To hate family holidays?

[Straitjacketsandroses]

I don’t get them. City breaks - love; short UK breaks - love, but any longer than that and it’s just same shit less conveniences around you.

We’re currently on a week-long UK break with my in laws and I’ve abandoned my husband and kids to come back to our (average, not as clean as my house) air b&b because the thought of another walk makes me want to scream. We’ll spend the day walking aimlessly to find the best spot for some squashed sandwiches and warm apple juice before coming home to sit uncomfortably round a kitchen table whilst my FIL watches EVERY soap back to back. And we’re haemorrhaging money on ice creams and pub lunches and fish and chips. It’s all just so expensive and dull. Take me home!

Anyone else feel like this or am I a one off? I feel the same abroad too if we go anywhere for more than 3-4 nights!

That does sound awful! Poor you. I would download and audiobook, find a pub about 5 miles away and walk there by yourself!

I think the issue is you're away with your IL's and sharing accommodation too. I'm
Not a massive fan of holidaying with others but when we do I need our own space.

We don’t do most of our holidays with parents and in laws; it just seems to be the one over summer tends to be with them. We recognise this is more for them and the kids than us, so next year we’re negating that by planning a few shorter trips.

I think this holiday would be perfect for some people but the generation gulf just seems so wide. Our kids are having a great time though so I’ve booked my ideas up and stopped being a dark cloud.

It really is the food thing I think. We are a family who love eating out (and food in general) so any activities usually involve a nice meal, but my in laws are ‘eat to survive’ people and I can’t get my head around enjoying a walk that doesn’t end with a country pub 🤣 We are pleasing ourselves in that respect but we’re more limited here than at home which is annoying me because I’d love to be all off together at home for a week spending hundreds on eating out 🤣

YANBU about the family holidays with in laws - I’m due to go on one in a couple of days and it will be AWFUL. Loads of screaming kids, dreary activities and all ILs criticising the food I prepare for them/the food I eat myself as they are all competitive undereaters. Plus my DH is being an arse and we're not speaking, oh it’s going to be joyous.
YABU for not enjoying the pub lunches though, I would be in heaven to actually do something so decadent as eating out! Instead it will be MIL’s chickpea and lentil pie or similar.

No no you’ve misunderstood me - I live for pub lunches! The issue we’re having is limited pubs and my in laws hate eating out. We’re a family who spend a lot of time in the pub; our boys see Sundays as synonymous with a bike ride and a pint (coke for them) 🤣

You have my full sympathy though. My MIL offered to cook fajitas for us all which I like but on a Tuesday night after a day at work 🤣 We escaped that one and left the kids in whilst we went out for dinner (which was lovely but our kids aren’t what we’re trying to escape from really). Holidays for me aren’t about eating casseroles or chilli or anything; I want squid rings on the beach or fresh crab or cheese & wine!

That sounds like fun an will probably be a very fond family memory for them.

My dh’s dad is no longer here, but my dh talks about when his dad took him fishing on weekends and they drank a coca cola each. One of his best memories.

Ditto. We love our family holidays and have genuinely not had a single bad one since the kids were born and they are now early 20s.

The idea of being in an low-quality Airbnb with my in-laws fills me with horror. That is a chore and not a holiday.

We found once the children became old enough a cottage AirBnB in a decent sized village or town worked better. They could pop off to the park/pool/for an ice cream on their own. You don't have to get in the car for milk and bread. I could pop out the front door for a 5k run escape.

Everyone has more freedom.

I think location is a big issue with your holiday OP.

Then you either need to ditch the PILs or holiday some where bigger.

We holiday abroad and go half board. 3 years running, it has been cheaper than a holiday in the UK. I don't cook, clean or do anything for a week. It's bliss. DDs are 6 and 3, so not sitting back reading a book, but the reliable weather, access to a pool and lack of chores/life admin is utter bliss. I was never a fan of package holidays...until I had children!

Its not family holidays that's the problem, it what you've chosen to do on yours. Next time pick a place that appeals to you for its beauty, history, culture, activities, whatever you enjoy and go there. Take picnic food you actually like and either do an activity while FiL watches soaps, or make sure the accomadation has a garden/seperate room to get away from him in. You dont need to throw the baby out with the bathwater, just lesrn from what hasnt worked and change it.

Well... a family holiday doesn't have to be like that, surely?!

From what you've said, you've gone to stay in a property that you don't really like, to do things you don't enjoy, with people you find annoying.

You're not enjoying your 'family holiday' because it isn't your family holiday. It's your in-laws' holiday, to which you have for some reason been added even though you know that you hate doing the things you'll have to do with them.

Why are you going on holiday with your in-laws at all? Why aren't you going on holiday with your husband and kids to the kind of place where you can do things you actually enjoy?

Mumsnet seems to be full of people who go on holiday en masse with extended family every year, as if that's an obligatory thing that everyone's expected to do. But I don't think I really know anyone in real life who holidays with parents or in-laws or siblings on a regular basis. It's not the norm, and if even it was, you still wouldn't be obliged to do it.

I love my parents and DP and I get on really well with them; plus we don't have kids. But I've been away with them twice in my entire adult life - and on both occasions, my parents were staying in a friend's holiday apartment for two weeks and DP and I just flew out for five days to join them. And we didn't spend all day, every day with them on any of those five days! We had some breakfast with them on the balcony and then they did their thing and we went off and did ours, and we went out for dinner in the evenings.

Sounds like this year is a holiday to spend some time with family members who might not have many more opportunities to go away with you so maybe you need to make peace with that now you're there and start planning something different for next time. Have you got the budget to go away for a short break with just your DH and DC at another point this year?

We do family holidays but we don't all do the same thing all the time as different generations need different things. I would stick to weekends away with PILs in future and do other things if you don't fancy doing the same things as them. Surely a compromise with you seeing them every other day while you are away is acceptable? Point out to your DH that it is yours and DSs holiday too and walks, rubbish pub lunches and TV in the evenings is not what you want to do.

The problem is holidaying with MiL and FiL!

Yes this is exactly it (and explains to @KreedKafer why some of us do holiday with extended family; also, I hadn’t been away with my parents or in laws before we had kids but they change things a lot and it becomes less about what you want all of the time).

Yes we do have the budget and have been / will do. My husband and I have also been away (children looked after by in laws!) and we’re planning a city break before Christmas. We definitely need to rethink logistics for next year though (I have one more year left in me and then we’re going rogue I think)

"just same shit less conveniences around you."

@Straitjacketsandroses I'd tend to agree with this.

I know people who go for two week beach holidays with young kids. Staying in a hotel room.

TWO WEEKS! In a single room!

Apart from the claustrophobia of being in a hotel room with my whole family for two weeks (yes, I know you just go there to sleep, but I would hate going to sleep
And waking up that every day for a fortnight), a beach holiday for 2 weeks with young kids is just too long for me.

And then coming home with a fortnights worth of dirty washing.

Not for me.

Oh you’re a girl after my own heart - you had me at squid rings on the beach! 😍 Next year let’s combine forces and we can sneak off for a a seafood platter while our MILs have a veggie chilli cook off 🤣 good luck with the rest of it!

It could always be worse OP, I’ve just had a week in a ‘rural’ (see halfway up a mountain) cottage with the ILs where there was no TV at all and no internet/radio signal.

Conversation had dried up by night 3 so then we all spent every evening reading in silence, interspersed with the ILs saying how lovely it was to all spend time together without everyone on their phones😆

MiL has already been asking DH to promise to go again next year (their treat!) I’ve told him I’m busy 😂

We go away to a beautiful Greek island we love and the kids adore, HOWEVER my husband pointed out last year that the apartment we stay in is awful - tiny rooms one bathroom between four of us, and what really bothers me is when I can’t sleep at night, there’s nowhere to go. If I can’t sleep at home I can come downstairs and not disturb anyone, and I never do that because I can never not sleep, but the thought that I can’t do it if I need to stops me sleeping. The holiday itself is fabulous but we can’t cope with the discomfort of the accommodation. I know the suggestion here will be a nice hotel, but for a holiday you’re already paying 5-6k for, that becomes untenable really. Our kids aren’t young anymore (young young) but it’s still A LOT for longer than a few days. We cut it from two weeks to ten days and that’s still too long 🤣

Are you in Staithes by any chance? Sounds like Staithes. Village of the damned.

Can you start up board games night/ poker or something?

Oh my goodness how did you know?! 🤣 Why is it the Village of the Damned?

We did this tonight. I just got beaten at chess by my younger child 🤣 Far better than soaps!

It’s not family holidays you hate then. You like family holidays. You just hate these particular holidays. If you really have to go with them, try a cottage complex where you can have 2 separate cottages and at least get your evenings back.