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Because we’re homeschoolers, we’re able to go on vacations during others’ off-season. We’ve rented a lake house for a week in September, less than an hour from home, at a very nice rate; my parents-in-law may be able to join us. We’ve done some oceanside vacations on the same basis. The house cost is less than $1,000, and “survival” costs, food and so on, are no different from being at home. (More families should try this - declare an exposure to Mexican Flu if you have to!)

I think when the younger girls in the family you mention get their opportunity to travel with Dad, they’ll get over their envy of the older sister. As I said, teenage girls are Like That. My brother was in the Air Force when I went on most of my big trips with Dad, and Mom was happy to be rid of both of us! Dad has Alzheimers Disease now, and isn’t able to do many of things with his grandchildren that we had hoped he could, but on his next visit here, I plan to get out the pictures of our trip to the Big Bend to remind him. We made it rain there for the first time in a year!

It appears you’re doing things together as a family as well as individual attention. That’s great, and as you say, more families should do such things.

I guess my problem has been knowing this family could do the same (perhaps not to extent you do but they could find things to do as a family when time permits) but don’t make the attempt. Then, when an idea comes along, it’s limited to one sibling at the apparent (self-inflicted?) expense of the others.

I was an only child so never had such issues growing up. But I have no doubt that my parents would have treated all of us the same. Not to say that if I had a sibling, one of us or the other wouldn’t have ‘special’ time with dad or mom occasionally. But that wouldn’t be a big deal because we’d know that it would even out, and there’d always be the family ‘thing’ to rely on. That isn’t the case here, and I think the dad’s attention to who’s apparently his favorite has left marks.