy end where the seating was lower down, with life jackets on obs. it wasn’t a problem, they went inside when coming into moor up, DH was steering. I was stood outside on the side of the boat with a moor rope ready to jump off as he pulled up as close as possible. The Kids watching out of the widow waiting for me to fall in( I never did) if ai was lucky a fellow boater would shout ‘Chuck it’ I’d throw him the rope and he’d moor up for me. Job done.
We gave them little jobs to do, mopping the deck, tidying the rope up. Paying the man who pumped the toilet out.
We let them have go at steering and as they grew older they were doing the jumping off and mooring up. And they never fell in, one lost a shoe once but that was the only mishap.

We met families with babies, they took collapsible playpens for tricky times. But you both have to do it together..

Plus he dropped into the conversation that DFiL has a cat living at his - and he’s worried he’ll spend the holiday sneezing/eyes streaming as he’s allergic to cats!! He thought I wanted to go as well which was why he didn’t mention the cat!!

Yeah right, he was thinking of you the whole time!
The only reason he’s agreeing with you now is because he’s found out about or just remembered the cat and that he’s allergic.

I would see this as visit rather than a holiday. For me that means I would limit to four days tops (inc travel), and I would be very clear that I would expect all childcare, cooking/cleaning etc to be jointly done. Too often a family holiday is actually more work for the woman not less.

Sounds like same shit but in a different more difficult place.
I only had one toddler and this would have been an utter nightmare for me and DH would have tag teamed with me.

Say hell no now but be prepared to compromise on a weekend (which will be equally shit)

No. That sounds like a recipe for disaster. Holidays with small children can be a nightmare at the best of times and the thought of being miles and miles from activities or attractions (distractions) in an unsafe ramshackle environment whilst slaving away doing the lion's share of work whilst he's chilling in the garden with his dad & beers ??

no fucking way

missing the point of the thread but cruises are fab holidays with little kids. We’ve taken ours since they were knee high. And, you can get amazing bargains if you can travel outside school holiday time. We go with P&O too. They have a two week cruise inAugust round Scandinavia and the Baltic £3000 for a family of four in one cabin. Full board - loads of entertainment- kids club thrown in - normal pub prices in the bars- what’s not to like? There is a lot of snobbery around cruising, but once you’ve tried it, it’s very difficult to find anything comparable. OP enjoy your cruise in Oct 23!

There’s so much to do in WALES with kids especially if you drive. Just being out in the countryside is good for the children you are being unreasonable and selfish tbh

It’s a no from me. Swerve it if you can