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?

Unreasonable to ask her to pay

What kind of alevel reward is this??? Awful parenting

What in the Jeremy Kyle is this?!!

Well OP don’t come back here in a few years upset at your poor relationship with your DD.

A child who works, books and pays for her own holidays and spends weekends at boyfriend's... sounds quite adult, if only 17. 🤷‍♀️

I've just booked a villa with pool in France this summer and extended the usual invitation to adult DS. This takes the form of 'we're doing this, going to X on XX dates, would you like to join us for a few days/week/whatever?.'
He doesn't live at home any more but generally does comes away with us for a few days almost every time we go away for longer than a week. (We are retired and like to go away quite often.)
We're very pleased to see him when he does come, he is great company and we all enjoy it. I really wouldn't care how many other holidays he may or may not have had.

I wish your daughter could see the replies to this so she knows that she’s the one who isn’t being unreasonable!
I’ve got two daughters eldest is 12 and it upsets me so often that there’s only so many summer holidays I’ll have left with them. I went on holiday with my parents till I was in my 20’s. Because we both wanted to spend that time together.
And I noticed you said it’s not your fault the boyfriend told her about a conversation he had with your son?! You’re encouraging him keeping things from her. This is all so wild!

@OliveKoala Unreasonable and really mean.

My DS has turned 18 in recent days. He works, books and pays for his own holidays and spends weekends and more at his GF house. He is still my child, still will be when he is 40 and even then if I was booking a holiday with other children invited he would of course be invited as well.

If it was a holiday for just me and DH and no children going at all that's one thing but I couldn't leave just one child (even if they are an adult child) out.

I love spending time with my children and as they get older that time becomes more precious. To choose not to spend time with those I assume you love most in the world is very strange.

I'm not denying the relation; I'm just trying to point out the OP's dd is not a child. I think the OP's family dynamic is very different from those of the posters here that think she is BU.

Probably. Our family dynamic is that I like my children and want to spend time with them.

Just wanted to add it works both ways. Dd1 (then 30) was able to work from home while abroad for I think three weeks. Last summer she invited dh and me to join her and her bf in Sicily for a few days. They booked a stunning AirBnB and insisted on paying for a fair few of our meals.

Lovely spending relaxed time with your adult children.

At 17 she is legally a child and as OPs daughter she is OPs child even when over 18 so I'm not sure I understand your 'not a child' point.

Either way treating one of your offspring differently to their siblings is a recipe for hurt feelings and upset no matter what your family dynamic is.

I meant child as in very young. Sorry, I thought the italics would make that point clear. I was wrong.

Nobody thought a 17 year old was a very young child though.

My DD is also doing A levels and has 2 holidays booked with friends. I have worked our family holiday around her dates so she is included in the family holiday. Couldn’t imagine not asking her.

I have a dynamic where I like my kids, so yeah, probably quite different.

My god, what wrong with you. Your poor daughter.

Even more reason to have her with you on your family holiday I would have thought.
How mean.

You may not have a favourite child, but whether you realise it or not, you clearly have a ‘least favourite’.

Most posters are responding in that way because of OP's snarky and mocking responses about her own daughter. She does not sound like a loving mother and I'm assuming that there is no such family tradition here as there is in your family.

OP has said that her daughter is upset but she seems to find that funny. It is that attitude, not the lack of a holiday, that has prompted many posters to say that her long-term relationship with her daughter will be permanently damanged.

In relation to the lack of funds, OP has said that she does have the funds to include her daughter and, in fact, she is spending less on her daughter who has fully funded her first holiday herself and will be paying for everything apart from her flights for the second holiday. She is still at school and has, what even OP has admitted, a very poorly paid part-time job.

She has also made a point of telling us that her two sons will be going, and that they contribute more. She hasn't responded to queries about whether they are younger or older than her daughter and what contributions they are making.

Mum of the year you are

If the sons were older, they’d definitely be adults…

If younger, they are at school - how on earth could they contribute?

I’m so glad that my mother was nothing like this.