My 17yo daughter is upset I didn’t invite her on the annual family holiday

[OliveKoala]

Is it reasonable I did not invite my eldest 17 year old daughter on the family holiday. She has been on every previous family holiday with us however this year as she’s is finishing with Alevels she’s booked two holidays as rewards for her efforts, her first holiday has been completely self funded, where as her second holiday I offered to pay for the flights.

Due to her already having two holidays booked I thought it’d be unfair if she came on the family holiday aswell. Unless she paid for it, which I’m aware she can’t do as her job pays extremely poorly. A few months ago we had a discussion as a family about the idea of a family holiday and briefly arose the possibility of her not coming due to it overlapping with her holidays. However no further progress was made.

This morning I booked the holiday however before I booked it I did ask her when her holidays ended, so she would be back for when the family holiday happens. However this led her to believe we wanted her back so she could join us on the holiday? However this is not the case I just didn’t want our holidays to overlap for practical reasons. Now she seems visibly hurt and has argued with me calling me unreasonable?

Not really a family holiday then....

Get her a flight as soon as she's back from the other.
If I were her though I 'd let you lot go and have the biggest 3 day party I could organise.

I can’t understand how you thought this was reasonable. Your reasoning is she has 2 holidays, 1 where your contribution is flights? If you have the money, I don’t understand your pov.

I think you should have been clear from the outset that you would not be able to fund for her to come on both the family holiday and pay for flights for her other trip. This should have been a choice for her to make before any plans were made.

All the more reason to have this holiday with her, why are you punishing her for being a normal teenager?

So? Are you are punishing her for stepping out of the fold of the family?

But surely that’s all the more reason to want to spend some quality time in holiday with her! Your update makes it even more bizarre IMO

Invited??? Who "invites" their CHILDREN on the family holiday? She is part of the family, living at home and not yet independent from you or expected to be. Of course she should come on the family holiday, fully funded by her parents. Obviously if there isn't a family holiday for anyone else that's fine, not every family can manage a holiday every year, but she shouldn't be leftout until she has a proper job and independent life. Her own holidays that she has additionally saved for are extras, not substitutes. What a mean thing to do.

Wow, your update makes this totally ridiculous!

I can't imagine not wanting / not inviting my 17 yo on holiday - it could be one of the last chances you get to spend quality time with her. It's not really a family holiday if she's not invited.

Very mean . She’s still a minor. How to push away your child…

Surely if she’s not around much then spending time with her on holiday is more important? Feels like you’re punishing her for having a job and a boyfriend and not being around much.

And?

Do you not like her very much?

It might, and probably will, be your last family holiday. I can't believe you've done this.

That is so unbelievably mean! Why would you not include her? So what if she’s already had a couple of well-deserved holidays after doing her A levels? That’s like saying you’ve already been out for a drink twice this month so you can’t go again. Absolutely bonkers. I’m not surprised she’s hurt. You’ve just destroyed your relationship with your DD. She’ll never forget what you did.

This was most likely the last time you’d be going on a family holiday and you cut her out. Wow. Be prepared for her to go to University and not look back.

Her being back home was relevant because she asked me to drive her back from the airport after her second holiday!

Your poor dd, you asking that very much implied you were including her in the family holiday. She must have been so disappointed when she realised.

poor kid. What a crap bit of parenting of this child. She can come on our family holiday. I already have 2 extra 20-somethings (friends of DS) joining us for various reasons, a third won’t matter. She won’t have to pay for a thing.

Yabu. If paying for her flights was in lieu of the family holiday, you should have discussed that with her at the time, then she could have had the choice. Mean just to decide to leave her out because you think she's having too much fun. Don't you want to spend time with her?

You should have seen this holiday as a way to reconnect with your 17yr old that is growing up and making moves to become more independent.

Wouldn't it have been nice to spend some time with her, appreciate the young woman she's growing up to be, use it as a time to tell her how proud you are and reasure her she can always count on you for support if she needs it.

Oh, what a terrible imposition from your 17 year-old daughter🙄🙄🙄

Why on earth wouldn't you want her to go on your family holiday? It's not much of a family holiday if you're excluding her..

It’s not that I can’t fund it . I just think she doesn’t need to go on the family holiday if she already has two other holidays booked.

Most mums I think would love their teen daughters to cone with them for as long as possible. How many other children do you have that are going? Must be really hard for her to be left out.

Wow you’re views are so weird to me.
our eldest 2 are still invited on all the holidays we take our youngest on and they’re 19 and 20.
we still pay for them and they still come!
We love spending time with them, they’re great company and it’s so enjoyable. I see it as the parenting reward for all the hard holidays when they were little and it was a bit more difficult!
Can’t imagine just cutting them out of that without even just a simple discussion.
Awful, poor dc!

You'll find she won't come back from university for the holidays, I've seen it happen. This is a critical moment in your relationship, don't fuck it up.

You sound horrible.