Our children resent the cash we’re spending on holidays

novelist, grandmother of four and ex-Blue Peter presenter Janet ellis, 60, answers your questions...

QMY HUSBAND and I are determined to enjoy every last second of our retirement. We go on five or six holidays a year and are out most weekends. But I’m starting to sense that our three adult children, who now all have families of their own, are increasingly resentful of the time we spend away.

It means we are not on tap to babysit. But more pertinently, although they’ve never admitted it, I can sense the raised eyebrows that we are spending money enjoying ourselves while they struggle to pay mortgages and bills.

Once a year, we treat them to a family holiday to spend time with them and our lovely grandchildren and we regularly pay for birthday get-togethers, but that doesn’t seem to be enough and it saddens me to think our own children begrudge our lifestyle.

They are so caught up in their own lives, they forget we spent years scratching around to make ends meet: I barely saw my husband — he commuted to London while I raised our children.

As for holidays, two weeks camping in Dorset was all we could afford. So why shouldn’t we get the most out of our time together now?

I’d do anything for my children but it breaks my heart that they can’t just be happy for us. We are not going to be around for ever.

AWHO says they’re not happy for you? You’re one of many newly-young retirees taking advantage of plentiful flights and good health. Unless you’re travelling first class, your children will know how relatively cheap travelling abroad is.

How fantastic you and your husband have weathered the demanding years of raising a family and are now enjoying financial security and each other’s company. Your success as a couple is a great example to your kids and it’s the reason they’re leaving you to it.

But your letter is a series of statements about how you feel and how you think your children feel. Each sounds like a brick in a defensive wall — are you sure you’re happy behind it?

There’s an underlying tension in what you say. You tell me life with a young family was hard for you, but don’t seem to cut your kids much slack with their own. You go away frequently, yet accuse your children of being caught up in their own lives.

Could it be that however much fun you have while away, there’s a niggle of sadness that your children don’t need you like they once did? Perhaps you feel you are losing the bond you once shared. Group holidays and birthdays are all very well, but they leave little room for intimate conversations.

You speculate about their feelings as if they all have the same attitude. Unlikely, as there are three of them. Perhaps you’re fearful about speaking to them individually — but if there are things you feel you haven’t addressed, getting it out into the open can only make you feel better.

That they haven’t said they mind you globetrotting means they’re probably more aware than you think of how much you’ve earned this freedom.

It’s more than possible that, far from thinking: ‘There goes the babysitter’, they may miss you while you’re gone, but truly wish you well.

You don’t need their permission to leave, but you might enjoy the trips more if you share the build up and travellers’ tales with them.