When do you stop bringing your kids on vacation?

[snarlingcoyote]

Well. . .I'm seriously considering saving up and taking my DB and his family and my folks to WDW in about 2 years - before the older dear nephew graduates high school and NOT the same year that dear neice goes with the HS band. (Dear Nephew went this spring - the band goes once every 4 years and those Irish twins of the family are 2 years apart in school, thankfully.)

If I can swing it I think we'll go at Mardi Gras and hope that Louisiana has relaxed its new attendance rules by then. Rent a house in Windsor Hills with 3 master suites. . .

Yeah, it'll cost a mint, but they're my family I love them.

 

[Tuffcookie]

snarlingcoyote wrote: Yeah, it'll cost a mint, but they're my family I love them.

Ahh, you're my kind of people!

TC

 

[pigletgirl]

No, I really don't vacation with my family anymore. We are having a family reunion next summer that DF and I will go to, but other than that we plan our own vacations.

The last family trip I went on was San Diego last summer.

 

[Praying Colonel]

We have 2 in college now. Our last family vacation was last Thanksgiving. Since DD21 and DS 19 are attending different colleges with different schedules and DD works during the summer, it's very hard to arrange a vacation for all of us. We may be finished, at least for a while.

DW and I are actually looking forward to our first no-kids vacation this fall. We joke about how we'll find out if we really hate each other now that it's just us and there are no kids to act as buffers.

OTOH, DW's Mom and Dad are excited because they're going to have their 3 daughters with them on a vacation at the end of this month. DW's folks had 1 daughter going with them, then DW arranged to join them. After that, the 3rd daughter was "encouraged" to come along, too. Their previous vacation where it was all of them together was back in the 80s, so they're very excited.

 

[luvwinnie]

Every family is different. My 23 yr old niece is in grad school in another city, but just flew down to meet my sister and BIL where they are vacationing for a few days.

 

[tar heel]

We still mostly take everyone and probably will as long as everyone wants to travel with us. Actually, we've added a long-time girlfriend, so our "family" has grown for vacations. Our oldest (26) missed a short trip when he was in college and will miss one later this month b/c he doesn't have enough vacation yet to do two summer trips. Our middle son (22) missed a long weekend trip to Disney when he was a college freshman -- we were visiting the oldest who was doing the College Program.

 

[Kathi OD]

In two years my twins will graduate high school. I am thinking that will be our last year to bring them on vacation with us. Honestly, my husband and I (who had our children late in life) are looking forward to being able to travel just the two of us again.

So I am wondering. Do families with college age kids still include them in vacations as a rule (I realize you can always include everyone anytime, we have even had adult trips with my in laws, but that was a special trip, not a constant regular expectation).

I know both my husband and I stop traveling with our families once we entered college, is that common now days too? Or are they usually included like you would a high school student?

Just wondering what the trends are now days.

I don't think there are any trends, so to speak. Some kids will still want to go past high school, others not so much. Personally, once they're in college, I wouldn't force the issue, but at least give them the option the first year or so. Their responses to your vacation suggestion should let you know how to proceed.

 

[NeverlandClub23]

We all (my parents [in their 50's and 60's], my brother [31], and I) vacation together as much as our schedule allows. My Dad is retired and my Mom gets oodles of vacation so they go on a lot of solo vacations but we join them for long weekend camping trips or on any other trips we can. On longer vacations (like when we go to WDW) we all stay in separate rooms/resorts and don't spend every second of every day together. We all very much enjoy spending time together (we also all still eat dinner together every night [which is easier to do when there's no kids involved]). I figure there'll be a day when I won't have them around to spend time with so I'm going to get every second I can now.

When we were 18-23 we didn't have as much of interest in joining Mom and Dad. We wanted to spend our vacation time doing things with our friends. It just changed as we got older. My parents always invited us though. My Dad says he likes having time with my Mom to himself but it's also nice to have other people to be able to have a conversation and make memories with.

 

[clori]

My sister and brother are 8 & 10 years older than me. I don't really remember going on vacation with them and my parents though may have when I was really young. We have done a family cruise together as adults though. I sense say going to Storyland when we moved to NH when I was 5 just didn't interest my siblings.

When my niece graduated college she got a job and didn't want to ask for time off so soon (July) so skipped the family cruise. She is now 24 and not living at home etc and not really interested in family vacations right now. My nephew graduated this year. My brother wasn't sure what to do but went ahead and booked him on the cruise hoping that if we knew in enough time he could be replaced by my 10 year old dd. He hasn't gotten a regular job yet so is still lving at home and able to take time off of work and went away in July. He is booked on next summer's cruise but my brother knows at this point it may or may not work out. The big difference between my nephew and niece is that my nephew still wants to go. They also have a 14 year old brother.

 

[JessicaR]

Most of our trips are family trips still. My kids are 13 and 17. We do take shorter alone trips also. My parents still take ALL of us, my family and my two sisters families on vacation occasionally. My mom also takes all the girls away every other year. I guess we'll continue to take our kids with us as long as they would like to come and are able to.

 

[disney1990]

In two years my twins will graduate high school. I am thinking that will be our last year to bring them on vacation with us. Honestly, my husband and I (who had our children late in life) are looking forward to being able to travel just the two of us again.

So I am wondering. Do families with college age kids still include them in vacations as a rule (I realize you can always include everyone anytime, we have even had adult trips with my in laws, but that was a special trip, not a constant regular expectation).

I know both my husband and I stop traveling with our families once we entered college, is that common now days too? Or are they usually included like you would a high school student?

Just wondering what the trends are now days.

Our children don't go on every vacation with us, but they certain go with us sometimes. This past January we took our 33 year old daughter and two granddaughter 9 and 11.