Unless you are lucky enough to have married into to a magical unicorn family, chances are high that when the in-laws are planning a family vacation, at least a little bit of drama is going to come up at some point. It’s not always ideal to relax on the beach with your mother-in-law in your ear … but maybe we should just be thankful she invited us in the first place?
After one mother-in-law shared her hot take about traveling with her kids’ partners on TikTok, she sparked a lot of outrage — and a bit of a debate about whether or not it’s acceptable for moms to leave those daughters and sons-in-law at home to spend quality time with the children they raised, distraction-free.
Her video posed this question: “Is it wrong to take a family vacation without your sons or daughters-in-law?”
@grandmacampplanner It’s okay to have family trips that don’t include every branch of the family tree. #FamilyTrips #GrandmaCamp #InLawLife #FamilyDynamics #HonestConversations ♬ Spirit Lead Me – Piano Version – Clavier
“It’s absolutely okay to take a vacation — a family vacation — without your sons and daughters-in-law,” the OP, @grandmacampplanner on TikTok, said.
“It doesn’t mean you don’t love them, and it doesn’t mean they’re not welcome. It doesn’t mean there’s drama. Sometimes, you just want time with your own kids, the ones you raised, the ones you survived life with.”
She continued, “Honestly, in-laws might appreciate having the option not to go … a vacation without them might be the one thing that actually keeps the peace.”
She also argued that it’s not “excluding” them if they weren’t invited on the trip to begin with.
People in the comments are pretty angry.
This MIL’s opinion has a lot of people heated … especially the ones who believe that in-laws should be considered part of the family once they’re married.
“You do realize when they got married YOU became a branch, not them? Their family unit is the tree, you da branch,” one person wrote.
Another commenter warned her, “You’re going to miss seeing your grandkids grow up.”
Others suggested better ways to get quality time in with adult children that don’t involve excluding their partners.
Though some people could understand why she’d want that quality time one-on-one with her kids, they also suggested that rather than taking an entire family vacation without certain members of the family, they should do something like dinner instead.
“I agree that I want on-on-one time with my sons separately and together as well as time with each DIL and together but family vacations are for the whole family which includes partners,” a fellow MIL wrote. “One-on-one time is brunch once in a while.”
She shared a follow up video, but it didn’t seem to reassure anyone.
@grandmacampplanner Loving your sons- and daughters-in-law doesn’t cancel out wanting time with your own children. This is about connection, identity, and the way family shifts when kids grow up. It’s emotional, not exclusion. Be kind in the comments. #FamilyDynamics #MotherhoodAfter18 #InLawLife #EmptyNestHeart #GrandmaCamp ♬ Love peace and happiness – Caio Goltare
In her next video, she tried to clarify that her opinion doesn’t mean she doesn’t love her in-laws — instead, it’s because “sometimes a mom, especially a mom of adults, just misses her kids.”
Still, it seems that according to her viewers, she’s definitely still missing the mark here. “If you ‘miss your child you raised’ may I suggest a scrapbook?” one person suggested.
They do have a point. Loving your children often means loving and being welcoming to the people they’ve chosen to spend their lives with — why would you ever want them to feel left out of a family vacation?
