Now, two weeks before the show starts, a couple’s babysitters fell through, so they’re bringing their child. Once they shared this news, the other set of parents said they would bring their child as well, almost as a favor to the first couple (company for the child). I love these kids – who call me “Auntie” – but now I don’t want to go on a trip. A little kid I could have worked with graciously. Two completely changes the tone and tenor of the trip and takes four of my friends away from me, as they will now be busy for hours every day with children’s business.
The money is already spent and I am sensitive to the fact that parents feel bad or abandoned. But I feel like my trip is ruined in advance. What is the right decision here?
Baited and switched: I’m so angry with you that I can’t come up with an answer right away. You’ve lost something important, but if you speak out, you’re an ogre.
Here are your bad options, as I see them:
· Cancel and lose money.
· Go and try to make the most of a trip you never would have agreed to take.
· Speak up and say, “Wait, bringing kids isn’t the trip I agreed to!” ”, knowing that this will likely create embarrassment in one form or another. This is because their choice is to bring the kids anyway, always keeping in mind that you are angry about it; leaving the children at home in the care of Team B and feeling coerced; and abandon the trip and both lose money and deduct good friends from the friend experience you planned and paid for. Am I forgetting something?
· Ask them to bring or hire some kind of parental help who can free up the parents for parties and a few short excursions, at a minimum. It’s big $$$, but I’m sure the sitter at home was going to run them a lot at first, so maybe it’s cost neutral.
I think the best of these bad options is to talk to your friends to make this trip as close as possible to the one originally designed, but it’s tricky and will depend on the quality of the friendships and the thickness of each person’s skin . And openness to changes.
I invited comments to compensate for my blind spots. A sample :
· Wow. That’s a lot of anger in Hax. What’s wrong with just going to have fun with the rest of the kids and spending time with the parents when you can?
· It really changes the tenor of the trip. Kids can’t do a lot of cool things, and they have to eat, nap, and go to sleep at specific times. The group may have planned restaurants that are not suitable for children. Something goes wrong, the little kid causes trouble and an excursion is ruined. It’s just a different journey now.
· I have kids, but I can’t stand most other kids, or how annoying parents can be with their kids. I wouldn’t want to go there either.
· The parents who lost the carer should have canceled and stayed home rather than unilaterally changing the terms of the holiday for everyone else.
