To go on holiday without kids?

[Toskiornottoskii]

I want to go skiing. Really as a family. Problem is DP doesn’t ski yet. Kids would be just turned 1 and just turned 4 in spring. So they would just be in ski crèche.

My latest idea is to do a 4 day midweek break. Leave the kids with grandparents. DP can learn how to ski.

This is potentially not the best for 1 yo. But would be heaven for the 4 year old.

If we wait until next year then we have reception/ school to contest with and I feel like we should be at home then as I don’t want grandparents having to get eldest to school.

Is this a bonkers idea?

Sounds perfect!

I think grandparents can often bring a different energy. For example,
my Mum used to spend hours doing arts and crafts with my kids (not my thing!). She would also spend hours playing games with them. I was a frazzled Mum rushing around!!

How anyone can claim spending time with capable, loving grandparents is a bad thing, I’ll never know. I think there is a lot of projection on this thread.

Have a fab holiday OP. It’s always a good idea to have reliable family childcare. Even for emergencies. If you bring up a (clingy) child who can’t bear to be apart from parents, that’s not a good thing!

I hope you’ll bring them back something special, it’s still a big ask.

I would SO LOVE to be asked!

The ultimate sign of trust and that you have a good relationship with your adult child and their spouse PLUS…. My GC all to myself!!

You’re only 61 and think it’s a ‘big ask’?! My mum is 60 and taking my children away on her own abroad for a week next year (she takes them away on holiday every year, she’s even taken all 4 of her grandchildren on her own). She THANKS me for letting her take the kids, I fully intend to do the same if I’m allowed!

Extended? Thought was only a few days. Extended is a month or more

I wouldn't and I'm 53. A day ilit s enough thank you very muchand it's only one of them I take

Your prerogative, my kids must be more tolerable

I have a half decent career. I'm hobby light admittedly. But I enjoy motherhood very much and my children reap the rewards of my presence. I personally don't want to be away from them for extended periods or holiday without them. One day they will be all grown up and leading their own lives. I want to savour this precious time. "Most of your life you'll know your kids as an adult. Make the most of this very small window of knowing them as a child "

@CrispsPlease

ah, get yourself some hobbies! You matter too! Hobbies are great, and often a great way of making new friends. As you said yourself - kids aren’t little forever so you need a life outside of them otherwise when they’re grown up you’ll be all bored and lonely. Invest in yourself as well as your kids! 😀

And they remember a remote father prone to shouting and unemotional and unhappily married parents

It’s fine. A mid week short break and quality time with grandparents for the kids.
skiing aside, you need to maintain you relationship and this is a great way of doing so.

There are 365 days in a year, 4 days out of that is not creating much of a void and I would argue it’s quite selfish to bogart all that time to yourself. Children benefit from fulfilling relationships outside of their nuclear family, grandparents are important. I also think it’s really healthy for children to see their parents prioritising people and activities outside of just them, so many parents centre their world around their children and honestly I don’t think it’s creating healthy and resilient people, it’s breeding entitlement, and dare I say, anxiety.

?

Oh you're barking up the wrong tree there. My children aren't closeted "mummys kids" . They're very independent and have plenty of their own sports and hobbies! I actively encourage it. I just wouldn't book a holiday without them ! To me holiday's are family events. Plenty of time to holiday solo when they no longer want to come with us.
Also my parents are my childcare whilst I'm at work (who also have their cousin's) so plenty of interaction with grandparents. I don't know why you are making assumptions about my children being closeted when all I have said is I don't feel the need to go on holiday without them. That's a family thing .

Grandparents are family?

Well of course...? But having tea and nanny and grandad house and being picked up 3 hours later is different from "I'm going on a skiing holiday, you're not invited. And you'll be staying at nanny and grandads for most of the week".

You don't like my opinion. I get it. But I still think solo holidaying when you have children isn't "the done thing". I'm sorry you feel my values are offensive.

Yes exactly, it’s different. They don’t build the same depth of relationship. I think there is more to life than the nuclear family, children should have more enriching relationships than just with their parents. And not to mention marriages as well, I think getting time together is a really important aspect of a healthy and thriving relationship, that can’t be achieved from a few stolen hours in the day (even more so when you have teens who are constantly awake!) a strong marriage is the backbone to a family, in my opinion. Mirroring the kind of self care and time for yourselves and each other empowers children to know it’s ok to do that for themselves when they’re adults, not be martyrs.

You’re talking on your pedestal about how you can’t bear to be apart from your kids and the importance of “family”, but I genuinely think what you deem as preferable is harmful.

"harmful" that's just offensive. You're clutching at straws trying to envisage my children as mollycoddled or hidden from society just because I don't want to go on holiday without them. I didn't see we don't ever have a night away (1 night) without them or go to lunch together when they're not at school. We do. I just don't need literally a holiday without my children. It's about the holiday!!! stop trying to make out my family life is something's warped purely because I don't holiday (and don't want to sans my children !)

Oh we’re allowed to go away for the night? Sorry just trying to keep up with the rules with what’s allowed and what’s not.

Oh bore off 🙄 if you can't understand what we're talking about here (an actual fucking holiday minus your kids) then there's no talking to you. Silly person.

I missed the bit where she said she was leaving them in a crack den to fend for themselves. Silly me.

OP, if your children will be safe and well cared for, and you can afford it without putting them in current or future financial hardship, then OF COURSE you should go.

More worried (and I haven't read the whole thread - the insane shaming of you was making me too irate) whether your partner really wants to go. I have to admit I have no interest in skiing myself and wouldn't like to be pressured into it in any way by a partner.

Regarding your kids, of course you are fine to go away without them if you have suitable child care to use and can afford it. It's good to get a break when you have very small ones - protects your mental health and potentially makes you therefore a much better, saner parent and human!

Your kids? .u own are pretty ok now as adults. But 2 grandchildren under a year old a 3 year old are not who I want to spend my spare time with. Admittedly I take the 7 year old on day trips occasionally

You have told MN threads about your very remote, unemotional husband who has a temper and doesn’t do anything to protect you from his toxic family.

and yet on here you are harping on about how children are young for so long and so important to make it all count

I’d say that you should be focussing a lot closer to home than on other parents taking a holiday without their children @CrispsPlease

Your family holidays @CrispsPlease i suspect are bloody depressing affairs