@1stjohn0666 My Dr. brother does not live near us. Most of us live near one another. They do at least one of the 3 weeks at a beach where we can do day trips to see them or stay overnight for part of their trip. They do a more expensive trip for just them but we would be welcome to tag a long if we wanted to. They do not use their vacation weeks to visit us.
From what you describe, my family is more like yours. Less frequent, kids prioritized, equal efforts. We see doctor brother for a holiday or two during the year sometimes depending on his schedule or day of the week. Sometimes they will schlep out to us to drop the kids so they can do an overnight for a wedding or birthday. It’s more typical for my parents to go out to them to babysit if they have to do a longer kid-free stay.
@1stjohn0666 If he’s a resident this might be his only time available to see his family. Residency is temporary but awful. I’d consider that after he finishes training there will be a lot more room for him to see them AND you guys to take nuclear family trips.
@1stjohn0666 My husband is from another country. We try to visit his family once a year but when we do that it needs to be at least a two-week trip. He’s a teacher so we either do that over the summer or at Christmas.
My family has a condo at the beach and I have extended family up there. We try to see them once a year and usually invite friend(s) to come with. We are trying to prioritize doing a nuclear family vacation once a year but it’s just hard financially to make all these things happen and not break the bank.
@1stjohn0666 We do one vacation as a nuclear family every year. My ILs take my kids for the last two weeks of the summer, so that satisfies them from a visiting requirement.
Otherwise, we rotate Thanksgiving. My family, his family, then we host and whoever from both families shows up.
@1stjohn0666 Our parents are 4-6 hours away, my brother is on the other side of the country (US). We do long weekends to visit in-laws, so maybe stay 2 nights. We do this a few times a year. I haven’t been home since Xmas 2021, my parents come to me - my mom comes a lot (retired), my dad maybe once or twice a year. In-laws also come to us every few months. Finally saw my brother a few months ago after not seeing him in person since 2018! He finally met my kids (3y and 4 month). We have done 1 vacation (week long) with in-laws and won’t do that again for many years. Our vacation time is mainly used in small increments and not a week at a time. I do think once you have a family that your vacation time should mainly be used on your family. The long weekends are good for that. I have a flexible schedule so I can move hours around to get my time in, so long weekends don’t impact me time wise a lot. Due to that, I take the day off before and after to pack/unpack and do errands (husband works, he doesn’t actually have “time” to take, he’s a lawyer and it’s “take whatever time you need as long as you hit your hours”, which means you don’t have a lot of time to take, lol)
Edit: I am very close with my family, so we face time a lot, usually everyday with my mom. My husband talks with his parents maybe once a week. We talk to our siblings less as we are all doing our own thing.
@1stjohn0666 We do not live near any of our family and my husband has similar leave as yours (I have more). We use 2 of DH’s 3 weeks to visit family, 1 to go on our own vacation. My family comes to visit us usually twice a year and his we offer to fly out for LO’s birthday. I would definitely recommend using at least one week for a real vacation!
@1stjohn0666 I don’t take vacations to see my family only to see my family; I do it for the a taste of the free child care everyone else seems to get every day. Then several times to drop off my son at my parents and do a mini road trip with just my husband. Highly recommend.
@1stjohn0666 We spent our early career years using all vacation to see family and did a nuclear family only long weekend now and then. As our vacation time built up we started doing week long nuclear family vacations every few years. We are now at the point where we can do this every year.
@1stjohn0666 I have almost no pto. We haven’t taken a real vacation since our kid was born, it’s all spent traveling to my parents who are halfway across the country. Thanksgiving and Christmas are always fraught because it’s a battle between which grandparents get the big day. This year we hosted Christmas which made it easier for travel. I would love to do a real vacation someday.
@1stjohn0666 Can I just say how comforting it is to see so many people on this thread who don’t live near close family? We have to travel as well, and at this point I explain it to myself that it’s worth it to see cousins and grandparents, but it’s hard to never be at home at any school break. (I’m a teacher so luckily I get the same breaks as my elementary aged kids.) My sister’s family is 7 hours away in the same state, but her husband has a very demanding schedule, like even working on thanksgiving day and Christmas Eve (sports broadcasting) so she always wants to host. I WANT TO HOST TOO. But then I know they won’t come. I’m torn every holiday.
@1stjohn0666 We’ve always considered thanksgiving the “family” holiday so that’s when we would visit far away family on the other side of the country. Otherwise we do what we want for vacation!
@1stjohn0666 With my ex we used our vacations to visit his family and it pissed me off. With my current husband we try to do joint vacations when possible to a neutral location. Real vacations.
@1stjohn0666 We don’t live near family, so we use our vacations to see them. My parents live in Florida, which is a popular vacation area so it’s easy to have a vacation there and do vacation-y things together and not just sit at home. We always spend Thanksgiving then (except this year due to our newborn!) in Michigan to see family and that feels a bit less vacation-y because it’s the holidays and we aren’t packing our schedules with nonstop fun things but rather spending time with everyone. Our vacations previous years included a vacation around a family wedding in Wisconsin, a vacation around a friend in Michigan, things like that. We haven’t taken a vacation vacation since we eloped to a gorgeous national park a few years ago.
@1stjohn0666 My husband immigrated to my country of origin and we live close to my family (Him - Southern Hemisphere, Me - northern hemisphere). It’s a 14 hour flight between our two home cities. We spend the vast majority of our PTO seeing his family. Our compromise is our nuclear family has a 3-5 day vacation in the region, separate from his family. We are happy with this arrangement.
@1stjohn0666 We're still working through this as well. We have one 3 year old and another on the way. We have ample PTO (5-6 weeks ish). Both families live in the same state but a good 6-10 hours drive away from us, depending on which one. We also have close family in California.
Really most of our vacation time is spent with family. We do small little trips of just us here and there and those seem to fulfill our needs so far for family time. Part of this is because a) travelling with small children is really hard b) expensive and c) our family tends to be mostly helpful when we are travelling, so it feels like a real break from work and daily stress rather than just the same work elsewhere, if that makes sense. One of my fondest memories of recent trips was enjoying a mojito at my in laws lake house, staring at the lake, while my FIL walked a fussy baby around the yard for an hour in a stroller.
We've also invited those family members on trips and that has gone quite well. Like suggesting to the in laws that they join us at xyz vacation. You get babysitters, knock out a family visit, and your preferred vacation all in one. Highly recommend this route IF your relatives are helpers.
@yoshs i’ll have to try this suggestion! make it a “real” vacation but invite the ILs.
when we have visited my FIL, we’ve stayed at their house in NYC but in the burbs.. so weve just milled abt their house. boring and also kind of weird for me bc FIL remarried and has high-school aged kids (my husb’s half sisters), so it’s like another degree of separation.
@1stjohn0666 We visit my family once a year. My parents visit us once a year. Last year my kid and I flew up to see my mom and the rest of the family when my mom had a heart attack. My husband’s family lives here. My siblings have all visited rarely have all been down at some point. I’ve been doing this for over 20 years now, about 10 with my kid. We didn’t go visit during his younger years till he was 4z
@1stjohn0666 The first year after our son we spent going to visit family. That was so exhausting with a LO we decided that the second year everyone could come to us or we'd use the time at home or doing small day trips around the area as a family.
