Should we let her go?

[madcatsazz]

Hi. First post for many years but I need some opinions and I kind of like the anonymity of Mumsnet versus a Facebook post!

So me and DP have DD1 age 13 and DD2 age 9. When DD1 was at primary school they offer 2 trips to local places (one weekend at an adventure place and one week at an education place where they visit Reed beds and cut up owl pellets etc). We were in a financially worse place back then so DD1 got to go to only one in year 5 and was planning to do the second trip the following year but the school cancelled all year 6 trips because of SATS (don't get me started on that).

They changed the rules after that so year 4 and 5 got the trips instead of yr 5 and 6.

Last year DD2 went to the week long educational trip and this year (yr5) she just did the adventure weekend. Here's the problem though. She really wants to go to the educational one again this year and out of the blue my mum just text and offered to pay the £210 for it.

Part of me wants her to have these opportunities while they're available and not miss out when her own friends are going. The other part of me thinks we should stick to our original rule of choosing only one a year to go to. DD1 was gutted that she missed the educational trip and I know she would be sad her sister went twice however she wouldn't kick up a fuss and she is very level headed when it comes to that.

Should we
a) say no and stick to the plan
B) say she can go but she would get no Christmas present from my folks and try to find a special experience for DD1 to balance it out
C)consider a different option?

I'd send her and treat DD1 to something. Things change and so do finances. There is 4 years between me and my sister and she got to do a lot more things then I did growing up due to my parents finances changing. I didn't hold anything against them growing up.

My siblings got to do more than me in certain years, and I never held it against my parents. I've more than made up for it in other ways though (never got "bad" birthday presents because birthday was just after payday. Siblings always held that against me more than anything else.. )

I'd treat DD1 to an experience too though if you feel guilty about it.

Thank you for that. You're right of course. I have 3 siblings and we each had different things. Sometimes it is a battle in your own head to know what's right 🤦‍♀️

I would agree with the others, let DD2 take the opportunities open to her and then do something special with DD1.
There's a big gap of 8 and 11 yrs between myself and my younger siblings and things were very different as we grew up, there may have been the odd pang of jealousy at times but I'm glad they got to do the things they did.