Family holidays? Give me a break
I hate family holidays. This may sound odd coming from an embracer of idleness, but I find them extremely hard work. The nuclear family is difficult at the best of times, but the nuclear family on holiday seems to be pure agony. To travel across borders with three under-eights is hugely stressful, whether you go by train, plane or automobile.
When you arrive you all have to adjust to a completely different way of life. You have just adjusted when it is time to go home, where you return to the same old problems. Was the holiday just a dream? You show your photos to people to prove that it really happened. But did it? And do those smiling faces on the pictures tell the real story?
We are seduced into buying holidays by slick marketing. Nauseating advertising photos of smiling and beautiful young parents, sitting in the sun, watching their children play happily, are everywhere. We imagine lazy cocktails by the pool, two weeks of pure pleasure. But the reality is never like that and so you can really resent both the cost and the pure hassle of it all.
You may say I am just a grumpy dad. But I’m not the only one. “Why do women always want to go on holiday?” asks my friend Bill. “What’s wrong with grim, grinding reality?” I suppose women like holidays because they offer a much-deserved break from the domestic grind. But Dad on holiday is on call 24/7 for child care, driving, loading and unloading cars and washing-up.
The holiday comes as a huge disappointment because he finds himself in the slightly emasculating role of a full-time au pair. He foresaw a time of beer drinking, quiet reading and long naps; instead he’s shouting at children, being asked to do things by his wife and arguing about logistics. It’s exhausting.
The other thing I don’t like is the forced jollity, the planned schemes of merriment. “Are you having a good time?” the Redcoats would constantly ask at Butlins. No, I’m not and please leave me alone with my dark thoughts. They may be dark and gloomy, but at least they were mine. Organised fun to me is not much fun at all, because it is controlled by somebody else. I’d rather just see what happens than be herded into sightseeing coaches. Even as a child I resented being asked to “join in”.
A few preferable options come to mind. One is to holiday in the UK. This is surely a far better idea than transporting your dysfunction to a foreign shore. Keep it local.
Staying put in Blighty also means avoiding the hell of airports. This summer we drove to Norfolk and, while there were too many roundabouts, this was a small inconvenience when contrasted with flying from Heathrow.
Take your holidays with groups of friends. Rent a cottage or camp together. Adults will have adult company and kids will have kid company. Men will have male company and women will have female company. It is when we are starved of like minds that we become grumpy and this is why the nuclear family holiday is such a bad idea. So holiday in large groups – the more, I would say, the merrier.
We’ve had great camping trips with four or five other families. Ideally, the kids will vanish and play together all day, leaving the adults time to read, cook, chat, sleep and drink. Children should not need to be looked after or entertained. They are perfectly capable of creating their own games, and playing certainly comes more easily when they are in large groups of kids their own age.
Another idea is to reject the whole shebang and stay at home. Victoria often says that her idea of a holiday is to hire a cook and a cleaner at home for two weeks – a lot cheaper than a family holiday and a lot less work. Although I hated the very idea when I was a child, what about that American custom of summer camp? The children are packaged off for two weeks while the parents get a real break. A holiday without children. Ooh, can you imagine it?
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[...] The Idler » Family holidays? Give me a break [...]
Totally agree with you on this one. Our childhood family holidays were sources of much stress. Our idea of a holiday now is to stay home. I mean we pay a fortune to the bank for the privilege of living here. We can actually use it all day for days on end. Our kids don’t complain too much, but they do want to go to one of those horrendous expensive package holidays soon. When Mummy? When Daddy?
I used to holiday a lot @ home before kids & loved it. Now with kids we now holiday locally in the countryside with other families on a camp site. I can tell you its a really good break. Kids playing a distance away while the parents take turn cooking in groups, chatting etc. Singing round the camp fire in the evening. I feel so relaxed & the journey time is only 40mins in the car. …. The idea of hiring cook & cleaner is great & I must steel.
We HAD a house in Frejus (south of France) booked but our 6 yearold came down with chickenpox 36 hours before flight time. GREAT friends invited us for a french banquet at their house (their kids had had CP)and we had a wonderful time. 13 days at home left to contemplate…….