No Really, I’ve Never Taken My Kids to Disney World

Have I really failed my role as a parent?

Photo by Kenrick Mills on Unsplash

Next month begins the spring break season for school-aged kids across the country. Many families will be traveling to exciting destinations. Some will be going to warmer places like California, Florida, Mexico and the Caribbean islands.

Every year, especially during those years when our kids attended grade school, it seemed that when spring break week rolled around, almost everyone I knew, neighbors, co-workers and those ever-present friends on social media, all had made plans to travel someplace really cool during spring break week. I’m not sure if it’s the upper middle-class area where we live, or the ilk of those people that I work with, but it’s considered almost an abnormality of character if you did not have fixed plans to jet the family away to some fabulous destination for break.

As much as I’d welcome the indulgent vacation, with a milder climate, in mid-March, it’s just not something that my wife and I felt necessary to do year-after-year. It actually seems kind of frivolous in many ways to spend money that could be applied in better ways. But then when our kids go back to school and all the other kids are talking about their amazing time at Walt Disney World, it made me wonder if it had made my daughters feel sad, because we spent a day at a museum in Chicago and maybe went out to a movie and for Thai food one night.

And I always felt a bit awkward when people would tell me all about their grandiose plans of going on their Bahamian cruise or Mexican Riviera all-inclusive. And then they’d invariably get to a place where they ask, “So what are you guys doing for break this year?” I’m never quite sure how to respond — “Oh, us? Umm, we’re just planning to stay at home this year and do the ‘staycation’ thing” It’s really what we’ve done most every year. I mean who really wants to hear the truth? “Well our yard really needs a good clean-up and the garage is in serious need of purging and organizing, the windows need to be washed, both inside and out, and our gutters are full of those pesty little helicopter seeds…”

It’s not like we haven’t gone to some nice destinations over the years — it’s just that it’s far-and-few between. We were actually fortunate that we…