When you’re a kid, going on vacation can be incredible – new places, plenty of fun, and time with your parents and siblings too.

But as a teen, this can start to change. You might find yourself resenting vacations and the time that you have to spend away from your friends, your normal life, the things that make you happy.

This all flips on its head again as an adult though, when vacations mean a break from work, from chores, and from the monotony of daily life.

However, the guy in this story is set on bucking that trend, and is having a major tantrum about being ‘made’ to go on vacation with his in-laws.

Read on to find out why he’s so upset about it.

AITA for not hiding my feelings about a forced family trip

My wife and I have two kids, aged eight and three.

Recently, my in-laws have invited (forced) us to go on a family cruise for a week.

It’s going to be them (both in their seventies), plus my brother and sister in-law (in their forties) and their two kids (aged thirteen and ten), alongside the four of us.

They’ve put pressure on my wife for us to go. My wife has then put a ton of pressure on me to go.

Read on to find out why this is an issue for him

Now that fact is, I’m going to go, there’s no way I’m avoiding that. But I’ve told her that this going to be one of the worst weeks of my life, I’m going to be absolutely miserable and I’m not going to pretend that I’m happy about this.

Our three-year-old (Let’s call him Tim) is right in the middle of his defiance stage, and he only listens to me.

I’d say about 75% of the time he does what I ask him (go pee, time for dinner, eat your dinner, time for school).

But the other 25% is a battle. It’s exhausting, but it’s part of being a parent.

And he’s anticipating this being a problem on vacation.

All of my in-laws have made it clear they will not be watching him at any point in time on the cruise, which is understandable, it’s their vacation, why spend it babysitting.

But therein lies my point. You’re making me go, and making me bring Tim, and now I have to watch Tim for five days non-stop, while the rest of you have yourselves a delightful vacation.

I’m going to be in the kiddie pool, or the playground or whatever else they have on cruises, bored out of my mind trying to get Tim to go to dinner, eat his dinner, take a nap, go to bed, get up.

This is hell.

This guy really isn’t taking the whole situation well.

My in-laws are aware of all of this but they don’t care and will continue to force my wife to force us to come. Family memories are great, but we’re not going to do ANYTHING as a family.

The seniors will do senior stuff, the thirteen year old will play basketball, the eight and nine year olds have no common interests, so the nine year old will be in the gaming room or whatever, and the eight year old will be watching a movie or playing.

This will leave me and Tim in the kids section.

The only time we’ll actually be together will be meals, where everyone will intrude on my parenting to convince Tim to eat his dinner. I will have to tell them to stop talking to him and get mad at everyone, because they only make things worse.

But there is some history that is making him feel this way.

The last trip they forced us to go on was an all-inclusive with no kids activities, when our eight-year-old was three.

She was bored out of her mind and threw hourly tantrums. Turns out she had an ear infection.

I got strep throat and both of us spent the four days in the hotel room miserable, while everyone else got to frolic around and have fun.

So now we’re doing this again.

AITA?

It’s understandable that this dad is a little frustrated that his concerns, and his children’s needs, aren’t being taken into account on the planning of this vacation.

But it really does just feel like he’s throwing a tantrum of his own, because he doesn’t want to go on vacation with his in-laws.

Sure it might not be super fun 100% of the time because he’s got to look after his kid – but as he rightly noted, as a parent, this is what he signed up for.

Let’s see what the Reddit community thought about this.

Some Redditors called him out for his attitude toward parenting.

While others pointed out that this might be a team effort.

Meanwhile, this Redditor told him to grow up.

It really feels like this guy is using the childcare issue as a shield for the fact that he simply does not want to go on this vacation. Honestly, it would be better if he just said outright that he didn’t feel it.

He can say no, he can stand up to his wife, he can even tell her parents that he doesn’t want to go.

And the rest of the family would probably be better off going without him, if his attitude is like this.

He’ll just bring the vibes down.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.