My extended family somehow always book our time for holidays and that stops us then from being with friends and other kids (my kids age)..My husband wants to see his family, but I feel that they can come other times when teh kids are not on holiday. I feel that school holidays and our holidays, we should be together and with friend to create fun time and fun holidays for ourselves and our kids. The extended family times can be limited to other times in the year (extended family lives abroad, 2 hrs flight time). I want my holidays to myself and the kids, and friends. My mom in law is alone, so my husband feels to always take care of her..
am i being to protective for the wrong reasons or being silly...?
My husband is a bit upset about my issue, and feel that I am unreasonable with my limitations..I just want my holidays to be with the kids/friends..not sitting with relatives (and none of them have kids)
same situation here. My extended family are my parents in law. They are targeting on my children, asking to take them 1 or 2 weeks in every school holidays (ski, easter, spring, summer, autumn and xmas) plus 1 or 2 weekends for those months which do not fall within school holidays. My feeling ? Totally SICK of it. Those requests are channelled through my husband, which 90% of the cases caused us ended in fights and arguements. I have talked to some local mothers about these, most of them told me 'oh, you should enjoy and rest at those moment.' or 'they are doing you a favour' . To me, if they really want to help, I rather it is during the week, 1 day or 2 afternoons but not fighting with us for our own family time. Unfortunately my husband does not think it is an issue. The situation got worse since last summer where both of them got retired (one is on early retirement). Request for meetups is increasing. I am so mad that I booked our coming summer holiday back to back with school holiday. My husband only found out 2 months later when he checked the dates with the request he received He he he..... however, this is only a short term solution, do not know what to do for long term.
Something to think about when you marry I guess. You don't just get your spouse, you get all the relatives too. Can't really help you with this one, sorry.
I can see both sides of this. Grandparents want to see kids, naturally. If they come when it isn't school holidays they'll have great lumps of time during the day to kill while the children are at school. This is a rather naughty suggestion, but couldn't you keep your children out of school for four or five days so their relatives can see them?
I don't have kids, so I don't know about your perspective as parents, but:
I lost my grandmother last year. All I can tell you is that I have great memories of spending time with her & being at her home. Every summer we went to visit her. We children would go first, then my mother would arrive and finally my father would be able to join us for a few weeks. We traveled around in between but our 'base camp" was my grandmother's house.
Then after having spent 2 or three months there we would go back home.
It was a wonderful time and I wish it could have been longer and that I could have gone more often. I couldn't go every year once I hit uni. I had no money!
We can only have 2 joker day (i.e. absent from school without formal application) per year, non-accumulated basis. The point is, is it has to be that frequent? Yes, I admit that I am a bit harsh on the summer holiday trick, the booking was done at the time that I was so annoyed and frustrated.
I don't think you are being unreasonable at all. There is plenty of time for the grandparents to share time with the kids before and after school. So there is no need to always come during the school vacation period.
It's rather unfortunate your husband is not entirely on your side over this issue - it's sad to cause tension in the home because of the in-laws.
It must be really irretating, as surely they understand that you want to see your kinds when they are on holiday too, and not ALWAYS got to the grandparent(s) house...
Will have you tried explictly stating that, sometimes beating around the bush doesnt help
I would love my in-laws to take the kiddies some weekends to give me, and my husband alone time, to go for a nice meal, or to the cinema. Don`t get me wrong i LOVE my kiddies, but when i have had them all day everyday i sometimes need a break . Also my kids love staying over night (on the very rare occassions this happens), and complain that they cannot stay more often (btw they have an indoor swimming pool)
I don't think you're being unreasonable at all. All families need time together. Some people don't care if their in-laws are around all the time; heck some live with them all the time and love it. Well bully for them. Not everybody feels the same way. If you and your other half saw eye-to-eye on this then you could have a straight up conversation along the lines of "Unfortunately those dates don't suit, we're planning to have some time on our own then but we'd love to see you and would like to suggest the following dates instead." Might not go do down well at first but if the alternative dates are reasonable in the end they'll come round once they see they can't play one of you off against the other. You married each other not your respective parents. In-laws (and your own parents come to that) need ground rules and as long as they are made a fuss of when they do come and get chance to spend time with the kids evening and weekends they should be okay. The problem comes if you and your husband don't agree. In my view you have to get him on the same page first and try and come up with a solution that is reasonable). No-one likes being torn between wife and parents (he loves them too) but when you get married priorities change (or should).
On a similar note, my wife and I have lived for many years away from our respective families and initially a lot of our holidays - Christmas and summer were spent visiting them. And (I know...bah humbug) I gradually got sick of hanging around crowded airports every December - so these days we do Xmas at home - and if family want to visit that is fine.
In later years we realised the value of having our own holidays and we rarely spend more than long weekends visiting relatives.
Now have our little one, we're in the opposite situation to the OP - the grandparents live in other countries and get to see our wee one once every blue moon - and we never fail to take advantage of the free babysitting service.
My advice to the OP is to talk openly and calmly to your husband about setting some parameters around which you and the family can work. Point out that while you really appreciate the babysitting and all the other practical help you receive, that you also want quality time together with your children.
One possible approach here is rather than take the defensive approach of saying that you disagree because you want your own time with the children, rather take a pre-emptive approach and talk about things that you would like to do with the children (camping, hiking, theme parks, beach holidays, family music festivals) that may not be suitable for the extended family. Come up with specific events or destinations that you would like to go to rather than "what if" scenarios. This is likely to give you a more solid position when negotiating a compromise. It is also likely to make it easier for your husband to go back to his family with "No because [insert good reason]" rather than "No, because my wife doesn't want to". Also if it is an idea that your husband will also enjoy doing he is more probably likely to support you.
This will get easier as your children get older and you can increase the intensity of the activities.
I finally did it! Yip, old post of mine, and I finally tackled the hubby, and I won him over to be on my side. So, he has told his family that we want our own family holidays, and that they can plan their holidays 'out of our family time'. It was not taken so easily, but i took three weeks of silent treatment...and since then, they have all accepted it. Thanks for the advice, now I can take my holiday with my family, without making excuses.
Just keep in mind that your precious kids might do the same to you when you are older. Give and take is what it should be all about. What can be more fulfilling for grand parents than being with their grand kids?
Good for you. We got married and had our kids 10 flight hours away from either family, and that was a good thing. Now we are a bit closer, looking to move further away again (but for other reasons).