Since when does midwinter mean trip? Outing?

watergirl

Fri, Feb 12 2016, 2:40 pm

seeker wrote:

Just by the way, teachers have been asking "what did you do over vacation" since time immemorial. It's not their fault the answer changed from "made a scrapbook for my baby sister" and "played balderdash with my cousins" to florida or bermuda.

I didnt say it was the teachers fault!

lfab

Fri, Feb 12 2016, 2:53 pm

lfab wrote:

Just because they SAY everyone went away doesn't actually mean everyone really did go.

seeker wrote:

My oldest is only 5 and I've already learned that it only takes one person to bring up the issue of haves and have-nots. Which just goes to show that it is way more important to figure out how to teach being un-envious and happy with what you have rather than try to fit in. Exactly one person in her class took a real family vacation this winter, and I have no problem "farginning" one family their vacation - I imagine most families want to do something nice together once in a while if they can. But one girl was enough to just raise the question "Can we go to florida too?" followed very shortly by "Why not?" and you need to be ready with the answers.

I understand that all it takes is 1 person who did go away to make a child feel this way. My point in making that statement was to ease the parent's guilt. Rest assured that no not EVERYONE actually went away (even if your child claims and feels that way). My oldest is only 7 and she also came home from school a few days before her winter break saying mommy can we away for vacation all my friends are going away. Now I happen to know several of the mothers in her class and I knew that they were not going away as they had work, etc. So I started listing specific names is A going away? is B? When she answered no it led to a discussion about how different families get to do different things. And even if it's hard and feels like other people are doing more exciting things this is not what we are doing right now and we are going to try to have as much fun as possible even though we are staying home for vacation (I didn't even bring up the money issue as I didn't want to make the conversation about money but rather about not looking at what others have and/or are doing but rather focusing on the good that we have and the fun things we will do). But, even knowing that my kids were not the only ones in this situation, I still felt bad that I had to go to work and that my kids didn't get to do anything particularly exciting over vacation. So my point was just because your child says everyone else is... chances are no not everyone else is... and there's no need to feel guilty about it.

amother

Vermilion

Fri, Feb 12 2016, 2:53 pm

seeker wrote:

I would love to hear how you pulled that off. Sounds perfect.

I'll PM you

fmt4

Fri, Feb 12 2016, 2:56 pm

I think it really depends on the school. When I was in elementary school, which was a big mix, I remember being One of the only ones who went away for midwinter. But once I got to high school, where most of my classmates were wealthy, it seemed like everyone was going to somewhere warm or skiing. I imagine there were probably a few girls who didn't, but because most girls had similiar backgrounds monetarily, it wasn't such a bit issue. That's why it can hard to attend a school where there are big disparities in wealth. The poorer girls are always going to feel bad.

amother

Fuchsia

Fri, Feb 12 2016, 3:17 pm

I think this has changed a lot over the past 10-20 years. When I was a kid growing up in my community many families were home for winter break or maybe did a local trip. Now in that same community most people fly somewhere. (Yeshiva week here is the same for all schools and is about 10 days). Even families with babies and very young kids. I can see that it creates competition.

MMCH

Fri, Feb 12 2016, 3:27 pm

growing up we went away EVERY year.

there was no way my mother was entertaining us with day trips to museums and arcades, her worst places
My grandmother has an apartment in florida back then (90's) it wasn't that expensive to fly. and we were entertained for free btwn the beach and the pool.

now as a parent, and not being able to afford going with my kids to florida, its hard !
my kids are little, and sitting at home all day, with no structure makes all of us bananas!
I spent A LOT of $$$ mid winter break doing day trips.

I dont think this is a new thing, people have been spending $$ on vacation for a very long time.

sky

Sat, Feb 13 2016, 10:30 pm

seeker wrote:

I would love to hear how you pulled that off. Sounds perfect.

If you want to get away try booking a place using hotwire you can get pretty good deals (and use betterbidding.com to know what you are getting). Is Harrisburg too far from you - there are some free tours in the area, Hershey Chocolate world ride is also free, young kids may enjoy that.

amother

Salmon

Sat, Feb 13 2016, 11:11 pm

seeker wrote:

Whoa. That's crazy. When did that happen? I went to HS in NY only... well maybe not such a short time ago. But when we had midwinter vacation it was about a week and I remember spending some of it sleeping in and being lazy, and other days doing things like going to fao schwartz with friends and taking goofy pictures, playing in the snow if it snowed, maybe for a splurge spending an afternoon at a pottery painting place. Things like that. Any of the popular chol hamoed attractions that are indoors. If anyone took a farther vacation it was something like taking a bus an hour or two north for snow tubing or maybe even skiing if you were really fancy.

seeker, I believe this amother 100%
I had the same midwinter vacation experiences as you and loved it! (Graduated HS abt 12 years ago)
Different world now. As to your question of when did this happen, so in the past few years slowly more and more families would make the trip down, but it wasnt crazy. But this year was literally a huge huge amount of people went there. I dont have numbers obviously but it wasn't a normal amount of families who packed up and went to either Miami or Orlando. (which is why I wasnt surprised at this thread- I was waiting for it to happen)
I am talking about the Bais yaakov and yeshiva families in flatbush because those are my circles. I know other circles have been more into this for a while (the more modern crown has been going, the syrian crowd, etc..) and it used to be a thing for wealthy people. now it seems like everyone just followed their friends and flew down. I can't understand how so many families managed to do this, both monetarily and with taking off work.
Whatever. you can tell I'm worked up about this.

I am actually worried for next year. People who stayed here in nerdy brooklyn and it was SOOO BORING OMG, are already planning their next yr vacation to florida bec they dont want to be out of the loop.

BTW, a lot of this is not cause of kid pressure. There's huge pressure among the adults to do the cool thing. It's part of keeping up with the cohenses.

Sat, Feb 13 2016, 11:49 pm

We do day trips midwinter. Some people go away, some don't. I'm not aware of competition among kids or families.

Ruchel

Mon, Feb 15 2016, 8:12 am

My daughter has classmates who've NEVER been on a plane/to another country.

If most girls are spoiled it CAN be worth changing the school...

amother

Yellow

Mon, Feb 15 2016, 9:04 am

amother wrote:

this, Why do teachers feel the need to go around the room and ask each child what they did? Whats the purpose? To make the girls that went away feel superior and the ones that didnt inferior? I felt bad for my daughter when she told me the teacher asked the kids this.

in my teachers training program (Europe) we were told not to ask this question any more since the answer will be "hanging out at the mall"

Ruchel

Mon, Feb 15 2016, 9:07 am

It's an old school thing to make kids talk about their vacay.
Once upon a time people were more homogen in the same school, and also more tough and resistant, we didn't shelter them from more or less lucky...