FAMILY FIRSTS

GET IT RIGHT AND EVERY NIGHT IS PARTY NIGHT, SAYS ANNA MAXTED, BUT THERE’S NOTHING LIKE SHARING A VILLA WITH OTHER PEOPLE’S KIDS TO SPARK UNEXPECTED TENSIONS

CAN A HOLIDAY TOGETHER RUIN FRIENDSHIPS?

“Someone else’s parenting close up can evoke all sorts of emotions”

My husband, sons and i have had the best times of our lives on shared breaks with our favourite families. last summer in france, one warm lavender-scented night, as i teetered on the edge of the pool with around 20 adults and kids, playing a daft push-me-in game, after a sumptuous collaboratively cooked barbecue, i thought, this is as close to perfect as it gets. however, you do have to get the mix right. if i consider holidays over the years, many spent with an eclectic, engaging variety of friends and friends of friends (the wild card element of this arrangement is always interesting), i do have a few grumbles.

such as the child who called my husband “fat” and wasn’t reprimanded. or the friend who thought it acceptable to wolf all the smoked salmon. those parents who drank all night, while i supervised their reckless, rather violent young offspring in the pool. the couple who allowed their children so many sweets that everyone else was obliged to let their kids feast on junk too.

those, incidentally, are the gripes i can laugh about. we still don’t speak to the family we shared a villa with in italy when our kids were tiny – their tight-lipped disapproval of our under-fives’ less than perfect table manners meant we were enormously glad never to see them again – and the compliment was returned.

but what is it about spending time away with friends you’ve known for years and are so fond of that can lead to such surprising ructions and resentment? consultant clinical psychologist

and family therapist dr elizabeth kilbey says that within your own family, there’s a huge amount of unspoken assumption about the correct way to live and behave. she says, “we call it your internal working model. it’s your inner map, from your experiences of growing up. whether

you eat at the table, or with your dinner on your lap, how you treat guests, are rules passed down through generations. when you bring friends into that dynamic, you’re introducing another family’s set of rules and internal working model that could be very different.”

quite. but it’s not until you spend weeks living together, that you’re acquainted with these “intimate differences”. dr kilbey notes that we also relate to friends in certain roles, say, as a colleague. but if you holiday together, you’re a wife, and mother too: “so we reveal some of our private selves, and we start, literally ‘seeing a different side’ to people.”

Other people’s rules

we see how they relate to their partners (for better or worse). and of course, says dr kilbey, also a contributing expert on channel 4’s the secret life of 4 year olds, “someone else’s parenting close

up can evoke all sorts of complicated emotions – from envy to irritation.”

one male friend says he only realised on holiday how much his friends let their 18-year-olds drink. “they’re chugging it back. i don’t want my 17-year-old to drink at all, but they all hang out together, so it’s an impossible situation.”

my friends michael and sara and their kids go surfing every summer, with other families. hitherto unspotted differences in attitudes to child-rearing surfaced in the first year. sara says, “the one person who gives a damn about safety ends up being the parent for everyone. then you’re told, ‘i’m not asking you to watch my kids.’ well, if i hadn’t, they’d have drowned in the sea.”

michael adds: “everyone wants to have a drink, so no one’s supervising the kids still out playing in the dunes, and it’s getting dark. usually, nothing happens. but i’m a worrier. if someone did get hurt, and the kids had to find their way back to camp and get help, other parents would see that as a great life experience. but i feel, ‘no, an adult needs to be there to call the air ambulance. there shouldn’t be an extra bit that’s character-building!’”

Natural leaders

Dr Kilbey notes that in group settings, particular sides of our personalities are evoked. “if you’re a leader at work, and used to taking control, and then you’re away with a group and suddenly we’re taking it to committee every time we boil an egg, you can imagine how quickly that can start to cause friction.”

or perhaps you fall into your family role. either can be testing to others. my friend hetty finds herself taking on the maternal role (ie, doing the work) while others expect to be

waited on. “i’d make sandwiches, the others would be at the beach. then, there’d be one adult who’d grunt, ‘i haven’t got any sandwiches.’ and

his kids would go, ‘has anyone got a sandwich?’ and i’d say ‘i’ve made you some sandwiches.’ because if i hadn’t, they’d just eat our sandwiches. ‘ham and cheese?’”

but, says dr kilbey, “little things can be magnified when you’re in a confined space.” my cousin is still stinging from holiday instruction

from another mother on dishwasher stacking (“knives and forks shouldn’t go upright. it’s really dangerous.”)

and, this enhanced knowledge of friends makes us reflect on our own circumstances. “it invites competition and rivalry. it brings out all of the human instincts. we’re essentially pack animals but we’re hierarchically driven.”

we suddenly realise the friend who we thought was admirably organised is in fact boringly uptight. or more selfish than we presumed.

Splitting the bill

my neighbour recalls last year’s communal holiday with a wince, in particular, meals out. she says,

“my kids are raised to be moderate, they wouldn’t go for outrageously expensive choices, but others just go for it. you expect thoughtfulness around other people’s circumstances – but they don’t think. you don’t want to be awkward, or mean. one mother ordered three dishes for her toddler son, because the child wouldn’t eat. and you’re sharing the bill.”

but there’s always one who isn’t a team player. my husband recalls one moneyed chap, amid young, modest earners on a cricket tour

with wives, in spain: “we’d gone to a family restaurant. it was a shared bill, everyone was ordering from the middle of the menu. he was saying, ‘i’ll have the quail, and the tibetan flower salad!’” he adds, “you see differences in values. it’s about mutual respect and understanding.”

it is indeed, and so ability to compromise, and recover from annoyance, and conflict, is essential. years ago, family friends invited us to their holiday home in cornwall. on day two, the wife roared at her husband because he wasn’t listening, and he roared back. later, she apologised for the awkwardness. au contraire, i told her, this was exactly how my husband and i operated

too; we felt very much at home.

but for non-cheerfully-shouty couples, it might have been uncomfortable. one has to be robust. for as dr kilbey says, “no matter

how well you know people, you don’t really, really know them until you’ve seen them in their pyjamas and shared a bathroom with them.”

“Little things can be magnified when you’re in a confined space”