Can I invite a friend?
Sooner or later you will hear those words while planning your family vacation.
The question is beginning to be whispered around my house, although not yet asked seriously. I’m doing my best to ignore it, because I am absolutely greedy about time with my family when we are on vacation. But I know the whispers will get louder, and eventually I will have to have an answer.
On one hand, I understand. My daughter is 14 years old, and the only girl in the family. She doesn’t enjoy golf, ping pong or arcades as much as the boys, so she has started to feel left out. This is a new feeling, as they have always had a great time together when we traveled. She thinks that having a friend along would solve that problem, and for her, it probably would.
I see things a bit differently. I see the end of our guarded time as a family ,where we we have fun together, just the five of us. It is getting harder and harder to come by those times, which has kind of taken me by surprise. I knew it would happen, just not this soon.
Our schedule is typical for a family of five with kids ages 14,13, and 11. School, work, sports, plays, homework, sleep overs, and family commitments fill our days. Dinner, which used to be a family event, is now a fractured frenzy of eating sometime between 5:00 and 9:00 pm. Which brings me to my original point that time, as a family, is precious. I want to hoard it, and hug it to myself, and stop time from passing so quickly.
Am I being selfish? 
It’s a question I ask myself, and the answer does not come easy. For now, our family will still be traveling as a party of five. I suspect that at some point that will change, and I also suspect that it will present it’s own benefits and challenges. There have been times when we’ve taken friends on day and weekend trips, and I’ve gained a little peek into some of the issues that need to be addressed when you are going to be responsible for someone else’s child for a week or more.
Tomorrow, I’ll let you in on a few things I’ve learned along the way that you will want to consider when deciding whether or not to let your child invite a friend on a vacation.
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Debbie Ferm is the founder of Travel Dither , where she gets to talk with cool people about traveling with their kids.
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I think it more important to bring a friend for a girl. Girls seem to be socially paralyzed where a boy will have a bff 10 minutes after meeting another boy.
I don’t know if I would go so far as to say “socially paralyzed”, but I understand what you are getting at. It does seem that boys are better able to connect over something like basketball in the pool or other sporty type activities.
Thanks for your comment.