CHILDREN HAVE NEVER HAD A HOLIDAY! MASSIVE GUILT!

[Una22]

I have recently been speaking to a friend who says my children have never had a proper holiday. They are 4 and 11. Most years we go away for at least 4 nights to a caravan park and she states she feels sorry for them as 4 nights away is not a holiday! My eldest does not want to go on a plane and I would not like to force him (he is autistic) plus he loves going to the caravan parks. I feel dreadful now as I feel now my kids have never had a holiday! We are saving towards a deposit for a house and I just feel that needs to take priority instead of spending loads of money on holiday which my children probably wouldnt enjoy. We also have our Mother in laws caravan that we stay in on a regular basis but again thats not a holiday! Was just looking for some honest opinions I feel like I am failing them. We are always doing various things with them but we just dont have lots of money.

I put YABU, because YABU to feel bad about it! It definitely is a holiday, your kids enjoy it, you’re saving for a house deposit, you sound like a great Mum and your friend sounds like a snob.

We have often had caravan breaks in the summer, couple of nights and sometimes longer away here and there over the years of the girls being born ranging from Cornwall to Scotland.

I don't like flying and don't like hot weather

When the youngest told her friend a couple of years ago that she was going on holiday at weekend (they were probably around 11 then) she said a weekend in Wales wasn't an holiday and DD came home all upset because apparently going away in the UK isn't an holiday!

The girls have loved their holidays.

I always feel guilt about this too, but then I have to give myself a big kick up the bum and remember that my children have been on loads of caravan holidays all over the country and they love them!

Your "friend" sounds like a stuck up cow.

Enjoy your holidays and good luck on saving for the house deposit. It will be worth it in the end.

Don't worry about it. My DS has never been on holiday at all. DDs have but that was in a lodge in a caravan /lodge park.
DDs are probably a bit old for it now but they still have the best memories of those holidays.
Ignore your snobby so called friend. There is nothing wrong with a 4 day caravan holiday

We've never really had a family holiday. Both self employed with erratic income, both working a lot. I did have a period as a SAHM but that also meant holidays were not high on the list of things to pay for with our limited income. We did have a pony, though, and we spent a lot of money on pony camp, pony days and lessons for our horse mad kids. We would take time off and spend it eating out a lot and having a really lazy week while taking day trips to anywhere we fancied or just spend all day at the yard with no pressure to be anywhere. This happened in good months when we had extra money! They also spent time in Ireland and Scotland with family. My kids are now adults and say they have lovely memories of their summers and loved growing up with horses. They still own horses, so I think they are telling me the truth! I would have loved to have travelled with them but with limited funds we decided to put the money into a hobby that brought them pleasure every week of the year and I don't regret that. We still had weeks when we took time off work and school, relaxed together, we had fun and do something new, which I think is the point of holidays. I have also been accused by a 'friend' of neglecting my kids but people like that are so far up their own arses that they forget there are plenty of families in this country who just survive month to month and can't afford a night away and even a trip to the cinema for the whole family is a stretch. Are they neglectful? Of course not! This former friend just seems to think that because we didn't spend our money the way she did, we were bad parents. I told her to shove her opinions up her arse and I suggest you do the same. She was always trying to criticise and undermine, no matter what I did, constant little digs. She was not a nice person and I had no problem cutting her loose. i don't miss her at all!

I don't get why the mother in laws caravan is not a holiday either

Maybe the caravan comes complete with the MIL ..... .
A lot of peoples idea of Not A Holiday ...

I voted YABU, and you are, for giving this "friends" opinion any headspace at all. You are doing your best for your family and a holiday can be any break from routine- a 4 day holiday is a HOLIDAY do you hear? I assume she means holiday=flying well in that case 2 of my children have never been on holiday either.

Don't inconvenience your family and change your life goals for the sake of some idiot's opinion of what you should be doing. Sounds to me like you're doing just fine.

Your 'friend' is not your friend. Does she like putting you down or making you doubt yourself more generally?

You are having the kinds of holidays your children enjoy and are appropriate not only for their needs but also your family circumstances. Saving for a house and providing a long-term, stable, suitable home environment for your children is far more important than any foreign (I take it she means foreign) holiday. Especially if you don't even think your kids would enjoy it.

Carry on caravanning and ignore her.

I'd say only about 50% of DC's friends have regular holidays abroad, and by regular I mean every few years not even every year. Far more common are wet week in Wales type stuff, which is mostly what we do. (Mixed income friendship group everyone from long term unemployed, artists, web designers, charity workers, tech, teachers, senior civil servants.) Mine's been on a plane once. I'd love to do it more but it was a week in Italy and it cost seven grand and GP paid most of it as a treat.

We're thinking about Brussels or Amsterdam on the Eurostar as a no-fly alternative, quite kid-friendly and they sometimes have good deals!

Your "friend" is a nasty (and stupid) bitch. A holiday is a trip away from home - that's all.

Tell her to do one.

Ignore your friend. If your kids enjoy the holidays you do have then it's none of her business. My DH had his first ever holiday, which was also our honeymoon at the age of 53. And that wouldn't have been a holiday in your friends eyes either. 4 days and nights in Southport 😁 he loved it though and it didn't harm his life not having a holiday before

Well there are thousands of kids in this country who have never had a holiday by her ridiculous stnadard then - as many many people enjoy a caravan holiday every year!
Is she one of those stupid people who think abroad only counts as holidays.
If your kids enjoy it, that’s all

I deliberately haven't taken mine away. What is the point when they want mummy, daddy, playpark ice-cream? I was taken abroad in KS2 and did not appreciate it at all.

It's good enough for multi millionaires

Southport has got to be one of the coolest honeymoon destinations ever😁

I voted yabu! Because 4 nights away in a caravan is definitely still a holiday!
that friend is nasty and snobbish.

How ridiculous. If I go away for 1 night it's a holiday even if it's an hour up the road!

Every family is different. I go foreign with my kids, my brother own a touring caravan.
We are different.

Your friend is nutty. I never had a holiday as a child, I only ever slept at home. We only have had the funds to do mon-fri in caravans with our kids and they absolutely love it, look forward to it and talk about it afterwards

Thanks 😁 he absolutely loved it there as did I. Though I was 9 months pregnant at the time so couldn't do everything I wanted to😅

Of course they have had a holiday. You’ve been on caravan holidays. Your friend isn’t your friend.
I hate the word staycation as to me that’s staying at home not having a holiday in uk.
Lots of people prefer to holiday in UK. Camping, caravans etc are popular.
When I was young we had holidays in caravans and loved them I didn’t go abroad until I was a teen.

Lots of people have different definitions of holidays.

My definition is more than two nights away from home somewhere of your choosing aka not hospital/your parents house for xmas.

When I was very small, in the 1960s, a spring or summer holiday sometimes featured a (frozen) caravan park in west Wales.

I loved it and was amazed when my mother told me years later how cold it had been. I just remember adoring sleeping in the caravan and playing outside with my campsite friends. Huge treat—being given money to spend in the shop on bouncy balls.

I genuinely despise this idea that has crept in over the past decade or two that a staycation is no longer staying in your own home for a break and enjoying local amenities and now covers all trips within the UK, and trips within the UK are no longer true "holidays". It's nonsense and damaging as this shows.

Going on multiple trips abroad over the course of childhood is an incredibly recent thing. I have taken my children abroad a couple of times but we pretty much only holiday in the UK and I really don't think they enjoyed our trips here any less.