Parents to halt free trips because kids forgot about them
DEAR CAROLYN: Our family consists of three families, including my husband and me; our son, his wife, and two college-age children; and our daughter, son-in-law and teenage son. Every other year we heavily subsidize a family trip to various countries. This year the gathering is also a celebration of a grandchild graduating from high school.
Neither family lives close to us. During the past year, one family has never checked on our well-being, even though covid has been raging around the country. Recently my husband was injured, too, and they have never asked about him. We also live near the Capitol, and during the riot in Washington, they never checked on our safety. Ditto for the son-in-law in the other family.
My husband and I agree we don’t want to subsidize a trip this year, but we’re unsure how to say that in a way that doesn’t fracture our family or hurt the feelings of the graduating senior. We would appreciate your thoughts.
— Conflicted DEAR READER: I won’t defend these families’ recent negligence. It hurts.
But I also won’t endorse your idea of scrapping the trip out of pique. (Scrapping for covid, though? Absolutely.)
You just got a strong message that your family unity needs some thoughtful attention — so this is not the time to give it a kick to the groin.
Traveling together is your way of connecting. And the entire foundation of your question seems to be that staying connected is really, really important to you. So think goals, not self-defeating retribution.
You want the effort to go both ways, understandably, yes — and their effort is lacking. But unless you know more about why they’ve gone silent that you didn’t include in your letter, it’s possible they’re among the millions — roughly everybody? — who have been resoundingly not at their best through this mess.
So if you’re open to even the slimmest justification for granting blanket forgiveness and starting over, there it is for the seizing.
I also hope you’ll take a deep breath — once your hurt feelings settle, if they’re still swirling — and talk to your kids, calmly and directly. Check on their well-being, exactly as you wish they’d have done for you. When you feel lost, treating others as you hope to be treated is true north.
And if you think it would help to know the reasons they’ve been distant, then ask them. Don’t make “You never call me!” a recurring theme of your relationships with your kids, seeing as it’s the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy — but also don’t be afraid on rare occasions to articulate what would make you happy, as long as it’s not too dramatic a change and you’re ready to take no for an answer.
And, finally, invite them to use this pandemic disruption to rethink the family trips. Do they still want them? Same schedule? Are their kids still game? Are they joys or obligations? Grant them immunity from hard feelings in return for telling the truth.
And if they’re all-in: Are they ready for more responsibility? If not now, then when? Presumably you didn’t raise ingrates.
In other words, another deep breath: Marshal your resources toward improving this family institution, not killing it. At least try. If it ends, then that’ll be, appropriately, a step the whole family takes.
Chat online with Carolyn at 11 a.m. each Friday at washingtonpost.com. Write to Tell Me About It in care of The Washington Post, Style Plus, 1150 15th St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20071; or email tellme@washpost.com