Operation Homebody II

[ailbhe]

Currently, we spend at least one weekend in six away from home visiting other people. That seems like a lot to me. We enjoy it, of course, but it still seems like a lot. I think we need to work on having more people come to us (but we already have lots of that too!) or possibly cutting down the overnight visits in our lives quite seriously.

I'm going to bear that in mind while making plans for the rest of the summer, I think, because my natural instinct is to have stuff happening constantly. I feel guilty otherwise. But it doesn't suit Rob to have that much going on and I'm not sure it suits the children. Come to that, I'm not even sure it suits me.

Part of it is balancing visiting we have to do (relations who want to see the children because they "never" get to see them, which "never" varies from "never" to "not as often as they'd like") with visiting we want to do (some of the same relations, friends). And it would help if we didn't get sick just before visits we want to do, either.

I have no idea what's "normal" in these circumstances. Rob and I live quite near his family, a long way from mine (2-3 hrs vs 6-12 hrs travelling) - how often is "normal"? I sense a poll coming on.

[Poll #1166320]

Comments

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

Heh. I also wanted to answer for in-laws. His parents live across the street, and most of his siblings in the same city. We see them All The Time. (And go on family vacations with them at least 3 times a year. Argh.)

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Mine are divorced so Dad is in VT and we see him about 1x per year, but Mom is next door and I see her weekly.

The inlaws are in FL and we see them annually too.

N.

[clare-s.livejournal.com]

To put things in context my parents live half an hour away. We see my inlaws about once every 8 weeks or so as they live 6-8 hours away.

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

My parents live a good 12 hours travel (by plane) away from me, but really make the effort to see their grandchild. My sister only lives a few hours away, but she's so insanely busy that it's hard to get together..... My parents-in-law are dead, and my brother-in-law lives in California, and we see them every couple of years.

[artela.livejournal.com]

My only sibling lives in Spain and we were never that close, so I never see her and we only communicate by email a couple of times a year.
I see my parents roughly every 18 months or so (but always by going to see them, not them coming to see us), however phone calls happen in between.
We see his family more often than my family (once or twice a year), and again, phone calls happen in between.

[calieber.livejournal.com]

I'm a bit stuck on the first, having almost completely cut off relations with my father while wanting to see my mother the same amount or a bit more, and they remain married.

[perdita-x.livejournal.com]

I see my parents anything from multiple times a week to once every other month.

I've seen my brother for a few days in the past year - not even a happy birthday. I see and spend time with Liz whenever we're in the same chunk of the country - and that only happens in school holidays that we have money for.


Sometimes I do wish I could see my siblings more - but I remember how stressful seeing my family can be (away from CCDE type things).

We also happen to visit Kian's parents at least once a month, if not a few times a month especially in school holidays (two younger brothers and mum all at schools).

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

Hmm, no option for "never"? One parent is dead and the other I basically never see.

[sidheag.livejournal.com]

My parents are not really speaking to me ATM, which is why less would be better, but probably not for Colin. Approx. current normal seems to be us going there once a year, them coming here once a year. My brother lives in the same city that my parents live in, which is 7 or so hours' drive away, and basically we only see him when we visit my parents. But then there's DH's mother and his stepmother, and my godmother (who is fantastic and lives closer, but still, it's more travelling as well as being good), etc. etc. It all adds up. In the end we probably spend less than one weekend in six actually away, but DH and I both unavoidably travel for work sometimes, and people visit (which is nice, of course) and in the end we too end up short of "just relax" weekends.

One thing I've started to do is to realise that going-away holidays don't have to start and end at weekends: if we're taking a week off work, going out on Monday and back on Friday often makes for more fun.

datapointing

[ex-serenejo.livejournal.com]

Everyone in my family of origin lives at least 500 miles (800km) away from me. I would love to see my mom several times a week, and I did when I lived nearer. Ditto my niblings. My siblings, I'd like to see more often, with the exception of one of them. In that one's case, never is too soon.

Re: datapointing

[ex-serenejo.livejournal.com]

on the siblings, that's "more often" than I see them now, not more often than several times a week.

[iuil.livejournal.com]

We live in the same town as my family. My son goes to the preschool that my mother teaches in, his best friend is his same-age cousin, my sister and I are members of at least two community groups together, mother and sister childcare for me when I'm at work. Short of going back to live in the same house again, I don't think we could see each other more often :-). I do see my brothers less frequently but usually at least once a week each.

My parents-in-law live about 60 miles away and we see them roughly once a week which is about 3 times a month too often for me (I have no objections to husband and kids seeing them more often if they want to, it just happens that we're less than 10 miles away from them every Sunday anyway).

[iuil.livejournal.com]

Oh, and my sister is more than welcome to comment to refute my statement since she's also on your FL :-).

[merryhouse.livejournal.com]

yes, I'd like an option for in-laws too.

Reading the comments, I have to say that it all sounds amazingly complicated. I thought *we* were weird, living 3 and 5 hours' drive from my and his families...

[k425.livejournal.com]

That's about how far away we are. We didn't see OldBloke's family last year - he kept failing to organise a visit. We visit my parents a couple of times a year, and Skype them once a fortnight.

I haven't seen my brother in about 4 years, but visited my cousin a few times last year to take stuff over for her new baby.

[mrs-warwick.livejournal.com]

I have seen more of my parents and siblings in the last 18 months or so than in the previous 3 years. Rhiannon has cousins of a similar age, and they get on very well together so I have been making an effort for her to spend time with them. I would like to see more of my brother, and get to know him better (he was 10 when I left home). At one point we were going to move to the west side of the country so we could be closer to my family. That may still happen in a couple of years.

[ai731.livejournal.com]

My parents live 20 minutes away by car, 1 hour away by public transit. I currently see them roughly once-a-fortnight, and would prefer to see them every week, but that would put too much strain on everyone's schedule right now. My father is in long-term care, so when I can see him is somewhat constrained by the visiting hours of the nursing home.

My sister lives in the UK and flies over once or twice per year; though sometimes I don't actually manage to see her when she's over because of scheduling problems, it would be nice to actually be able to see her every time she's over...

My inlaws live 35 minutes away by car, 2 hours away by public transit. We see them about 4 times a year (Christmas, Easter, and a couple of family gatherings such as birthdays). I wouldn't mind seeing them more often for shorter periods. When we do see them it tends to be a 4-6 hour visit. I would like to see them twice as often for only 2 hours at a time, but that doesn't seem to be anyone else's preference, so I'm stuck with the long visits.

[wingedkami.livejournal.com]

I see my parents twice a month because I stop off there on the way to my public speaking club. Otherwise it would be a lot less often, despite them being only 40 minutes away, but I think I'd miss them if I stopped visiting now.

My sister and I have never really got on, so seeing each other once a year at our parents' house at Christmas suits us both just fine. We can enjoy each other's company for a couple of days, but I suspect any longer would start to grate.

[kiya]

I could do with seeing my father more often and my mother not at all; I see them both at Christmastime plus occasionally when either we visit or when Dad comes to visit us (which he is actually doing at the moment).

I could do with seeing my brother more, but I try to see him at Christmas and am lucky to manage it ...

[tiggsybabes.livejournal.com]

My parents, like yours, are a plane journey away & we can only go & see them in school holidays, which is expensive. I haven't found flights cheap enough yet for us to go this summer :/

My MIL tries to come & see us for a long weekend once a month.

I make sure that we have down time planned into our weekends a sit does us all good to just have a day at & around home.

[sshi.livejournal.com]

My answers are rather skewed by the fact that my father is undergoing a course of chemotherapy and I'm currently spending something between one and three days a week over there, as neither of my parents have been consistently able to drive over the last few months. Before all of this happened I would see them about once every month and I think it would be better all round to be able to go back to that, as we're all having trouble doing the things that we want to. But c'est la vie.

My sister lives about 200 miles away and I have seen her much more often recently for the same reason. It would have been every six to eight weeks and is now more like every two or three? I would like to see her even more often, but that really isn't practical, considering where she lives! It's not even practical now, as she's doing all the traveling, not me.

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

I see my mother about 4 times a year when she is in London on business. I see my Dad less than that - I think he no longer feels able to travel without my mother, and her job makes non-work visits difficult. I feel a little guilty about not visiting them more often myself, but not massively, because it seems odd to go and visit without the kids and they've been sending mixed signals about whether or not they want to see them. Taking them would also be expensive because we'd have to stay in a hotel.