Vacation With Grandma

When I was growing up I was fortunate to be able to go on a four to six week vacation every summer with my family. We traveled mainly by car and mostly across the United States. By the time I was 18, I had been to 48 different states and Mexico and Canada (as well as a few countries overseas). My son has heard me talk about those experiences and is now begging to be able to do some travelling.

It is not realistic that we can take the kind of vacation I used to growing up but I was thinking about what day trips we could do. Even a trip to Niagara Falls or Montreal is feasible to do in a day. He was real excited about this possibility and began telling Grandma while we were over there this past weekend.

My son, meaning well, looked at me while Grandma was still right there and asked, “If it’s okay with Mommy and she can handle being around Grandma that much, is it okay if Grandma comes with us”. He asked that question a few times.

When we left I explained that you never want to ask a question like that in front of the person you are asking about. I told him that I thought it was very nice he was trying to be so considerate of the feelings of his Grandmother but there were possible problems that he might not have considered. I explained that Grandma gets tired fairly easily right now and that might mean less time to see the things he wanted to see. I explained that he should not say “If it’s okay with Mommy,” because than it puts the decision all on her. I then asked, “Besides, are you going to want to listen to Mommy and Grandma argue all the way on the drive?”

My son actually agreed that I had some good points. Again, his heart was in the right place but I think that it is important you see the entire picture. Sometimes when you are caring for a parent, you just need to get away for a little bit and I certainly wanted my wife to have that option.