This year I took my very first child-free vacation. Yay me! And it was awesome. What had I been waiting for? But for eleven years before that, I couldn't bear the thought of leaving my kds, leaving them to someone else's care (even their father's), leaving them alone, without me, bereft of love and pancakes and goodnight hugs...
Yeah, well, I'm not alone. Tons of parents stay home from childless vacations and deny themselves a potential good time due to guilt.
In fact, 32% of parents polled recently said that in EIGHTEEN YEARS they had not once taken a vacation away from their kids. Um, hello, could we loosen the apron strings a little here? I'm willing to entertain the notion that those parents maybe couldn't afford a vacation; after all, we all know that kids are an expensive habit to maintain. And maybe some of these folks just lurve their kids so so so much that they wanted them along for every trip. There's that, too. I've enjoyed many a vacation WITH my kids.
But I'm just sayin', sometimes parents need a little non-kid time, you know?
"21 percent of
parents would feel guilty the whole time if they left the
children behind although fathers would find it easier to go." Well, hello, stereotype! And how about this: "More than a third of men -- 34 percent -- said they
wouldn't feel guilty at all at taking a child-free vacation
compared to only 16 percent of mothers." What, are we stuck in the 50's? What about it, dads? (I'm sure YOU are the exception).
What about you? Do you vacay with or without the kiddoes, or some of each? Is there guilt involved in staying home? And what would it take to feel good about getting away without them?
