aibu to refuse to pay £3000 for my 16 year old daughter to go on a summer holiday?

[caroleharolde]

An association with my daughters school takes the 16 year olds there on a month long trip around America for the summer. No bursaries are offered and most kids go on this tour and most have wealthy parents. If you could afford it would you allow your child on this? It would be a struggle for us to afford to pay and I don't want her to think that this.is what normal people can afford to do as many of her friends are multi,millionaires
summer

what association? If this is PeopletoPeople or similar, they are very expensive.

It will be a rushed tour with lots of time on the road, and probably wasted on most of them. Let them pay for their own big trips when they are older.

Wow, I'm obviously stingy! I thought £250 for 5 days on a tall ship was reasonable value, but I didn't realise it was a total bargain! £3k is WAY over my budget for a family holiday and about two month's net family income, so there would be no question of it for my DC... That's the sort of amount I'd hope they'd manage to save by the time they're 18-21 for a back-packing trip round a continent or two! :)

I really don't understand schools - especially state ones - organising trips that are so expensive. They must know that that sort of cost is beyond most families' means, and will inevitably therefore be just for the privileged minority.

You wouldn't be unreasonable not to pay for one member of your family to go on a holiday. Of course you wouldn't be.

However, the second part of your post asks if we would if we could afford it. Yes, I would pay for it if we could afford it.

If yuo can raise the money, i still probably wuoldnt do it. Given that she is 16, I think she could get more bang for her buck waiting a few years and travelling independently.

Once she is 18, £3k would get a round the world ticket, she could do a tefl and teach English to kids in a hill village in Annapurna ( like my mate did) She could go WWOOFing pretty much anywhere or do a bunac Work New Zealand or Work Australia for that kind of money. I did 3 years travelling on working holiday visas and with tickets and stuff it probably cost about that upfront. The bulk of the rest of the trip was self funding by picking up seasonal work as I went.

Our high school makes the parents and the pupils sign a behaviour clause before any trip, and it's made very clear that they will be sent home at the parent's expense if they try any of that (and they are).

Yeah, that hugely puts me off ever sending DC on anything.
But that clause tends to only work if you're within a reasonable driving distance.

When DS punched the other lad the group was 16 hours away from starting coach trip back, so no sensible way to send him home any faster. And you can't really send a 14yo home on own nowadays, anyway. So some adult would have been detailed to mind him until we arrived, in theory.

the logistics only get trickier if travelling in another country.

Dd has a 4.5 day trip to London for £365 next yr; she's paid £60 of own money towards it plus she has to do 20 hours of work for us. We ARE meanies, I guess! I'm glad OP asked, though.

I'd be more generous if DC went to another culture/language experience. As I am American, not too novel for DC to travel to USA.

My daughters school was offering a very expensive trip to India. It was also crammed in to a half term holiday.

I attended the briefing meeting and it was very obvious that the male teacher running the trip just wanted another free holiday to a far away place. His kids are grown up.
We just told DD it was far too expensive and she couldn't go.
Interestingly very few of the women teachers organise school trips abroad. They are too busy at home with their own families during school holidays.

Also remember that most of this overseas trips are organised by a professional company who take a big cut for booking flights, hotels etc.

My friend (not a teacher) is about to go on a three week school trip to china along with his wife (a teacher) which also coincides with the grand prix. They are not paying a penny....

Last year they went to Borneo.

My DD went to Mongolia in year 12. A fabulous trip for her and almost totally self funded. She worked waitressing, cleaning cars and putting on other events for 18months prior to the event. Christmas and birthday money went towards it. The funding of it was as life changing as the actual trip. She would tell you herself how proud it made her feel to have funded it, almost to a point of rejecting help from me

^ this- would make me very proud. She sounds amazing.

There's no way i would or could pay that on a months school trip.

You could travel far on that sort of cash and experience a whole lot more living than on a month's supervised trip to the US.

agreed wakemeup - i don't see how being herded on and off a bus following a regimented schedule you have no control over and doesn't allow spontaneity is a life changing experience or 'the chance of a lifetime'. that's a pretty low bar to set.

i wonder if it is parents who never really traveled themselves independently and that therefore don't understand where the real life changing stuff comes in that shell out for these trips?

and america fgs - how is america life changing?

i went to a private school and often felt left out as all my friends would go on these trips, they would talk about it and i wouldn't be able to join in :(

Poor you.

But surely your life wasn't too slummy, compared to most?

To me it is not even about being able to afford it or not.

I really object on principle to spend that much money on something like this. I just picture all these blase teens, who have been to far flung places yet never seen Wales or Scotland or historical sites in England.

Visit the UK, then Europe, it is sad if that is seen as " not exciting enough", as there is much to see and do.

People can go to faraway places once they are a bit older.

Having lived in South America, I would seriously worry about the busloads of spoilt western teens ( who do not even know they are spoilt) with their Nike shoes and logoed clothes, flashing their smart phones... In Peru a few visiting school buses were held up at gun point in recent years.

Sure, teachers read up on safety, but if you have never lived in a third world country it is hard to grasp the level of poverty, and the extravagant value of a pair of branded trainers to the poor and/ or criminal minded. Let alone the smart phones all the kids carry along, which are unheard luxuries and worth the rob someone for, let alone a busload of kids with them.

Ludicrous, these trips.

A girl in my village did lots of fundraising to semd herself to africa to teach for a year.

she did sponsored runs and.things like tgat amd raised over half the money she needed to go.

could your daughter do something like this?

I could not afford or be able to raise 3k for a trip to america so dd would need to raise the money herself I didnt let them go on a £800 ski trip it was for 5 bloody days , I dont think these experiences mean much in later life maybe i am just stingy and mean

Traveling is my biggest priority in life. I hope I will be able to continue this once I have children so that they can be a part of it too. There is nothing else I would rather spend my money on.

I do think that your daughter should work hard to make it happen though. Camp America might also be worth looking into if the 3k is too much?

everybodies priorities and financies are different

I would let her go if I could afford it (without causing hardship to the rest of the family), and if all her friends were going. But I would expect DD to raise at least some of the money herself, with a weekend job/paper round/babysitting/car washing/dog walking etc.

Would the school let them organise a fund raising event at school? I don't know the ins and outs, but at my DD's school the older girls (Y11 and Y12) ran a disco for the Years 7 and 8 to raise money for a similar venture. Think they charged an entry fee, sold drinks and sweets etc and also did nails and make up for a fee beforehand.

op...? Interested to know what you think?

DD went to a private school, but it was very mixed and while there were millionaires, there were also many who worked their arses off to send their children there with not much leftover!
Generally because of the nature of the school trips were not this expensive.
DD knew not to ask if things were extortionate. if she was desperate to go then she would have to contribute a lot or fund raise.
We had one issue with the ski trip. DD couldn't go as it was very expensive, all her friends did go though. It was year 8/9 so the age where they are super bitchy! They came back full of tales and made out they had made new better friends. DD found it very tricky but with time the 'amazing' ski trip memories faded and she was back in favor. It is difficult but all a learning curve and DD is far more grateful and resilient having had to miss out.

Talk to the school if your DD wants to go desperately. Or find a cheaper thing she could do with a company. Or come up with an arrangement by which she fundraises the money.

It is tough and I can relate how frustrating it is.

Relating to earlier posts- I agree travelling is an incredible experience but I also think you get as much from it whatever age you go. Parents should not feel guilty if their DC has to miss out.
Once they are older they can raise the money or pay themselves.
They will not miss out in life and you not letting them go aged 16 does not mean they will never go- they should have another 70+ years to make the most of these things.

An alternative, if she really wants to do something like this, is to wait til she's old enough to do Camp America. After the camp, you have I believe a month long visa to travel within the US.

She would also be helping at a summer camp and earning money while she did it, to fund the travel after.