To not understand the "holidays with small children is just parenting in a different place" complaints?

[LadyGreyjoy]

We have an 18 month old and have just got back from a week all inclusive in Spain. Obviously we did just parent out daughter in a different place, but I don't see that as a bad thing and certainly not a reason to say there was no point in going. I love being a mum, I waited a long time for my daughter due to infertility and I've been dreaming of family holidays for years. Whilst I still had to do the parenting (which I enjoy doing anyway) I didn't have to cook, wash up or clean, the food was lovely and far better than we cook at home, I did no laundry for a week and instead of working all day and only getting two hours in the evening with my daughter a day I got to play in the pool/on the beach with her all day every day for a week. After she was asleep instead of watching TV and being too tired to do anything we sat on the balcony listening to the music from the bar and drank cocktails and chatted, real quality time with my husband I am usually too tired to enjoy.

On here there are many threads making out a holiday with small children is shit and not worth the effort and that hasn't been my experience at all. The journey there and back was a bit rough and exactly what I expected it to be like tbh. Other than that it's been bliss and I would 10/10 recommend people go and do it. I was kind of dreading it after reading all the threads here but I wish I hadn't worried about it so much now.

You don't sound like a nice person at all.

I don't agree for a minute that just doing the same parenting in a different place makes it's not a holiday or not worth bothering.

So you really don’t understand that for some families it can be more stressful to go away? As the change in routine, difficulty to access familiar foods, overstimulation from new environment etc can lead to difficulties? I had very easy young children but I can still completely understand why holidays may not live up to their promise for other families.

If you truly do not understand, it does make your comments appear a bit thick really 🤷🏼‍♀️ Are you able to have the maturity, self-awareness and grace to reflect and rethink your attitude, based on some of the experiences listed here?

Well I started off a thread because I don't agree with the perspective often seen here that just parenting in a different place doesn't a holiday make. Parenting my own child isn't so much of hardship that it makes a holiday not a holiday or not enjoyable.

Then posters started banging on about how I was privileged and had no idea what a caravan holiday was like (not true). Then they wanted my full life story as justification for the pure decadence of going on an AI holiday because how dare I!? So I started to run out of patience and sympathy for the people on the thread who were clearly just annoyed that I don't agree with their opinion.

Then the outright derision, mockery and nastiness starred so I'm now I'm just enjoying winding the bullies up and watching them go because watching them get into such a froth that they are so desperate to tear me down is quite frankly hilarious!

You know, I thought exactly the same about you!

I won't be capitulating to the bullies and apologising for my point of view, no.

Having only one child sounds awful to me.

Having to go through IVF must be awful.

Going on holiday with 3/4 kids is was not awful to me.

I wanted to fill my home with children as I come from a large family and I love it.

Not being able to have a child and carry them to full term is awful.

I wouldn't say it's chaos, it is for some but not for all.

I started taking my children abroad when they were 5, 6 and 6 and it was wonderful. They are grown now and go on their own holiday but every couple of years we still go on holiday together.

I get the feeling that you resent women that are able to carry more children and don't need IVF. You sound quite bitter.

That's not our fault.

I didn't really like holidays with young kids. You spend all day at the park or pool, or cooking & cleaning. I'm an adventure traveller & find it tedious to do the same things we do at home.

All inclusive isn't a thing here, except for cruising, which is hugely popular. Tried it. Never again.

Now the DC are 9 & 13 it's fab. 3 weeks in Japan in cherry blossom season this year & they were a ball to travel with. Could have done without two visits to the Kirby cafe, though. 😂 DD wants to zipline or ski next. So more fun, just more expensive! Just have to figure out where to go that my DM doesn't want to go as she announced she wants to tag along on our previous choice. I'd rather travel with young children than my DP's!!

I see plenty of bullies.

Derisive comments about my life, calling my child a poor thing, declaring my marriage needs work when they've never even met me and I hadn't made a single comment about how my marriage is, telling me having more children is unachievable for me so I'd never know anyway, all of these things are bullying. Sarcastic pity for someone who is actually happy serves no purpose other than to belittle someone.

If you can't see that and think this is a normal civil conversation, you've spent far too much time online and have become desensitised to it.

No, I don't resent your multiple children. I literally don't want them.

All the mums gleefully saying "wait until you've got three kids, the you'll see holidays are stressful and not fun" are the bitter ones.

Just because you wanted loads of kids, it doesn't mean that the rest of us or jealous of them.

I also don't resent women that don't need IVF. I got my happy ending

I am no less of woman or mother than you or any other woman who can conceive naturally and the fact you think I feel that way shows your unsavoury views on the matter.

You are the one posting pages of nasty comments to say stranger to the point where she unsurprisingly bites back. Where does that drive to be nasty come from?

My current life isn't a hardship to be mitigated with a holiday 😂

That's why we wait a few years to afford something better rather than stuff ourselves in a caravan multiple times a year to be miserable about it.

I really don't need your sympathy or pity sow hy keep piling it on? Other than to feel superior?

No one has mentioned you are less of a woman or a mother.

Pages? Come on now.

I think you have been using a rather combative tone and have responded snippily at times to posters who weren't evern criticising you. I get it, it's hard when you start a thread with what you think is a perfectly reasobale point of view and then everyone piles in on you. Of course you got defensive, but there shouldn't have been any need for some of the personal criticisms (from you or some of the other posters) or any need to have to elaborate all the details of your life to justify your point of view. Unfortunately I believe your high-handed tone is what got people's backs up and the thread got completely derailed, sinking into mud slinging when it could have been an interesting discussion about what it's actually like to holiday with children - and how to make it better!

Have you read more than the headline op? Some possible improvements in quality of life, in one study, and results should be interpreted with caution as many didn't join in the follow up study.
I don't doubt your daughter will have a lovely life, but that's more down to how loved she is and how financially secure you are than how you conceived

I agree.

But this isn't true for everyone either.

OP, like you I like cooking and I like parenting and I have one child who, thus far, is well behaved in general. We've been on family holidays to Madeira, Northumberland, Devon, Liverpool, Paris, Butlins, Lake District and Majorca. I've also taken DC at age four to Morocco and inter-railing without my DH! All of them have been fantastic. Some have been self catering, some using restaurants, one was AI.

I do plan activities around what I think both DC and I would enjoy. I don't expect DC to put up with a whole holiday of museums and art galleries, or expect to be able to sit on a sunlounger reading my book in peace.

My sibling also has great holidays as a single parent. Mostly planned around surfing and lots of water sports, which they all enjoy.

However, I also recognise that children and parents are different. Some children react very badly to being away from their normal routines, or sleep really badly, or don't suit the holiday they've been taken on. Or have multiple children who fight all the time. Or the husband is unsupportive and goes off doing his own thing on holiday, leaving all the work to the wife and breeding resentment. Etc.

Me too to be honest.

We did. Had a fab time in a big static caravan in various places in France.