"If it isn't one thing--it's another! It's always something.” Thus spake Gilda Radnor (SNL circa 1970s) as Roseanna Roseanadana. I think of that line now as summer vacations loom. Some of us may loll on beaches or travel the country without our children and grandchildren. Others of us, though, are planning intergenerational get-togethers. In today's new normal, we may find our vacations afflicted by canceled flights, positive Covid readings or last-minute schedules/obligations of our adult children, their spouses or their children.
We can't control any of the above. But there is stuff we can. One of them is space. If we're picking up the tab for an oceanside beach house, a chalet in the mountains or a campsite in the woods, think big. Rent as spacious a place as you can afford. There's nothing like enough bedrooms to go around or an extra alcove where someone can chill out and take the edge off the inevitable stress of being together on a family vacation.
I make this point in a previous post on family vacations and in an article that ran in Next Avenue. More recently, I'm backed up on the space issue by Karl Pillemer, a sociologist and gerontologist at Cornell whose research focuses on intergenerational relations. In a piece in the NYTimes, Pillemer suggests physical distance is important in reducing family tensions. While he is addressing the stresses of holiday visits, what he says about "taking some space" is relevant to vacations as well. "The goal is to focus on underreacting--and stepping away when you need a break."
Summer vacations are on the horizon. If we spent vacation time away with our grown kids and their kids last year or in pre-Covid times, we may have had vacations that were lively and refreshing--or they may have been filled with cooking, cleaning and a lot of babysitting. We may have come home with nothing more than the semi-excitement of a change of scene and the busyness of constant company.
How to make sure this year we're on a three-generation holiday where we have as relaxing or invigorating a time as our kids and grandkids? Here are five rules to keep things rolling along smoothly.
Great expectations: Each of us has our own vision of what our vacation should look like. We may want to sit by the ocean and stare at the waves or play tennis every day or take a long walk every morning. Or just sleep late every morning. If we talk to each other in advance about what we really, really want out of our vacation, we can accommodate each other. That is, our kids won't ask us to babysit when it's our time to go off and read. And we won't disappear when we know it's our grown kids' time to play tennis with each other. Knowing each person's vacation goals also means you probably won't do everything together. And that's okay. It's even a bonus: It can make dinner conversations livelier.
Sharing the chores: If you're renting a house--or if you're lucky enough to own a retreat of your own--you don't want to be stuck cooking all the meals, stocking the refrigerator or vacuuming the day's litter every morning. A lot of families assign a dinner per person or family so that responsibility for cooking and clean-up gets spread around. As to babysitting patrol, some of us find that delightful but if you have your limits--and I do--there's nothing wrong with laying down some markers. For instance, you can encourage your kids to enjoy a date night and offer to babysit for the evening--which is a subtle reminder that you're not on duty all the time.
Splitting the costs: Many of us pick up the tab for family vacations--our kids are just establishing their careers; we have more expendable income than they do. Or, as sociologist Madonna Harington Meyer put it in an interview, "there is very little money flowing uphill" on family trips. But as our kids' families expand (larger families mean larger rental quarters) and we near or are in retirement, that one-way street may not work as well. Or even be necessary. We don't have to keep doing things as we've always done them. We won't get a cold shoulder if we ask them to share the rent on a beach house or split the grocery bill or if we let them take us out to dinner. A corollary to this rule is to get as big a house or campsite or tent as the family can afford: It will be worth it.
Parenting rules: Our grown kids set the rules for their kids. No argument there. While we may indulge our grandkids when they spend a few hours with us at home or on a special trip, the flaunting of the parental rules is not okay on vacations when we're crammed into a house together. A further complication: if two of our kids and their families are with us on vacation, we may have to juggle their different approaches to parenting. This one allows juice drinks; that one forbids them. This one allows swimming without water wings; that one doesn't--good luck remembering which is which. Best approach: ask before doing. If a grandkid wants to eat your portion of chocolate lava cake, don't just push your plate in front of them. Ask their mom or dad if a taste is okay.
Escape time: I loved our family vacations in Vermont with my kids and their young families. But the grandpops and I made ourselves scarce at around 4:30. That was usually melt-down time for the little kids, and the parents knew better than this grannie how to handle tired children who needed quiet time. Extra credit: When we came back on the scene, we were rested and refreshed. A guilt-free pleasure.
When we invite our grown children to join us on vacation--when we're footing the bulk of the bill--how much say do we have on whom our child can bring along as our guest. A long-time girlfriend or boyfriend: Most of us would say OK. A romantic interest of a few weeks: That might be a little more complicated. But what if the long-standing boyfriend or girlfriend is married to someone else?
If you're reaching for the same quick-reflex answer I had--No Way!--hold on. Philip Galanes at Social Q’s turned my head around (and introduced me to the term "polyamory.") Let me delay no further. Here's his answer to a mother who's divorced from a man who cheated on her. She has invited her daughter to join her on a trip to Greece. The daughter wants to bring her boyfriend, who is married to someone else:
I may be off-base, but I don’t think the real issue here is the cost of a trip to Greece or your ex-husband’s infidelity. This is about respecting your adult daughter’s choices. You have substituted your idea of happiness for hers. This is a common (and often well-intentioned) trap for many parents. It’s not productive, though.
Let’s put aside the trip to Greece and the specter of your cheating ex. Unlike him, people in polyamorous arrangements usually set ground rules with their partners for opening their relationship to others. (No one is cheating!) Try to understand, as best you can, what your daughter likes about this arrangement and how it satisfies her.
As a show of respect, read up on polyamory before you broach the subject with her. Then ask questions. I am not suggesting that you set aside all of your concerns — only that you try to respect your adult daughter’s decisions. In a more open-minded context, you may find that the trip to Greece resolves itself.
We are not vacationing with our grown children this year. Lots of people don't ever do it, but we did. We stayed in rustic condos in a resort in Vermont. We hiked mountain trails, we biked protected pathways and we splashed in mountain creeks. We taught our grandkids to skim rocks and to play tennis; they taught us Uno and the joy of an after-dark swim.
Paterfamilias and I are sad to see it come to an end. Was it something we said? No. It's that our grandkids are now teenagers with busy, complicated lives--and friends. They still love their PenPen and BaPa (that's me and Paterfamilias), but now they like to have a friend come along--someone who can mountain bike with them and dive off rocks or go for a run in the valley. Our oldest grandchild is getting ready to go to college in the fall and he has a summer job--which makes scheduling time in Vermont as a three-generation family daunting--even more so than factoring in our grown children's work schedules and business travel demands.
Time moves on. We're going to Vermont for a week anyway--without the kids or grandkids. We love the rugged mountains, the crisp air, the ease that comes with not having to lock your door. You can play tennis at noon in Vermont and not die of the heat. We'll take some hikes--not as challenging as the ones we did with them but we'll still be walking along leafed-in paths that inevitably climb to yet another, sigh, waterfall. We'll enjoy it. But it won't be the same. The heart of the vacation will be missing. Just another of those adjustments we make as parents of grown children and grandparents of their almost-grown children.
Change stirs things up; it adds excitement to life, right? I'll know more about that when we get back from our vacation for two in Vermont.
Adventure travel with adult children is, well, an adventure with an extra dimension. "Though it gets less attention that traveling with young children, there are," a travel editor assures us, "as many joys and as many complications in traveling with adult offspring."
The editor's family--mother, father, two 20-something daughters--went to China and toured around remote Yunnan Province. The family "had to catch seven flights, spend a night together in a tiny sleeper train compartment, find restaurants to please every palate, and survive two illnesses, a mountainside van breakdown, altitude sickness, a shakedown and a couple of questionable hotels." That said, it was a wonderful and bonding experience. Looking back at it and other trips, the author, Elizabeth Chang, shares guidelines for travel with adult offspring. You can catch the full list here.
Here are a few highlights:
Consult everyone about the itinerary. Compromises need to be made but everyone should have a destination or site they're excited about.
Don't overbook--allow time for impulse visits and to recoup energy.
Create a shared document where everyone can check the hotels, departure and arrival times, names of guides hired.
Get separate rooms--everyone needs a chance to get away from each other.
Discuss money beforehand--as in, who's paying for what.
Have them organize and lead some of the trip excursions.
When I was young and in my 20s--single and starting my career, then married and starting a family--I did not want to vacation with my parents. I'd been there, done that growing up. Now I wanted to taste adventure--not the same-old same-old with the same-old same-olds. Nor was I any different from my friends. We were all about striking out on our own.
How the worm has turned. Family Vacations Are Us. Not just us, as in my family. Cruise ships tout inter-generational groupings, so does VRBO and AirBnb, to say nothing of resorts and travel companies. (Even Roads Scholars, which caters to the 55+ set, has grandparent-grandchild outings.).
There are reasons for the trend. A major one: our grown kids may not live near us or each other, so a family get together is more reunion than vacation. Moreover, we're the generation that's had a soft landing. Many of us have retired or are near retirement with healthy retirement savings. Not only can we afford to travel, we can afford to invite our kids along.
Now that I'm the "same old same old" that my parents were when I broke away, I have embraced family togetherness. For the past 15 years Paterfamilias and I have rented condos in a resort in Vermont and invited our grown children and their families to join us. When we started it was because my daughter lived in Seattle and my son in Boston. They were both on the very beginning rungs of their careers--in graduate school or in first jobs. We wanted the reunion; we picked up the tab. But .as the years have skampered by and our kids have come into their primes, costs are shared. We're no longer the sole source of the rent, food and transportation--nor even the key decision maker about when the family vacay will take place. It's a complicated dance of work schedules and activities--theirs, not ours.
I've written several posts on tips for making these inter-generational get-togethers a satisfying vacation. [Herehere andhere.] but there is always room for another perspective. A British writer pulled together some guidance for Brits planning vacations with their grown children. Here are some of the pointers worth repeating. I'm particularly fond of the last one.
Make sure everyone has a say in the destination and activities. Consider renting two cars so you're not stuck all doing the same thing.
If the grown children work, they should contribute financially to the trip. If you're self-catering, everyone pitches in on meals--refuse to play 'mum' while on holiday.
Everyone gets a turn to be 'tour guide' for a day and decide on activities.
Young adults know the internet inside out - let them find out information and ease off the pedal. Your goal is to spend family time together - do you really care where and how?
Not everyone has to stay the entire time, especially if they're converging from different places.
If you are involving partners (or kids) of your adult children, the dynamic of intergenerational holidays may need to be discussed or you'll end up babysitting while they're escaping for fun.
Avoid the impulse to act like parents. Remember what it was like when you travelled in your 20s - most kids are smart and savvy to a far greater degree.
It's a wonderful feeling to be able to be financially generous to our adult children--to support them if an unexpected need arises or to indulge them so that they can do or buy something they've always wanted. If we've got that bit of extra to spare, there's a deep pleasure in seeing our children enjoy it now rather than later--when we're no longer around.
And our kids are grateful. Why shouldn't they be? We've offered them support out of love for them and respect for their ability to handle the resource well. But sometimes, there's a little less of a heartfelt thank you. There can even be resentment, especially if there are strings attached. This letter that appeared in an advice column in a local Colorado newspaper spells out the dangers of attaching those strings--even if we do so indirectly:
When I met my wife five years ago, I had no idea of her financial status. I knew that her parents had a nice home and spent a lot of time traveling but she lived frugally and worked hard. When we got married, I learned about the extent of her family's substantial resources. Admittedly, they have been very generous — helping us with the down payment on our house, taking us on family vacations and starting college funds for our kids. The issue is that they've increasingly put pressure on us to raise the kids in specific ways, build our schedules and vacations around their needs and spend money according to their values. We, and my wife in particular, have been struggling to say no because of everything they continue to give us.
The letter was signed: Locked In Golden Handcuffs
The couples coach who answered the plea from "Locked" talked about the "aging" parents and their need to feel relevant. They also focused on what was triggering the son-in-law's negative response, such as feeling a loss of empowerment, freedom or authenticity or a sense of emasculation.
Whatever it is, it's not something I would want to visit on my son or daughter or their spouses. To give is to give freely. It's their lives to live. We are not in the driver's seat--even if we bought them the car.
There is something heartwarmingly inclusive about vacationing with grown kids and their kids, especially when they don't live near you. After weeks or months between weekend visits, Poof! you are an immediate part of their family life. It is family life at its best--on vacation and free from the scheduling pressures of soccer practice, math homework and piano lessons, to say nothing of parental work schedules, obligations and deadlines.
For the past several summers, our family has met up in Vermont, cooled by the mountain air and refreshed by the green countryside. This year our daughter and her family couldn't make it (they spent the summer on the West Coast), and Paterfamilias faced personal vacation difficulties. A back problem was affecting his usual mobility. We would not bring our bicycles, as we usually did. The tennis racquets were lugged along but the reality of their use was iffy. Hiking would clearly be a challenge. Without these usual activities, what, we asked each other, would we do in Vermont?
We learned to do nothing and enjoy it. With condos rented in the same complex, the grand kids and our grown kids to say nothing of PF and myself could wander back and forth to visit each other. We wandered down to the swimming pool to watch them swim and splash around ourselves, we watched them play fast and furious games of soccer tennis on the resort's tennis courts and we wander down to the mountain brook to skim rocks and cool our feet in the cold water. We played board games and did crossword puzzles at their place; they brought their books to read at ours. PF and I felt bathed in the warmth of familial affection, of being incorporated into the day-to-day functioning of our son's family.
Therein lies the heart of this particular tale. It's so easy for that bubble of warmth to pop--and not because of anything we did or said (though there is always the potential for that). This time it was a disagreement between our son and daughter-in-law over whether their 16-year-old son and his friend, who had come to Vermont for a two-day visit, should be allowed to jump from the top of a waterfall into a rock encased, fresh-water swimming hole. (See above)
We were not in attendance--we were sitting it out at our condo because of PF's back limitations. But we had hiked down to this particular spot in past years and had been there when three teen-age boys climbed the rocks and jumped off that waterfall into the dark, pooled water. It was heart-stopping to watch--and pretty scary for the boys, too. It seemed to be a rite of passage of some kind.
This year, when the two 16-year-olds--our Grand and his friend--wanted to jump, our DIL was against it, arguing that not only was it risky for her son but she was responsible for returning the friend to his parents unharmed. Our son was on the "rite of passage" side. The boys jumped. All returned home safely but our DIL was deeply angry at her son's father.
We stayed out of the dispute--because we weren't there and because we shouldn't butt in, but the family discord cast its pall.
For us as parents, there is nothing pleasant about bearing witness to an argument between your child and his or her spouse, especially a dispute that runs deep, has right and wrong on both sides and stakes that are higher than they appear. It drained the warmth out of the last day of our vacation together.
It was also a reminder of how parenting teens is such a rocky experience. It brought back memories of tensions between PF and me during our kids' adolescence. The details and subject matter of the fights are hazy but I recall clearly the desperation of the moments: I felt like we were fighting over the future of our children.
I also remember this: When our kids went off to college and the house was eerily empty, the fighting stopped. Our kids were launched. PF and I no longer had anything to argue about.
Our son and his family are home now and back to their routines. The Grands--two teens and a 9-year-old--are heading back to school. Soccer practice is in play, so are parental deadlines. I haven't asked but I am sure my son and DIL have moved on from the waterfall fight. I feel I should tell them that there will be more and possibly worse battles to come--and then the kids will be grown up and parental angst will melt into pleasure.
Are all things equal? We love our Grands: We may like some of them more than we like others but we love them all. Those of us who have step-grands love them too. Even if we don't, we learn from the step-parents who are our adult children, that the step Grands will be treated equally--at the risk of a family breach.
Friends of ours, whose daughter has two tween step kids as well as toddler twins of her own, figured this out recently. They invited the daughter, her husband and the twins to celebrate their 40th anniversary with them at a resort in the Caribbean. They did not initially invite the step kids since the Steps spent most of their time living at their mother's house. Our friends knew those kids only fleetingly. But it was spring break and their daughter "asked" her parents, who were picking up the tab for the trip, to include the two step kids as well. This was not something their daughter could afford to pay for. Our friends agreed to do it, but out of earshot of their daughter, they groused at the additional expense (two more air fares and a larger townhouse) and at the intrusion of two kids they didn't know well into the family mix. (Their son and his family were also coming, also on the grandparent tab.) But their daughter made it clear that the step kids were her kids, even if they only lived under her roof on alternative weekends, and that her parents should not think otherwise.
I'm reminded of that extravaganza (it turned out to be a lovely vacation and a delightful 40th anniversary celebration) by advice in a recent Carolyn Hax column.
The writer, who says she loves her son's young teen children as well as the new wife and her two tween kids, wants guidance on birthday gift giving. Her query, "If I give everyone the same amount or same gift, I feel the “grans” will feel slighted because I am THEIR grandmother. If I give the “step-grans” a lesser gift, I feel they will feel slighted. Any suggestions would be helpful.
Carolyn Hax's answer reflects the ultimate decision our friends, despite the grousing, came to: "Kids are kids and grandparents are grandparents. Love is love. Equal gifts for all."
It can get corny fast--those ads about what's "priceless." But that's partly the point financial adviser-writer Carl Richards is making in a column that has special meaning for those of us who have grown children who are willing and able to, well, do things with us.
Of course, there's always a price tag attached. Paterfamilias had lunch with a friend who was bemoaning the $100,000 he spent on a two week travel vacation with his six grands, two grown kids and their spouses. Two weeks was too long and exhausting, he said. And whoa! That was a lot of money for a two-week vacation. But his wife--the mother and grandmother of the brood--planned it and was exhilerated by it. She's planning another full-family trip this coming year.
That's one variation on the vacation-with-kids spectrum. But it got PF and me to thinking about trips we've done with our kids. Much shorter and less expensive ones to be sure--like a long weekend in London with Alpha daughter and her family when she was living in Berlin for a year. Here's what we reminisce about: The joy on our granddaughter's face when we took her to see Wicked. Her delight in our luxury hotel abode--a converted railroad terminus at Kings Crossing.
When Uber son and family were in London on a three-month business trip, we met the five of them in Brussels for a few adventurous days--gobbling down Belgian waffles from street vendors, taking a train to Brugge to site-see the Medieval city. One of my vivid memories: When we walked about the main square, eyeing the plethora of chocolate shops lining the streets, our 6-year-old granddaughter was captivated by a chunk of chocolate shaped like a an electric drill, set amidst chocolate hammers and nails. We had to buy it. What happy times. How lucky we were to share them with our children and their children.
The Carl Richards column addressed the value of those experiences and how whatever we spent for them was as important a return on our capital than if we had squirreled that money away in an investment account. There are many points to factor along the spend vs. save continuum. Lots of financial advisers hammer home the priority of saving for retirement. If we're having trouble meeting mortgage payments or have nothing in the till for our retirement years, we would do well to opt for the saving side. But if we have the money and the choice is spend or relentlessly save, we should ease back and invest in experiences that provide memories of time spent with the people we love.
Without experiences to relive in our retirement, we may not have invested our available money wisely. As Richards puts (and punctuates) it,
"Life experiences give you an incalculable return on investment. Every. Single. Time.
and
Do you have something you want to do with someone you love, and the money to pay for it, and the only reason you’re not doing it is that you have this nagging feeling that you should be saving the money for some vague goal beyond the basic ones you have already articulated for yourself? Spend the money! Then, do it again. And again. And the next time? Spend the money!
