To think this the most pointless, indulgent gap year possible

[Killiam]

Met with some old friends of DHs yesterday, we aren’t close anymore but we have daughters of the same age (17).
We asked what their daughter was planing for after A-levels and they told us she’s going on a gap year, thinking it would be a classic backpacking trip we asked where she would be going and this is what they described

• First Greek island hopping (for fun and independence)
• Then a wellness retreat in either Thailand or Indonesia (self reflection and stress management)
• Then December in New York (Engage with the culture such as visiting museums, enjoy city life (she already lives in London but okay?) and emerge herself in the Christmas spirit)
• January to March at the families ski chalet (take on courses to help with leadership skills, read classical literature and ski)
• Rest of the year in France/Italy/Spain (culture again, cooking classes and wine tasting)

They justified it by saying she has no interest in backpacking and they don’t believe that’s enriching anyway and they feel this is a balanced way to transition her from childhood to adulthood (plans a degree apprenticeship for the following year).
They think these experiences will give her the final touches she needs to be successful after putting a lot of effort into ensuring she is well rounded (sports, music, language, well read and well travelled etc.)

AIBU to think this is more indulgent, pointless, year long luxury holiday of a gap year. I don’t mind gap years in general but this will be entirely funded by her parents and I can’t see what exactly is going to make it so enriching. Of course she need not actually worry as they also mentioned buying her a flat worth over a million and how she will have a job in either of their businesses should she actually want it!

"however she’s very attractive and comes from money - I doubt she will ever know struggle herself".

Many children are the same. (Most of my ds1 and ds2's friends are, not all have as much money as these op quoted parents, nor do we but hey) : Nice, bright, good looking, nice parents, some sporty, got everything going for them.

So we now punish kids for this?

Let's all go on a mn gap year!

You sound really, really out of touch. Many, many children go on to work for the family business without the social &, cultural capital this girl has. Her parents are making sure she is the right fit for their business. It's their perogative to choose who they want to work in their business.

I'm am still calling bullshit on this post. I think you are loosely using the Middleton's as a basis for your tall tale.

Exactly, the OP sounds just like the type who wants a race to the bottom & hates to see people do well in life.

The last thing people in Africa need is a rich kid from London coming to build school walls badly, help feed the chickens and be a transitory presence in the lives of vulnerable people.

Or indeed, a rich kid from London who assumes everyone in Africa needs their compassion and uses them as an opportunity to develop depth.

Your comment on never having to struggle in life, I'd disagree. A friend had a magical childhood and grew up with lots of money but nevertheless had her struggles. Her mum dying when she was 21, two very disabled children (and no mum to help support her), a nasty divorce in her 30s, and the most disabled of her children dying at 19 years old. Please don't assume that those with money never have struggles.

Hear hear.

Oops posted before reading your almost identical message!

Just because I, or my family, cannot afford to do some things, that is no reason why others can't. I don't resent them, it doesn't mean they are not good and kind.

I hope the girl enjoys her gap year, it sounds great to me. She has many years ahead to work. You're only young once.

Did your DH grow up in an EU country with this couple? If so does your dd not have dual citizenship?

I don’t mind gap years in general but this will be entirely funded by her parents and I can’t see what exactly is going to make it so enriching.

Oh, you “don’t mind” gap years! How incredibly magnanimous of you!

But you do mind about how friends of your husband spend their money and how their daughter spends her time. Why? How does it affect you? They certainly don’t give a shit what you think of this gap year or gap years in general.

I don’t mind gap years in general but this will be entirely funded by her parents and I can’t see what exactly is going to make it so enriching.

You can't see what in that list would be enriching??!

"I don’t mind gap years in general but this will be entirely funded by her parents and I can’t see what exactly is going to make it so enriching."

The places she will see, things she will be doing, people she will meet, will be life-enhancing. I think it's wonderful and the fact that her parents are able to fund it is great. The girl will have responsibilities, anxieties and headaches, later on, everyone does regardless of their financial status.

Young people can't win. I can remember on here, maybe last year, people being disparaging about youngsters doing Raleigh projects overseas in their gap year; the fact that they have to raise money in order to do it and that some find it easier if they have parents who cough up a lfair bit of dosh towards it. So what. Then it was said that the projects often weren't worth the effort anyway. It was so ungracious.

What business is it of anyone else anyway?

You need to work on yourself more and stop comparing your inside with someone else's outside. As you see them infrequently you don't know everything about them, only what they decide to share with you. You have no idea of what the future holds for their family or yours. They could face illness further down the line, get in to debt or anything else.

There is and always will be people ahead of you and people behind you. That is life. Concentrate on yourself and your family and stay in your lane. If you and your family are comfortable and have good health then be thankful as not everyone is in that position. Learn to you just smile sweetly and then move on, it is not healthy to give this as much head space as you are doing. Your post was very detailed as in anyone could possibly work out who this was about.

maybe not your "average" but tens of thousands of 18 year olds do english literature degrees, and thousands more doing foreign languages will usually do modules with classical literature of those countries, plus other 'reading-heavy' subjects such as classics, history etc. so it's hardly unusual.

That sounds like a lovely year and she’s probably got her head screwed on if she’s doing a degree apprenticeship. I’d bloody love to go on a yoga retreat and learn to cook/taste wine.

Sounds awesome. Why should she be obliged to struggle if she doesn’t have to, solely to make you feel better? As if her doing so will improve your own circumstances in any way.

’However she’s very attractive and comes from money’ - as if that in any way detracts from the type of person she is.

Are people supposed to be bound to where they came from and not want anything different for themselves and their own children? There circumstances have changed, why wouldn’t their reality reflect that? Perhaps they don’t see their beginnings as being more worthy or as having greater value than where they are now.

She doesn’t need to have lived experience of being worse off, or of the struggle associated with it, any more than you need lived experience of South Sudan, or life in a Brazilian favela.

I would have loved most of that as a 17-18 year old. If it's what she wants and her family can do that, just be happy for her.

We built up a business from nothing. We went from not having enough money for milk at times, to having enough now to never have to worry ever again about money.
I make sure my dds dont have to worry about money and wont have to struggle or feel ill when the electic bill comes in.
Not while therr is breath in my body and after im gone they gonna get it all anyways.
Still managed to turn out compassionate kind empathic strong dont take any bs women who take their position of privilage v seriously and ensure they put back into society in many diff ways.
You dont have to struggle to be decent.
But it helps if you dont suffer from jealousy either.

I think you may be right - I never went. With that being said, I have met many who have done stuff like camp America or worked in orphanages etc - they seemed to have got a lot out of it. A lot people do it after uni etc. The OP example doesn't really sound like a gap year tbh.

It sounds bloody lovely - and vastly better than the horror show of earnest western kids travelling to African countries for ‘volunteering’ so that they can wreck the local job market and take 500 photos of other people’s kids before posting them online with captions about how much self growth they’ve attained by seeing real poverty and deprivation.

She’s obviously very lucky and privileged and one beneficiary of a very unequal world but it’s nonetheless very unclear why you’re sustaining one-sided beef with a teenager. Who cares what other people’s kids do on their gap years?!

This is mad, threads I am on include this one and "In a&e just told I have a brain tumour"
First world problems!

You’re jealous.

All gap years are self- indulgent excuses to get pissed in a nice place. Unless you’re expecting her to work in the local oxfam or cat shelter I don’t think that what she’s doing is any worse than those people who go on a booze bus down Western Australia etc. It doesn’t sound as though she “needs” it for a job interview either. Yes she’s lucky but so are lots of young people with rich parents 🤷