My wife and I came to the conclusion that our vacations are generally quite stale, and something a bit unusual might be necessary to build strong, interesting memories for our three kids (12, 9 & 7). During our ‘brainstorming’ we opted to involve the eldest, our history obsessed 12 year old boy. He pretty soon came across a website manorcastles.com which has a bunch of luxury castle hotels, i.e. castles to stay in Europe, mainly in Ireland and Scotland.

Me and my wife had been to Europe twice before, and before he was born. He had asked us a few times before to take him there and we always said no: too much expense, too much time, too much hassle. But this year, mainly, too much expense, especially if a stay at some kind of castle is involved. He really adores history though and has over the years developed himself quite an obsession with medieval Europe. Not all that unusual though of course, and well, he could just as well be pouring his mental energies into some other far more destructive pastime.

He is generally a great kid; complains about very little, is responsible and pretty mature for his age hence we involved him in some of the vacation pre-planning. But from that discussion on he has been sulking about no.1: not being taken to Europe and no.2: not staying in a castle hotel in Ireland or Scotland, something which can obviously be pretty expensive.

We couldn’t afford it we decided, and moved on, while also being quite disappointed with our, formerly good, son’s new attitude. Then, having still not decided how or where to spend our vacation, my wife’s parents, who dote on him, got wind of the situation and have now offered to fund the entire thing, castle hotels and all. I can’t accept this on principle, I feel I’m being undermined, insulted and kinda manipulated by both my in laws and my own son, though part of me would love to treat him to such an experience. My wife is undecided but, though she feels quite undermined too, she is leaning towards accepting, she says we could treat it as a loan.

It would be fine to turn down the offer except for the fact that our son now knows about it; another source of annoyance with my in laws, as I feel it undermines our authority in his eyes and could set a bad precedent for the future. So, what might be the best way forward? If we swallow our pride, go to Europe and stay in some luxury castle hotel in Ireland or wherever, will this be a once in a lifetime opportunity that our family will appreciate forever? Or will it just be setting a very bad precedent for the future?