We never take vacations and I refuse to go camping. We don't seem to have the time or money. My kids are very active and involved in sports and such. They also just play together alot. I have been wanting to take them to the Como Zoo, but it is at least an hour drive and we are just so busy lately. I work alot of weekends and my husband works week days. We are trying to get alot of work done on the house and we are trying to help my oldest (21) get her life straightened out and get her moved out of our house.

Anyway, to make it short, do you think my kids are being deprived by not having "family vacations" and such? Does everyone else take them? Are my dh and I the only people who would rather walk through fire than go camping?

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~Happiness is a large family~

I don't like creepy crawly critters, so that means I am noway nohow a camper!!!!
We didn't always go on a vacation in the summers when the kids were growing up.
We did go to the park, & swimming ALOT!!!!!

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We never had any family vacations just a few day trips here and there. My kids never complained and at ages 18 and 22 feel they had a wonderful childhood.

We have never taken a vacation. We just do a lot of family things together in the summer. I think that is what is important. We like to go to the drive in, or build a little camp fire at home and roast marshmellows, this year we are planning a few day trips to the fair, Darian Lake, and the museum. We thought for fun we might make one an overnighter and stay in a hotel somewhere and get breakfast in the morning. I don't think there is anything wrong with making your own fun at home.

I have only taken 2 family vacations and it was when my girls were infants so they don't even remember them.

They have just recently started asking when we will go on a vacation. This is the first year that I have had extra $$ to do extra fun things so I think that as long as they are active and you somethings together that what really matters.

We have never been on a vacation as a family. I took my boys to Disney with my mom a few years back and this year my parents asked if they could take my kids to Disney. We don't really like being away from home that much, lol. My husband and I are just too homebody-ish, I guess, but we do things with our kids around our own town and in the nearby cities. I don't think your kids are deprived because you don't take vacations. Just spend time with them when you can, like I'm sure you do, and they'll remember their childhoods with good memories.

Well no to THIS part. I hate camping too. I did it with my scouts when I was a girl scout leader since I thought I was "supposed" too, but can't imagine doing it on my own unless my kids really, really begged. Luckily ds gets to camp with scouts, and dd has now moved into the "don't like camping" camp also.

Yes and no to the other part of the question. No I don't think your children are horribly deprived or will be axe murderers if you don't go on family vacations. We only took one family vacation growing up and it was about 2 days. The rest of the time all the vacations were to visit relatives who lived on a farm....fun but nothing too different. BUT...I do think there is value to vacations as a bonding experience. We're like you with older kids that are involved in a million things (which we & they like), so when we took our vacation to Williamsburg recently we had all four of us confined in a car together for 12 hours each way. It gave the kids lots of time to talk and share things they might not normally. I actually enjoyed traveling with them. Plus it gives us a "shared" experience to talk about and reminisce over.

I think as long as you have plenty of "family" outings, be they one day or two wks, it's fine. A day to the zoo would be nice though...so GO!!!

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We think family vacations are important. This is the first summer we arent going anywhere due to financial constraints. We do camp as well, but not sure if we're doing that due to scheduling constraints.

My family growing up always took 2 vacations, one in the summer and one in the winter to go skiing. No, we were not rich by any means and to this day I am amazed that my mom found money for these trips every year as they lived paycheck to paycheck as we do now. Several times we had taken friends of ours with us on these vacations and I will tell you, to this day, they STILL talk about it. Friends I hadnt seen in 20 years say how much they loved that vacation they took with us (these were weeklong trips, nothing fancy, could have been a rented house on a lake somewhere) it was the best and unfortunately, the ONLY vacation they ever had growing up. So yeah, I think its really important.

We never had family vacations growing up. I mean you can't really tell a herd of cows to stop milking for a week or so, just so we can go away for a few days! On top of that my parents were both highly involved with community things and church things. They were always busy....ALWAYS.

What my parents used to do, was to take us on day trips: air shows, beach days, bike rides, or a quickie overnight stay at a local hotel WITH A POOL!! Dad would still leave in the morning to milk the cows but would come back and hang out with us at the hotel/pool. I know that sounds silly but to us kids it meant everything to just have our parents all to ourselves and to have a pool to swim in !!!!

I wouldn't say your kids are deprived of anything, except spending time as a family unit. There are so many of you, that maybe just taking a day off to spend time together would be a nice change of pace: rather than rushing here and there and work and personal issues to deal with

I think you're a great mom and you always put your kids first. ALWAYS.

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We don't take family vacations either (more then a night here or there for shows) and my DH will join you in fire walking (rather then camp)...so we can deprive our kids together

I think that you guys have so many other things you do, they will do just fine. Ya'll don't go your separate ways, the things you do together as a family to bond just happen to be other things.

Let me know when you are interested in going to the cities. If you want company, we will find a day and go up with you (separately but together of course, unless we charter a bus ).

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