Differing parenting styles, adult relationship dynamics … Guardian columnist and author Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett devises a group holiday survival guide for parents of small children
As a child, I never went on group holidays. There was one memorable trip to Donegal to stay with my cousins, when I was seven, which saw my little brother split his head open on a drystone wall and me get my first kiss outside the Old Workhouse in Dunfanaghy (a romantic spot for the ages), but other than that, we stayed close to the Welsh beaches of home. All the better for eating chips while rain lashes the windscreen. So when I married into my husband’s family – he is one of nine children, and there are twelve grandchildren so far, including my three-year-old – piling into a holiday home together was new territory. In the more than a decade since, I’ve come to learn quite a lot about group holidays. Though daunting initially, I have come to love them – even more so since having my son. More of us than I care to count are off to a house in Weymouth in Dorset this August, and though I’m looking forward to it, I always feel a bit apprehensive, too. With that many people, especially young children, stuff is always bound to happen. Here’s my survival guide for maintaining sanity (with the fervent hope that my English in-laws never read THE GLOSS).
WHEN IT COMES TO ROOMS, YOU HAVE TO LIKE IT OR LUMP IT
It’s a golden rule of holiday cottages that while there is always one beautifully appointed master suite, the rest of the bedrooms exist on a scale of “fine” to “not really a bedroom” (the latter being always assigned to the childless male in the family, who is lucky if he gets anything better than a tent in the garden). How you are assigned a room varies from family to family. Ours tends to operate on a “you snooze, you lose” basis. Whatever box room/unconverted attic/fold-out bed situation you find yourself in, just don’t demand that anyone swap. It will only cause tension. Last year, when my son was two and not sleeping, we were allocated a “bedroom” (in name only – it had a bed in it) next to the downstairs kitchen. There was a hatch between the two, meaning that each morning at 6am we awoke to the clatter of my father-in-law unloading the dishwasher, and each evening we tried to put the child down to the sound of it being reloaded. Then there was the glass pane in the door that meant anyone walking through the hall was able to see inside. There was one spot where you could stand unobserved, which we came to affectionally call “the changing corner”. Did we complain at the time? Well yes, a bit, actually, but we didn’t moan. Will I try and use it as leverage to get a better room this year? Absolutely.
SAFETY FIRST
If, like me, your approach to child safety is on the neurotic side, all you can do when you realise you are staying in a death trap is some deep breathing exercises and a vow to become a helicopter parent for a week. Whether it’s an unfenced pool or unimpeded sea access, a distinct lack of stair gates or a creative approach to electrical wiring, if you have a toddler you’re just going to have to stay on the ball. Not the relaxing holiday that you had in mind, perhaps, but at least there’s the benefit of many pairs of eyes.
Big families can be overwhelming, especially to small children and those adults who are used to small units.
TRY NOT TO JUDGE
You know the saying: do not judge another parent until you have walked two moons in their Birkenstocks. Maybe they’re doing gentle parenting and you think their kid needs more discipline; maybe you’re doing the naughty step, and they see that as child abuse. All I can say is keep your counsel unless you want a row.
BE MINDFUL OF NOISE (AND TAKE EARPLUGS)
I vividly recall my sister-in-law and I – both childless at the time – liberally deploying our trademark white wine cackles in the kitchen one night on holiday, as our other sister-in-law desperately tried to get her then toddler son to sleep in the room above us (we may have also been listening to Move Bitch by Ludacris). Her demand that we keep it down felt unreasonably shirty at the time, but that was before the year of “dishwasher-gate”. Now we are the ones trying to settle screaming little ones, we totally get it.
YOU CAN ALWAYS GO AND SIT IN THE CAR
A tip from my toddler son for when it all gets too much.
SHARING IS CARING
From sharing the cooking to the childcare, this is one of the great joys of group holidays. OK, so you may have whipped up a 280-ingredient Ottolenghi feast while the next night your brother simply bungs in a bunch of jacket potatoes and plonks some beans in the microwaves, but that’s kind of on you. The point is that everyone contributes. Even grumpy teenagers can be cajoled into chopping some vegetables (it helps to let them choose the soundtrack). One of the lovely things about my many in-laws is how they approach meals for children. They don’t just cater to their own: every child is given a plate, and no one is keeping a tally. It just works. As for childcare: last summer, my husband and I were able to sneak off to Rick Stein for lunch while my sisters-inlaw watched our son. We were so grateful for the much-needed alone time, and it more than made up for having to get changed in a corner all week.
IT’S OK TO GO OFF-PISTE
After over a decade, my husband has just about forgiven me (I think?) for ditching his family on his 30th birthday trip to Lisbon to go spontaneously “out-out” with my sister-in-law. Look, big families can be overwhelming, especially to small children and those adults who are used to small units. Learning that you can’t do everything together, especially as differently aged kids will have different routines and priorities, is an important lesson. Now we often break off into smaller groups for meals, walks, or trips out. It’s less stressful for the children, and the adults get time to catch up one-on-one.
WINE HELPS
But hangovers and miniature steam trains don’t mix.
The Republic of Parenthood: On Bringing Up Babies by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is published on August 7.
