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!

I'm jealous in a purely jealous (and possibly bitter) way.
I see nothing wrong in feeling the unfairness in the difference in opportunity between one hard working family and another.

She’d learn more on a backpacking trip she had organised herself with a bunch of mates and no help from parents. Hopefully she’ll find a way to make it her own. Growing up is about learning to make your own choices and choose your own future, not follow the one that your parents have mapped out for you. That way misery lies.

Sounds great.

The only pointless thing here is your post, but even that shows others that you are a jealous individual who has assumed thevrole of gap year police.

There are no rules what a gap year should entail. I see that it could only be pointless if you sat on your arse and did nothing which is far from what's happening here

Yes I remember stating I had just read that in an interview for a very posh Sixth Form.
When the Head started asking questions I started laughing I told him I was actually reading ‘Lace’ by Shirley Conran the OG 80’s bonkbuster.
They had a priest and a nun on the panel…
I then went through my CV and took it to pieces myself.
I got in.
The world is such a competitive place now, and I understand the need for enrichment, but you are only 18 once.
I took a year out after Uni and did something absolutely unrelated to an academic career. Happiest year of my young life.
This young girl probably will be indulged but the most important thing is what she is like as a person.
I have finally read Tolstoy. Took me a while!
Also did NYC on a budget as a young student - brilliant!
Did it later on which a much bigger budget - okay.
This girl is missing out on experiencing so much. She will have a great time, but some of the adventures I had on a shoestring were brilliant.

Would this couple adopt a 45 yo woman? Asking for a friend who happens to look exactly like me.

So fucking what? Plenty do this
The jealousy and judgemental preaching is strong from some here

This rounds lovely and I would have loved it at eighteen (and now!). I’d read a lot of the classics as a teen though I was 20 when I read War and Peace.

I saw that the motto of the old Grand Tour was “leisure in enthusiastic learning” and this seems to fit the bill.

You can have lip filler AND read the classics

Both of her parents are from EU countries and she was born and mostly raised abroad - in fact I don’t think she has a British passport.

Backpacking round south east Asia is also a gap year activity for affluent young people which is usually wholly or partly funded by their affluent parents, or at a push the young person has worked to pay for their gap year safe in the knowledge that their parents will pay for uni. The only difference here is the degree of affluence.

Backpacking isn't automatically a more enriching experience than skiing just because you might meet the occasional cockroach, and drinking cheap and nasty long island iced tea out of a bucket at a full moon party is certainly not more worthy than wine tasting in Italy.

The most useful kind of gap year is working full time for 15 months to save as much money as possible for uni, which is useful but (speaking from experience here) very, very boring.

If this girl is from the kind of family who can afford to pay for this sort of gap year, as well as uni, before buying her a property and finding her a nice little job in one of their family businesses, she'll never need to rub shoulders with ordinary people anyway. There are loads of people like that in the world. Campaign to close loopholes in inheritance tax laws and introduce wealth taxes if you like, but an 18 year old for whom money is no object is not your issue here. If she wants to spend her gap year doing those things and her family is willing to pay for it, why shouldn't she enjoy herself?

If it were my daughter I'd sleep better at night knowing she was on her luxury gap year rather than sleeping in some backpacker's hostel on a ginger farm in Australia anyway.

Fucking hell, there are endless posts on this website from parents of teenagers struggling with their mental health or SEN, etc. This sounds like a happy young woman who has the world at her fingertips and family in a position to help make these things a reality. It sounds amazing.
Maybe try a different perspective.

No need to splash it all over an internet forum though.
Particularly as it is so outing
Jealousy is a bitter and ugly emotion, best kept to oneself, because showing it says a lot about a person

I love threads like this. OP posts bitter, jealous bile. 99% of responses tell her this. She responds to the 1% that don't, and pretends the rest of them aren't there!

Reading Tolstoy as an 18 year old is nothing to brag about - I loved Tolstoy as a teenager but he’s no more challenging than Austen or Dickens, which are on the GCSE syllabus. If they are actually boasting about that to random friends, yes I’m a bit embarrassed for them.

Boasting about the flat is also a bit tacky. I’d get new friends OP because these ones sound like Harry Enfield’s “considerably richer than you” characters. But you must know how rich they are if they own a ski chalet (probably £5-10m depending on resort) and have £1m to spend on their daughter’s flat, so it can’t be a huge surprise that their daughter is having cash thrown at her in her gap year.

Honestly it came across like her parents were calling the shots. The Greek island hopping was the only part I believed she wanted to do (maybe the skiing). Even when they mentioned the flat, they mentioned the area and followed with “xxx would rather a different area but this is our compromise”.

I was astounded by the concept of a gap year when I got to university. In my world tbe only reason not to got straight to university (not that a lot of my peer group did) was to earn money to fund your studies or because you had to retake your A Levels.

Therefore I vote YABU as all gap year holidays are a a massive middle class privilege - mummy and daddy paying for a year of luxury holiday is no worse than backpacking in Oz or Thailand or going to some developing country to patronise the locals volunteer.

Sounds amazing, what a lucky girl.
The experiences she will have will absolutely do her no harm as she transitions towards adulthood and the world of work.

That sort of gap year would be right up my street, far more than setting off with a back pack and hoping for the best.

Which she’s allowed to do…who wouldn’t want a year long, luxury holiday if you could afford it?

Why do you think that 'backpacking' is the only acceptable way of spending a gap year? I don't understand your logic here OP...it's never been about 'backpacking' (although yes, some people do this of course)...it's about doing something 'other than going straight to uni' - whatever that thing happens to be 🤷‍♀️

You sound unhealthily jealous, which is a nasty personality trait. Really nasty.

It sounds great. Life’s way too short, why not?!

Sounds amazing!! Not sure I would be packing my own 17yo off for a year to do all this, just because I think she's too young and id miss her terribly, but if her parents can do this for her and she wants to go, I can't really see why you would be so snippy about it, apart from absolute, unadulterated, jealousy.

Bet the young girl will have the time of her life and memories that will last forever!

It sounds amazing OP. If I could go on a gap year like that (in my old age) I would! If I could send my children on something like that, if that’s what they wanted to do, I would. So many gap years pretend to be helping a charity and don’t do much good at all, this feels much more honest.

I think it’s excellent and frankly having seen some of those backpackers - they are far worse for the environment, local culture than people staying in the west to do what this young woman is doing.

Also reading those books is totally believable! I read them in my teens. Just as an fyi they also read them in first year Russian degrees also (I.e age 18 usually)

If she wasn't even at this dinner you have no idea how she feels about it.