Care & Feeding: Our Daughter Hates the Annual Family Vacation

[minoanmiss]

Should we let her choose something else?


We have three kids. Our daughter is nearly 13 and the eldest. We have been discussing what to do this winter for a family trip, and my daughter insists she doesn’t like skiing and has no interest in going.

The kids have been on skis since they were 3. They’ve skied and/or snowboarded every winter. The boys, my husband, and I love it. We’ve traveled every winter to a ski destination and have been careful to choose places that offer a wide range of fun winter activities (like dogsledding, tubing, snowmobiling) and a fun town vibe that the kids can enjoy. Our daughter grumbles every time we go skiing. She’s really only good for about half a day on the slopes. She’s a good sport and resigns herself to going because she wants to travel, but we really don’t want her to hate it and we want her to have good memories of family trips. My husband and I sometimes will take an extra weekend and go by ourselves, but we feel guilty a little bit because the boys want to come too, and we LOVE watching them explore and have fun on the slopes.

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We don’t only take the kids skiing. Travel is a big deal to my husband and me. We’ve taken the kids to a few National Parks, big cities on each coast, Disney, and are currently saving for our first trip overseas.

I know some of this behavior is normal teenage behavior, but she’s always maintained she doesn’t like skiing. Her idea of a fun vacation is sitting in the sun on a beach somewhere, which makes my husband and me cringe (we can’t imagine anything more boring or miserable). How do we manage the disparity in preference to vacation types and activities? We’ve reminded her that one day she’ll be happy for the skills and experiences she has. Do we just keep planning these trips with compromises to places that have activities she can take advantage of (even if she doesn’t) and remind her when she’s paying the bills and designing her own trips she can sit on a beach all day?

—It’s Not a Family Trip Without Her

Dear N.a.F.T.,

I doubt that your almost-13-year-old needs to be reminded that she doesn’t pay the bills, nor do I believe her current lack of disposable income overrules her right to express her likes and dislikes. I realize some readers might not be able to find much sympathy for a kid who just isn’t that into her family’s annual ski resort visits, but honestly, I do feel a bit sorry for her. Sure, being part of a family means occasionally going along with a plan or activity we may not personally be wild about. But if your daughter needs to accept that (and it sounds like she has; you admit that while she continues to note her dislike of skiing—not a crime!—she still goes and is “a good sport” about it), you need to accept that you have no control over what she enjoys. You want her to appreciate and have “good memories” of your ski trips, but she doesn’t like skiing. This is not a phase or a “teenage behavior” thing; she’s told you over and over. And it’s fine! She doesn’t have to share all or, really, any of your interests, and after 10 years of ski trips no one can claim she hasn’t given it a chance.

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The window of time when all your kids will easily be able to travel with you is small—when they’re grown, vacations with you will be hit-or-miss. You’ll likely have the rest of your lives to plan trips without taking all three kids’ interests into account. Given this, is it necessary to go on a big destination ski trip every year, if one-third of your children would strongly rather not? Is it necessary for your daughter to go every time? Maybe she would prefer to stay with a friend or family member sometimes, and then you could plan a separate family trip to be enjoyed by all? Thinking of her being left behind does have me feeling rather sorry for her again, but at her age, hanging out with a favorite friend or relative might be a very appealing option, especially if she knows she’ll still get to go on another trip.

I confess to being somewhat perplexed that you and your husband are completely closed to the idea of a beach vacation, yet you seem bothered that your child has not dug deep and found sufficient enthusiasm for the ski trips she has repeatedly told you she doesn’t enjoy. I really think you should consider taking your kid to a beach once in a while! You’ve found ski towns with “a wide range” of activities; you can probably locate a town with beach access and other stuff to do. Of course, whether you choose to take advantage of all it offers is up to you, but I have a feeling that one day—when you’re older, and your kids are paying for and designing their own vacations without you—you’ll be happy you had those experiences.

Comments

That Bad Advice

[minoanmiss]

Do we ... and remind her when she’s paying the bills and designing her own trips she can sit on a beach all day?

Oh absolutely. In fact inform her that because she's not paying the bills she has no right to dislike skiing and that she's too young to know she likes beaches. In a couple decades you'll realize one day you haven't heard from her in about five years or so.

Re: That Bad Advice

[movingfinger]

I would bet cash money that there's introvert/extrovert conflict in this family, too.

They are not being good parents to all of their children.

Re: That Bad Advice

[ahazelshadeofwinter]

Yup, to be honest it feels like the big problem here is not that the kid has to go on vacations she isn't thrilled about (since even the disapproving parent concedes she's a good sport) and more that these parents can't observe that one of their kids is different--even different in a really trivial way like vacation preferences!--without turning it into a crisis about how to get her to be more conforming. Obviously no kid is entitled to the exact vacation of their choice 100% of the time, but going to the beach a couple of times might be a way to send a message to this girl that her parents don't actually think of her as an impenetrable alien whose strangeness gets in the way of everyone else having normal fun--just another human whose likes and dislikes are part of the same spectrum as everyone else's. If they can't get that message to her somehow, the vacation thing is kind of a moot point.

Re: That Bad Advice

[minoanmiss]

Truth. And they kind of have to not think of her as an impenetrable alien in order to tell her they don't, don't they?

[topaz_eyes]

she’s always maintained she doesn’t like skiing. Her idea of a fun vacation is sitting in the sun on a beach somewhere, which makes my husband and me cringe (we can’t imagine anything more boring or miserable)

IOW, LW's daughter's idea of a fun vacation is rest. Because I bet she's seriously overextended with school, homework, and extracurriculars, and I bet she doesn't get an ounce of down time at home to recharge her batteries. Rest is a major reason why people take vacation. Except LW expects her to keep up with the rest of the family in strenuous physical activity too. And she's been a good sport about it! But she may simply not have the same energy levels as the rest of the brood.

LW, let your daughter experience her idea of a fun vacation for once and see how it goes. She may love it--or she may find it's not so fun to lie around in the sun all day. Meanwhile beaches tend to have all sorts of physical activities (swimming, kayaking, hiking) that would interest the younger kids, and probably you and your husband too.

[green_grrl]

Surfing, wakeboarding, windsurfing, boogie boarding, parasailing, jet skiing… Seriously, this family could more easily accommodate their active/passive preferences at the beach than in a ski town.

[full_metal_ox]

Poor kid—-a Njord in a family of Skadis.

[tielan]

"I got that reference!" :D

[full_metal_ox]

…Thor’s turn to use that line?

[tielan]

Indeed!

[lokifan]

That's EXACTLY what I thought.

[melannen]

I wonder if the problem here is "ski vacation" or if it's "being forced to ski" or if it's "feeling like your family just wants to ski all the time and resent you for asking them to do other stuff on the trip".

LW, 13 is old enough to be left alone for a few hours at a stretch. Surely a kid whose idea of a great vacation is sitting in the sun on a beach reading could be induced to enjoy sitting by the fire in a ski lodge reading? Find a place to ski that is OK with a thirteen-year-old being unattended in the lodge, leave her food money, and enjoy the skiing.

(And, on that note, maybe plan a beach vacation where she can be left to sit in the sun and read - assuming you trust her not to go swimming alone if told not to- while the rest of you try waterskiing and wakeboarding. If you don't want her to be alone on the beach, find a rental with a fenced pool with a view of the water.)

[cimorene]

Exactly! As someone who has never been on a ski vacation or seen a ski lodge, I thought ski lodges were sort of full of nice lounges with luxurious leather sofas and roaring fires and so on (on the basis of books and films) and probably had plenty of people hanging out in them in expensive sweaters at any given time. Also Christmas movies definitely have given me the impression that if you're on a skiing vacation at all, you're probably staying in a hotel or cabin with a nice livingroom where you can lounge reading all day in privacy if you want to.

[melannen]

I have been to a ski resort once, and admittedly it wasn't the most ritzy or romcom suitable, but they still had a largish lobbylike area where you could curl up by a fake fire, drink overpriced cocoa, and watch the skiers outside.

At age 10 it might have been less feasible but at 13 she's definitely old enough to let her stay there, or in the hotel/cabin (and 13 is exactly the age where "you're old enough that we can trust you with some adult responsibility instead of dragging you along" works magic.)

[full_metal_ox]

Imagine her securely parked someplace like this, with a good book and a mug of something hot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11FWrkFsxfA

[conuly]

I hate these parents.

[mrissa]

We’ve reminded her that one day she’ll be happy for the skills and experiences she has.

...are these parents aware that skiing (snowboarding tubing etc.) is a completely optional life skill that someone who dislikes skiing can universally avoid? Because: she already knows how to ski. If she ever wants to use that skill, she has it. But also grown-ups can learn to ski, I've seen them do it. I feel like there's just no sense here that they are participating in a very niche and optional hobby rather than, like, teaching her to do the laundry or what online bill pay should look like.

Even the phrasing of "my daughter INSISTS that she doesn't like skiing"...kind of calls it into question. Not "my daughter doesn't like it," she's CLAIMING to not like it. You know why people mostly claim not to like things? because they don't like them. The odds that she's covering up a secret love of skiing are basically zero.

[mildred_of_midgard]

I feel this way about mandatory PE in general.

[full_metal_ox]

Out of curiosity, were PE teachers still subjecting kids to “Go, You Chicken Fat, Go!” when you were in school?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFofqe26t-4

[mildred_of_midgard]

OMG! No, never heard of it (thank goodness!). It's also inaccurate, because situps and pushups build muscle, they don't burn fat!

[neotoma]

I don't particular like the beach myself, but I'm pretty sure these sporty parents can find some hazardous skiing-adjacent activity (like waterskiing) to do at one if they really tried. Their oldest can stay on the beach reading a book, possibly with a chaperone of some sort (some other relative who also likes the beach?).

Let the kid not like skiing. Forcing it is just going have the kid 10 years from now telling her friends "And then my parents took us on a ski vacation *again* -- it was cold, it was wet, I almost broke my leg. I'm never going on a vacation anywhere below 65F ever again."

[azurelunatic]

I moved to Arizona.

[azurelunatic]

I vibe super hard with this because at a certain point in my growth, ski trips (a fun weekend afternoon excursion to the local cross-country trails) became not a neutral sport but a torture experience specifically designed to thwart me and put me in the snow bank with my limbs tangled.

After enough furious weeping in the snowbank, I was eventually allowed to stay home.

[katiedid717]

My mother preferred beach vacations, so we tended to go on those more than anything else. Activities that were available at the various places we stayed:
- water skiing
- tubing
- kayaking
- hang-gliding
- horseback riding
- day trip excursions (when we were in Cancun, we went to see Ek Balam and Chichen Itza)
- food tours
- boardwalks with rides, stores, and restaurants
- deep-sea fishing excursions
- whale watching

Surely SOMETHING on this list grabs LW's attention