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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to never go abroad on holiday again until the kids have left home...

190 replies

liath · 03/02/2010 21:32

Have been out of the UK 3 times since having the dcs and even when it's gone relatively well there has been the unpleasantness of flying with small kids, endless queues, dodgy weather etc. We've had endless delays, missed flights, gastroenteritis & broken bones. I get back more knackered than before I left.

AIBU to want to spend every holiday between now and my youngest's 18th birthday at bloody Centre Parcs - at least I know the chocolate ice cream there is good.

OP posts:
upahill · 05/02/2010 09:31

Riven What on earth are you on about 'being a shit parent?' Flippin Heck lass, I've read yur posts for quite a while and I know you haven't got it easy at times but from your posts there is nothing to suggest that you are anything other than a doting parent doing the best for her kids.

taffetacat · 05/02/2010 09:31

morningpaper - I agree. I was very scared by some of the things I saw travelling as a child myself - and they were very tame.

mummygirl · 05/02/2010 09:31

totally disagree.

DD made friends in Cameroon when we were working there and it has made her very sensitive towards poverty and she looks down on material posessions. She always outs away her small clothes to give to charity and reminds me about sening a present to A or B at christmas.

"I know she'd like a toy, but she needs shoes". It makes me proud and breaks my heart at the same time. She's 5 bless her x

Although this has nothing to do with travelling....

Riven, I know people who have cycled around the world, and working holidays are brilliant for young people. My younger self went round australia and paid my way by picking strawberries. Maybe your kids will enjoy something like that?

morningpaper · 05/02/2010 09:34

there is also something slightly unpleasant about jetting one's children around the world and staying in 5 star suites in order to teach them about poverty

Do you have be inordinately priviliged in order to understand lack of privilige? I think not

morningpaper · 05/02/2010 09:34

privilEGE even

mummygirl · 05/02/2010 09:35

on that I'm with you. "when in Rome..."

mrsruffallo · 05/02/2010 09:40

YANBU
British holidays all the way for us.
We stayed in a caravan last summer and the children loved it, they have been begging to go back
We went by train as they can't bear being in cars either

upandrunning · 05/02/2010 09:42

mp also agree: I starting saying "look,look children"

at the end I was saying "don't look, don't look"

sarah293 · 05/02/2010 09:47

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SerenityNowakaBleh · 05/02/2010 09:50

I dont' think you're particularly depriving your children if you don't take them away or overseas when they're young.

DP and I were raised at the opposite extremes. When I was growing up, all of my holidays involved going to my grandparents' houses and visiting relatives (okay, admittedly this was in South Africa and we were going to visit them in Durban, with its awesome beaches, but still. It's the principal of the thing). I never stayed in a hotel until my late 20s. DP on the other hand - his parents are teachers (so loooong summer holidays) and so spent every holiday, from when he was about 5, taking him and his sister all over Europe and the States. (I think he's been to pretty much every European country, most countries in North Africa and all over the US)

That was amazing for him, obviously, as he got to travel all over and see tons of different countries and cultures as a child/teenager, but then, he's "done" Europe and is a bit blase about it all. Me, on the other hand, who only ever went from home to GPs house by car, gets stupidly excited about going anywhere new, and as I haven't travelled much, practically everywhere is new.

hf128219 · 05/02/2010 09:51

A lot of people who go abroad on holiday never leave the resort - how can that be broadening one's life experiences?

They might as well stay at home with a sun lamp and a bottle of Rose!

Nonetheless holidays of all shapes and forms - at home or abroad - cost money. That money, no matter how little, may be a lot to some people.

pagwatch · 05/02/2010 09:53

we go on holiday because we like it.

It is a pain as I have to book seats as DS2 has to sit by a wondow. But I love it. It is selfish, but most of us have our vice . I do it a lot and when I get home I start planningthe next one.

I just don't pretend it is anything other than that.

Francagoestohollywood · 05/02/2010 09:54

Pardon my ignorance, but what is Centre Parcs? (or what ever it is spelled?)

Francagoestohollywood · 05/02/2010 09:56

Pag, but why do you feel it's selfish to want to go on holiday where ever you fancy?
I don't think there is nothing ethically wrong with going on holiday (bar the flying, but I don't think you fly every weekend, no?)

mummygirl · 05/02/2010 09:57

overpriced holiday in a national park, where you have to pay for the priviledge to run around (or is this a "free" activity?)

hf128219 · 05/02/2010 09:57

www.centerparcs.co.uk/

Somewhere I have never had a desire to go to!

Ah yes Pag - I plan my holidays en route home from the last one!

Tortington · 05/02/2010 09:58

we went to spain when the twins were 2 and ds1 was 5

it was horrendous we both hated it.

for us, we found that the keycamp type holidays were the best. kids in car to ferry - not too hard to keep occipied. we usually stayed in brittany or normandy - so not too lonf a drive.

we had our own car with us ( obviously) which meant we could explore.

we ate in different cafes and restaurants and the kids ordered in french and it was lovely to watch.

and it's cheap especially if you have a family of 5 or 6 as there are no suppliments no hidden costs for a person who isn't using a bed in a room

pagwatch · 05/02/2010 10:00

I am uncomfortable about how often we fly to tell the truth.

But life in the UK is difficult with DS2 in a way that is much reduced almost everywhere we have been overseas. So ...feck it

blacksmith · 05/02/2010 10:06

you don't have to stay in a 5 star resort - plenty of other places to stay and ways of putting money back into the local community, many of who depend on tourists for some income

Francagoestohollywood · 05/02/2010 10:08

Perhaps, now that we don't live in the UK anymore, we should consider a week in Center Parcs, will it help the dc keeping up their english do you think???

chocolaterabbit · 05/02/2010 10:13

YANBU at all. All my childhood holidays were camping in the UK while my dad flew and they were brilliant - even only getting to go to the beach when it rained. I still remember the sense of freedom.

I'm happyto go abroad with DD and DS butr loathe flying. I hate everything about it - airports/check-in/ luggage collection so am planning to take the car and go camping or to a rented house www.babyfriendlyboltholes.co.uk is also good for small children.

cat64 · 05/02/2010 12:35

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Bumperlicious · 05/02/2010 12:37

See the thing is, those people on here implying that not taking DCs on foreign holidays is depriving, and implying that they will be intellectually inferior having not had their mind broadened are then saying benevolently 'Oh but it's different if you can't afford to go, we don't mean you people' but the outcome is still the same i.e. no foreign holidays, whether it is by choice or not. You still think out children are missing out, and it hurts to think that. I wonder if your children are going to be the one's to look down on our children for not having had wonderful longhaul trips 3 or 4 times a year throughout their childhood

There is a lot of superiority on this thread:

I am braver/richer/more organised/more laid back that you and my children have had a richer and superior life than yours.

To be honest my 2 yo DD will be happy with a green bit of space and a bit of sand if we rent a cottage in N Wales next month, as we don't even have a garden at home. She won't give a toss that it isn't Cambodia or India.

upahill · 05/02/2010 12:44

I think the op can do what ever she likes. It's her holiday time she can please herself where she takes her children. If you don't like travelling abroad and don't have to go - don't go - simple as!!

pagwatch · 05/02/2010 12:45

DS2 is 13 now but travelling with him is way more difficult than a toddler and I really can't fly if he can't sit where he needs to.
The first time we flew with him we had no notion of how it would go. I remember sitting at the boarding gate trying to appear calm but absoloutely knowing that if he had a melt down then we would have to getthem to unload our baggage. I sat there looking at DS1's face thinking it could be the moment he pays a therapist to talk about in years to come ( we were going to Disney in Florida).

What I really resent is how much the extra charges are if you have three children in a hotel. You pay extra and then find that three of them are supposed to get in a camp bed and a sofa bed.
It isn't as if three children is wildly unusual. But that is often the same in the UK too

[rambling]
(as in I am rambling, not hotel I stay at when I go rambleing..)