At what age do you stop taking your adult child on vacation?

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IMO, if it were my daughter who is the oldest, and she were 19 and in college, and we were planning a trip while she is in school (which I don't think I'd do - I'd want her to come with so I'd work around her schedule), I'd want her to NOT miss school. After all, I'm paying for those classes.

Like I said above, I would want her to come so I'd schedule it around her schooling.

My DH and I are discussing a November trip to WDW, we have 4 children, ages at the time of trip will be 20, 13, 11 and 9. We have decided to go in November because we really want to see all of the Christmas decorations and this is the first time my DH will be able to get away from work at that time of year. DS 19 will be in school, DH and I kinda assumed that he would not be going with us this year. My DS asked me the other day if we were taking a trip this year and I told him that we were thinking November, I think he assumes that he will be going. I didn't have the heart to tell him that we weren't planning on him going because we figured he'd have school. Also by him not going we will be saving a lot, in airfare, tickets and food. I hate to sound cheap and say we aren't bringing him because of the cost but realistically, it does come into play. We are all going to the Outer Banks this summer so it's not like he will never vacation with us again. DH and I both were talking about it and said that our parents went on vacations all of the time when we were in college but we didn't have younger siblings going with them so it's a little different. So my question is, do we suck it up, allow him to miss school and go with us or do we figure a way to nicely tell him that we weren't planning on him going? I hate to make him left out of the loop so my mom guilt is kicking in overdrive :(
 
We take our daughter, son in law, and grandkids with us when we take a week long vacation every year. We do take weekend trips here and there without them but they go with us on many of those too, lol.

When dd first married we felt like they probably wouldn't get a vacation if we didn't include them in ours since they were just starting out and had so many new, big expenses. Then it was something of a habit. They've always paid for their own meals and tickets to events but we cover the travel and condos. This year they planned a cruise themselves but they want us to come with them! Of course we're paying our own way but we aren't paying for theirs so I guess our trips are evolving more all the time.

And I have to admit I enjoy having them with us. Vacation is more fun with them unless we're going for a romantic getaway. So I'm thankful it's worked out this way.

That is so sweet that your daughter wants you to go on the cruise with them!
 
IMO, if it were my daughter who is the oldest, and she were 19 and in college, and we were planning a trip while she is in school (which I don't think I'd do - I'd want her to come with so I'd work around her schedule), I'd want her to NOT miss school. After all, I'm paying for those classes.

Like I said above, I would want her to come so I'd schedule it around her schooling.

Same here. I would schedule a family vacation around all of my kids if I had younger kids at home and one in college who wanted to come.
 
You guys would have really had an issue with my parents. After I was about 14 they stoped taking all the kids on vacation with them. They left us home alone, my older brother was 17, younger would have been about 13 and we didn't have any family nearby. The trips were to Disney for their Anniversary during the school year, and occasionally long weekend trips, usually on the motorcycle. Funny thing is when the grandchildren came we started to do the family trips again. They paid for all 9 of us, at the time, to go to Disney in 1991. They brought the first 3 grandkids, one at a time, when they were 3 or 4. We went with them for quite a few trips after that as extended family with us paying our own way. They also brought the first 2 grands to Hawaii when they were 13. The plan was to bring them each when they turned 13, but my Mom died before that could happen. My Dad paid our airfare for my brothers and my family to go to Hawaii to bring her ashes. After Mom was gone we invited Dad to most of our vacations, usually letting him share our accomodations. He paid his way for the rest.

For my family, we have included our adult daughter in some trips, and not in others. Some times it was because she had school, other times she just didn't want to come. We are going this year to Hawaii to spread my Dad's ashes. All five of us are going. We have 15 years between the oldest and youngest, there were plenty of trips before the little guy was around to bring, and we expect to travel a lot without the older two as they get older. My 2nd is 17 and will probably be going to Florida for College. I doubt we will be bringing her home for Thanksgiving. More likely we would go down there, but I don't think I would be able to justify the expense, so she may be there alone for the holiday. I do expect to be able to get her home for Christmas/winter break. Just something that goes with going so far away for school. My neice ended up in Hawaii for undergrad. She could only make it home for the summers.
Donna
 

My parents always invited all of us if one of us was going. I can't imagine being told I was staying home to save money. I might tell him he needs to kick in some funds, as much as he can, no minimum. He has 10 months to do that. You could make him responsible for his own park tickets or air ticket. Do you really want to leave him home? Your chances to spend quality/quantity time with him are almost over. This thread makes me kind of sad.
 
The OP has asked a pretty specific question, but I'm curious in general - is there an age where you'd tell your children they weren't invited? And those who still take their adult children on vacation, do you invite them on all your vacations or just certain ones you decide are "family" vacations? Do you travel solo with your spouse? Or is it not an age and instead a life situation (married vs unmarried, living at home vs on own)? For those who say they'll still take kids living at home, would that apply to a 30 yr old who never moved out or boomeranged back?

I am not judging in the slightest. It's actually been very eye opening as I have 4 kids, with 7 years between the oldest & youngest. Mine are still young, so for now they all, but I'm unsure of how we'll handle this as they get older. We still travel with my parents frequently - some are family vacations in which they foot the bill and include my brother's family as well, some are just together with both parties paying their own way. Sometimes we travel without each other. Those trips in which we pay our own way, my brother's family hasn't always been invited. Nor would my family, should he plan something with our parents. (FTR, we're 35 & 33 respectively, both married with children).

I know it is an individual decision for each family and we'll have to feel it out when we get there. I can see wanting to take family vacations with my children and hopefully someday grandchildren, but I can't imagine never taking a vacation just DH & me.

My DH and I take vacations just the two of us all the time...however...we also rent beach houses or plan WDW trips and whenever we can afford it, we send out the invites. Sons, daughters, grandchildren, girlfriends....we bring in the whole family. There is nothing like sharing a vacation with family and as long as they are saying yes, we are asking.

I know one day, they won't be saying yes. We'll deal with that when the day comes. ;)
 
Our kids are all adults now. DD21 lives about 75 miles away, finishing up her senior year at college. DS28 lives at home, works, and goes to school. Christian, 19, lives about 45 min away in a group home. We take some whole-family vacations and some Mom & Dad-only vacations.

We try to take at least 1-2 smaller trips every year that include all 3 kids. Christian is our very mentally handicapped son, 6'3" of pure joy but he requires 100% full-care, including diapers, so it is very hard to travel with him now. We can't take him on the big vacations. But, if the other two kids pitch in, we can take him up to the mountains to stay in a cabin and go on a hay-ride or down to botanical gardens to see the light show at Christmas, drink apple cider and eat funnel-cakes. We all enjoy those mini-vacations just as much as the bigger ones.

We average a big family vacation about every 4-5 years. In the past we've taken them to WDW, Disneyland, and on a cross-country RV trip. Our last BIG vacation was in 2011, when we took the older two on a cruise to celebrate DD graduating HS, DS turning 25, and us celebrating our 30th anniversary. We picked up the tab for the cruise and a few excursions for everyone.

I guess the answer to your question is, we will probably always have some vacations which will include our adult kids. But at this point in our lives, we don't have a problem with taking a couple's vacation now and then.
 
I only have one child. I hope he will want to go on vacations with us forever. I know he will go places on his own, and my husband and I will start traveling more just as a couple. But, I hope he and whoever he marries will want to take a vacation with us here and there. And when grandkids come along... it's time to buy that DVC!
 
Our DDs are only 22 months apart. Both are in college. We plan our trips around their schedules. We are currently planning a trip to Irelnd in June.

DH and I have taken a few anniversary trips alone but usually we travel with DDs and various extended family, siblings and their families.

We pay all expenses. The girls have part time jobs to pay for liking expenses and wouldn't be able to save up for a trip.

We don't plan on not taking them at any point. We will invite them along and if their schedules allow it, them great.
 
I am the oldest of six kids and there is quite a gap in ages. I am 40, the youngest is 20. My family travels a lot. When we were all at home, it was all of us. As we got older and moved out, it was those living at home that came along. Now that we are all out we've done some huge family trips. If we waited for everyones schedules to coordinate for every single event it would never happen. We make a huge effort to be together for holidays and cottage weekends in the summer.
I guess I never really thought that once I moved out I'd still be invited on every trip. It's part of being an adult.

That being said, my dd is almost 18 and going away for school next year. She's already said she understands she won't be coming on every trip. She will still come to the cottage with us whenever possible, but it won't always be possible to vacation when she isn't working or in school. And like others have mentioned, a huge portion of our funds will be funnelled her way to be away at University. I don't think it would be fair to my 11 year old to halt family vacations if it doesn't line up with the few weeks a year that our 18 year old will be free. If it works time and money wise of course she will be invited but it may not always work that way.
 
My mom takes me and I'm 27. She'd take my sister who is 32 but she won't go (she's crazy lol)

Oh and BTW I say if you can afford it take him! If you can't .. He's an adult tell him he can come if he pays. Or just say hey are you coming we've got the room but you're up for everything else. Not unreasonable. And it's what I would do.

I think this is a VERY reasonable approach to take, especially given that he is able to pay for his own trips taken without you. If going on this family trip is extremely important to him, he can make it happen. (We've been surprised on several occasions how expendable certain things in our DS's life have become now that he's responsible for paying for them.)

FWIW, we only have 1 child and have travelled without him many times - about as often as we have taken him with us. We have planned "family" trips and trips that were only ever intended to be DH and I. Yes, sometimes finances made the decision for us and we don't feel guilty about it. We also look forward to DS becoming more independent and having opportunities to explore the world on his own - which he'll do at his own expense. We'll be super-excited to see his pictures when he returns!
 
I have to say this thread has been eye opening.'for me. I know that from time to time I hear about a family where the grandparents take everyone on a trip, but I had NO IDEA so many people do this and so often. I cannot imagine, as self sufficient adults, being comfortable with allowing my in laws or parents to finance a family vacation for us on a regular basis (I don't think it is wrong if other families operate differently; I am just surprised that so many do and several posters seem to see it as wrong to leave an independent adult child out of your calculations for such things). It's never been an issue though: there was one "family reunion" style cruise many years ago that my in laws paid for the fare for each grandchild, and there have been a couple of times that my mom was travelling somewhere alone and I (or I in the kids in one case) met her and stayed in the hotel room with her (but paid our own travel costs to get there, etc), but mostly we pay our own way--we often take trips together with my in laws, but not on their dime (and those tend to be things we plan and ask if they'd like to go on).

So here's a monkey wrench that I'll throw in there to everyone that's saying it's all or nothing, my DS 13 has special needs, he will be with my DH and myself his whole life. Since he will be always vacationing with us, do we always invite our other children and their spouses and children to come? And since we will be paying for our special needs DS, does that mean we will be paying for everyone else's too?

I can't imagine that self supporting adults would begrudge you taking the one who cannot be self supporting along in the future---I mean would people expect you to never travel, or not get breaks nearly as often, so that you could also bring along full grown, out on their own adults?

Many of you have stated that you would never leave a child behind and would always work out a schedule that works for everyone. That seems weird to me. We always went to wdw during our kid's spring break because they could not miss that much time in high school. When dd went to college were we supposed to stop taking our boys to wdw during spring break because their sister could not go? Did they have to sit home when their sister got to go away during high school? That theory is crazy. While I love to spend vacations with my children and I love family time, life is not fair and we have taught our children that. Dd was not happy she could not go,but knew she could not miss college classes. We could not go during her spring break because the boy's could not go. She was mature enough to understand that philosophy.
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I am confused by that too: many posters seem to be saying that is is NOT OK to leave an older, "adult" (or semi-adult, college aged) child out of a trip but the converse seems to be that it IS okay for younger siblings to have to travel much less in their highschool years than their older sibling did in order that the older sibling does not have hurt feelings :confused3

Heck, when DD is in college, thanks to the wonky German school schedule, depending on which of 2 universities she goes with, the kids will only have 2 1/2 weeks at Christmas and maybe 2-3 weeks of summer that overlap for time off at all. Addin in international flights eating away at that time, and DH's work not always allowing the same time off and it becomes very hard very quickly to make multiple trips together each year possible. It would be unfair to DS16 for his sister to have been on 6-10 weeks of trips a year all through highschool and he only gets 1-3 for his latter highschool years so that we can schedule around his sister.

Then again, we already do all kinds of trips with various combinations of people as it suites schedules and interests, so it is not all THAT different for us. in 2015 we did the following travel combinations:

As a family of four we spent Easter in Serbia and Austria, went to WDW for a week, took a 12 night Transatlantic cruise on Oasis of the Seas and spent Christmas and New Years in Croatia.

DD, DH and I took an 8 night cruise in Norway while DS stayed home and went to school (DD has always wanted to go to Norway, this was a cheaper time to go and her school is flexible with dates in a way DS's isn't and he was the one to suggest we do that since he is not that interested in Norway).

DS, and I tagged along with DH (and we all added weekends on either side) on a trip to Notrhern England in summer break (DD was travelling in the US at the time).

DD flew to the US to volunteer at a summer camp in Kansas City, tehn visit friends there, then on to Colorado to spend 3 weeks visiting fmaily there (all paid for by us).

DS went on a class trip to an island in northern Germany (paid for by us, not optional, a lot of physical work putting in fences to stop erosion was involved, so fun mixed with work for sure)

DD flew to Utah to be a delegate for the Girl Scout National Convention (that one was paid for by Girl Scouts)

DD flew to Australia on a two week exchange program (paid for by DH'S company as pat of a program they run; we have hosted 13 students over the years though)

DD flew to England to spend a week with friends and to attend a Yule Ball (paid for by us)

With the exception of Australia, and not having an adults only trip, last year was pretty typical of DD's high school years. I am simply not seeing that she is deprived of experience and chances to travel both with and without us, so I am not going to feel guilty about making sure DS gets some of those chances too--even if it means sometimes she is at school and not getting to join in (but I bet she'll be doing some of her own things still ;) )
 
I'm sort of in the same boat. My DS will be 19 this year, our DD is still in elementary school, there is a large age gap between them. We are going to WDW in early December. I asked DS if he wanted to go, he seemed a little wishy washy about it because he will be a sophomore in college and has a part time job, he isn't sure about missing the time. He went with us on our last trip in 2013 when he was a senior in high school and in order to not miss too much school he only came for the weekend, missing only one day of school. So we've decided that IF he does come with us, he will fly down on Thursday night and fly back on Sunday. This way he gets some of the family vacation without missing too many classes. We will be paying for everything except his spending money, like I said, he has a job for that and he pays for nothing of his own as of yet (we pay cell phone, insurance, etc)

Also the beginning of December is nearing final exam time for the semester, if he feels he cannot miss the classes because he is struggling or needs the review....he will not come.

I am hoping it works out and he can go at least for a few days because I feel like it wouldn't be the same without him, it makes me sad to think about :(
 
I went on a cruise when I was 19 with my parents over college spring break. They paid.

I don't envision going out of my way to avoid taking my college age children on vacation.

When they are gainfully employed, then we would adjust. But if I plan on claiming them on my taxes because they are still my dependent, then they are still my kid figuratively living under my roof even if away at college.

But we don't vacation at traditionally designated off times of schools, so it could be that my college kid would miss for schedule reasons and not so that we can "save" money on them. I do still have some trips in mind that I would love for my oldest to go on, so we would try to plan those with her in mind. But that is because I want to--not that I feel that I seeking to to avoid her hurt feelings

However, if said child felt entitled--then my tune my change.:beach:
 
I cannot fathom telling my 20 y/o college student (who does NOT live at home) that we couldn't afford to take him on our family vacation. We plan our trips around everyones schedule, including his. Maybe when he gets married we can revisit it, but I want him with us for as long as I can get him.

I agree with this. I simply cannot imagine NOT taking one of the kids. Its a family vacation! I would bring him! Otherwise i simply wouldnt go. I couldnt live with myself if I excluded one of the kids. Clearly your DS is interested in going since he asked about the vacation. So im guessing he's looking forward to it. Can you imagine how he'd feel if you told him he'll be excluded from the family vacation??? Heartbreaking!! I would find a way to make it work, financially.
 
I'm 35 and I don't think my mother has ever taken my baby sister on vacation without inviting me.

I see things like this and I wonder, what is the age difference between you and your sister? I can't imagine not traveling with my youngest if it doesn't work with my oldest's school/work schedules. She'll be 9 when DS starts college and his intended program has very, very strict attendance rules along with strongly-encouraged summer job placement. Older DD will start college when younger DD is 11, and older DD is a hyper-involved kid looking forward to service spring break trips and studying abroad and doing the Disney College Program and otherwise indulging in a lot of solo adventures/trips with peers that will likely mean she has very, very little free time to travel with Mom & Dad.

The way I see it, we had a lot of fabulous family vacations with the older kids before DD came along so we shouldn't feel guilty about continuing to travel with her when the older two are no longer able to go.

I am the oldest of six kids and there is quite a gap in ages. I am 40, the youngest is 20. My family travels a lot. When we were all at home, it was all of us. As we got older and moved out, it was those living at home that came along. Now that we are all out we've done some huge family trips. If we waited for everyones schedules to coordinate for every single event it would never happen. We make a huge effort to be together for holidays and cottage weekends in the summer.
I guess I never really thought that once I moved out I'd still be invited on every trip. It's part of being an adult.

That being said, my dd is almost 18 and going away for school next year. She's already said she understands she won't be coming on every trip. She will still come to the cottage with us whenever possible, but it won't always be possible to vacation when she isn't working or in school. And like others have mentioned, a huge portion of our funds will be funnelled her way to be away at University. I don't think it would be fair to my 11 year old to halt family vacations if it doesn't line up with the few weeks a year that our 18 year old will be free. If it works time and money wise of course she will be invited but it may not always work that way.

That's how I see us doing things too. My kids are 17, 13, and 6. I'm not going to limit traveling with the 6yo once the 17 & 13yos start college and can't easily get away. To me, fairness isn't "if one kid goes, we all go"; fairness is that all three kids got plenty of opportunity to travel with us from birth to leaving for college, on trips planned around their schedules as well as ours, and are welcome to join us as young adults if they can get away.
 
I see things like this and I wonder, what is the age difference between you and your sister? I can't imagine not traveling with my youngest if it doesn't work with my oldest's school/work schedules. She'll be 9 when DS starts college and his intended program has very, very strict attendance rules along with strongly-encouraged summer job placement. Older DD will start college when younger DD is 11, and older DD is a hyper-involved kid looking forward to service spring break trips and studying abroad and doing the Disney College Program and otherwise indulging in a lot of solo adventures/trips with peers that will likely mean she has very, very little free time to travel with Mom & Dad.

The way I see it, we had a lot of fabulous family vacations with the older kids before DD came along so we shouldn't feel guilty about continuing to travel with her when the older two are no longer able to go.



That's how I see us doing things too. My kids are 17, 13, and 6. I'm not going to limit traveling with the 6yo once the 17 & 13yos start college and can't easily get away. To me, fairness isn't "if one kid goes, we all go"; fairness is that all three kids got plenty of opportunity to travel with us from birth to leaving for college, on trips planned around their schedules as well as ours, and are welcome to join us as young adults if they can get away.

I agree with Colleen, especially the bolded. It is much easier to say "I'll never vacation without my kid" when you only have one.

Though the attitude that our travel must stop because one of us can't come along is interesting.
 
I have to say this thread has been eye opening.'for me. I know that from time to time I hear about a family where the grandparents take everyone on a trip, but I had NO IDEA so many people do this and so often. I cannot imagine, as self sufficient adults, being comfortable with allowing my in laws or parents to finance a family vacation for us on a regular basis (I don't think it is wrong if other families operate differently; I am just surprised that so many do and several posters seem to see it as wrong to leave an independent adult child out of your calculations for such things). It's never been an issue though: there was one "family reunion" style cruise many years ago that my in laws paid for the fare for each grandchild, and there have been a couple of times that my mom was travelling somewhere alone and I (or I in the kids in one case) met her and stayed in the hotel room with her (but paid our own travel costs to get there, etc), but mostly we pay our own way--we often take trips together with my in laws, but not on their dime (and those tend to be things we plan and ask if they'd like to go on). I can't imagine that self supporting adults would begrudge you taking the one who cannot be self supporting along in the future---I mean would people expect you to never travel, or not get breaks nearly as often, so that you could also bring along full grown, out on their own adults? I am confused by that too: many posters seem to be saying that is is NOT OK to leave an older, "adult" (or semi-adult, college aged) child out of a trip but the converse seems to be that it IS okay for younger siblings to have to travel much less in their highschool years than their older sibling did in order that the older sibling does not have hurt feelings :confused3 Heck, when DD is in college, thanks to the wonky German school schedule, depending on which of 2 universities she goes with, the kids will only have 2 1/2 weeks at Christmas and maybe 2-3 weeks of summer that overlap for time off at all. Addin in international flights eating away at that time, and DH's work not always allowing the same time off and it becomes very hard very quickly to make multiple trips together each year possible. It would be unfair to DS16 for his sister to have been on 6-10 weeks of trips a year all through highschool and he only gets 1-3 for his latter highschool years so that we can schedule around his sister. Then again, we already do all kinds of trips with various combinations of people as it suites schedules and interests, so it is not all THAT different for us. in 2015 we did the following travel combinations: As a family of four we spent Easter in Serbia and Austria, went to WDW for a week, took a 12 night Transatlantic cruise on Oasis of the Seas and spent Christmas and New Years in Croatia. DD, DH and I took an 8 night cruise in Norway while DS stayed home and went to school (DD has always wanted to go to Norway, this was a cheaper time to go and her school is flexible with dates in a way DS's isn't and he was the one to suggest we do that since he is not that interested in Norway). DS, and I tagged along with DH (and we all added weekends on either side) on a trip to Notrhern England in summer break (DD was travelling in the US at the time). DD flew to the US to volunteer at a summer camp in Kansas City, tehn visit friends there, then on to Colorado to spend 3 weeks visiting fmaily there (all paid for by us). DS went on a class trip to an island in northern Germany (paid for by us, not optional, a lot of physical work putting in fences to stop erosion was involved, so fun mixed with work for sure) DD flew to Utah to be a delegate for the Girl Scout National Convention (that one was paid for by Girl Scouts) DD flew to Australia on a two week exchange program (paid for by DH'S company as pat of a program they run; we have hosted 13 students over the years though) DD flew to England to spend a week with friends and to attend a Yule Ball (paid for by us) With the exception of Australia, and not having an adults only trip, last year was pretty typical of DD's high school years. I am simply not seeing that she is deprived of experience and chances to travel both with and without us, so I am not going to feel guilty about making sure DS gets some of those chances too--even if it means sometimes she is at school and not getting to join in (but I bet she'll be doing some of her own things still ;) )


I know everyone's family is different. Your family seems to travel a lot! If we travelled that much, then I wouldn't feel bad leaving one of the kids home while they are in college. Our travel schedule looks a lot different than yours.

In 2014 we took 1 long weekend ski trip. My in laws always rent a condo and we stay with them. We pay for the lift tickets for everyone who skis. Then we eat in the condo and all pitch in on food.

My DH and my boys went to the Smoky Mountains for a week with the scouts. We paid for that.

Then we spent thanksgiving and the week after in Florida visiting Universal and Disney. We paid for that trip.

I know when my oldest is in college it will be much more difficult to all travel together, but I will try to work it out. He may not even want to travel with us by then. I don't think my youngest will be missing out. We will just do our best to work around everyone's schedule. It's already hard with school, activities and my oldest DS working at his first job now. We won't vacation less. Just at a different time.

This year we will be taking one week long family vacation up north in Michigan. DH and I will go away for a week for our 20th anniversary, and the boys will go with scouts to Glacier National Park for a week. It's the first year in a long time that we aren't taking that weekend ski trip.

I guess the difference is we usually take 1 trip as a family each year. In 2013 it was a cross country trip to Yellowstone National Park. We worked it out so everyone (group of 17 people) could come. Including my college age niece. It is possible if you are just looking for a week or 10 days.

I wish I could go on business trips with my DH. He's in Germany this week and I'm stuck home working. Lol.
 
I'm the youngest of 4, and college was usually the point when they stopped coming on family trips, whether that was their choice or my parents, I do not know. Honestly, once my 2nd sister went to college, big family trips stopped anyway. It just became unrealistic to plan trips around 4 different schools schedules, plus each of my parents schedules. Actually, our main trip each year became the band trip through the school which both my parents chaperoned. As the youngest, I definitely went on more trips than my sisters, but once they started doing trips of their own it wasn't a big deal. The last trip I did was when I was 20, solo with my mother, and we went to WDW. Though she paid for everything, I felt obligated to pay for a meal here and there, and a souvenir for my mom, bc 20 felt too old to just let her pay for everything anymore. There is no way that my sisters or I, as independent adults, would allow our parents to pay for any trip now. In fact, I'm more inclined to pay for my parents to go on a trip with us.

I don't think it's unreasonable to not bring him, but I know it would be hard to figure how to tell him. Good luck op.
 
Our children are 5 grades apart in school. I can't imagine telling DD that we can never travel anywhere because DS is away at school (college Soph).

At the same time, we will certainly consider where we are going & whether DS would like to come. For example, we are making a vacation out of a dance completion DD has which falls over her spring break; didn't even ask DS since his spring break is weeks earlier & he can't miss classes. On the other hand, DS really wants to see the HP stuff at universal, so I'll make sure to plan that trip when both kids are on break.

I guess it's not all that different from how we've always operated. Some trips for all 4 of us, some for various combinations of 2 of us, some 3 of us.
As to when we would stop inviting DS, I'm guessing somewhere around when he is gainfully employed and has a significant other. Though I can see us doing some trips that would include him even then (or at least invite him). He's joked about me taking his future children to WDW.

I'm in my 40s and still travel with my parents sometimes - though we usually all pay our own way; the exception was when my parents threw themselves a milestone birthday celebration and paid for rooms at Disney for my family as well as for each of my siblings. My parents took a trip or two when I was in college (I'm the oldest of 4) & I wasn't invited. While I missed being there with them, I never begrudged them the trips; I was off doing my own travel whenever I could.
 
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