Travel Shaming and Responsible Parenthood

This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking one of the links on this post, I may make a small commission at no cost to you.

Through David’s work we had a chance to go to Hawaii in March.

That’s right. Hawaii.

David’s mom stayed with the kids, and we jetted off across the ocean for a week of not-real-life.

All we were responsible for was most meals and souvenirs. So before we left, we stocked up on instant oatmeal, easy mac, tuna, and trail mix, and I ordered some of these and this for the kids from Amazon ahead of time so we didn’t have to pay tourist prices for souvenirs. (Frugal travel hack!)

We weren’t at the hotel long before we were flagged down by a salesy person encouraging us to attend a timeshare presentation in exchange for some credit at the hotel.

Knowing we wouldn’t be persuaded and wouldn’t mind skipping a couple easy mac lunches in order to use our credit, we reserved a slot (only an hour-and-a-half, the salesy person promised!).

We were shuttled to an offsite location and ended up in a little office with a Hawaiian woman. We’ll call her “Kala.” Kala assured us that she just wanted to show us what they had to offer, and if we weren’t interested, that was fine. This was not going to be a high-pressure meeting. She’d ask us some questions, do a presentation, then her manager would come in, and we’d be free to go.

She started by collecting a little information. When we told her how many kids we had, her response was immediate and impassioned.

“Five kids? What happened?!?!”

I laughed awkwardly, and thank goodness David somehow didn’t catch her response or he would have walked right out.

Kala went on to show the quantity of places available through the timeshare program. (Most were coastal big cities, I noticed. To get to any of them would have required airfare for 7 people.)

She moved on to ask us about our previous vacations, in order to get a sense of our travel preferences, I suppose.

“Well, we’ve been on a cruise through David’s work, we took a Make-A-Wish trip to Yellowstone a few years ago, and otherwise we visit David’s parent’s cabin in Minnesota. I think that’s about it.”

“So you’ve never paid for a vacation before?” she asked with a mixture of shock and horror.

Nope. With ongoing medical expenses and having recently bought a splurgey handicap accessible home, we don’t have any wiggle room for anything other than essentials, we explained.

“So why did you come today? Was it just for the reward?”

Yes. We were completely honest. We told her that the first salesperson we talked to assured us they just wanted to get as many people as possible touring the new facilities.

This is where we hit a wall. See, the whole rest of the presentation was based on calculating the total a couple spent on vacations and then finagling the numbers so that the timeshare option was an actual savings.

Unfortunately for Kala, there was no way to make the timeshare less than our current budget of zipperoo.

“Somebody had to pay for that!” She almost shouted after she asked us to describe the things we did in Yellowstone.

David made a comment about preferring not going to his daughter having a life-threatening chronic illness, but no one asked.

I think we said something about being grateful for the opportunities we had been blessed with.

Although it was insulting, we just wanted to cooperate enough to fulfill our listening obligation. We had to sign a contract ahead of time saying that if we didn’t finish our meeting (or didn’t show up at all), that we’d be charged XYZ to cover the cost of blah blah blah.

Kala was obviously irritated. She went on to explain what a disservice we were doing to our children in not traveling extensively. She talked about all the exciting places she and her husband went with their two now grown boys.

She asked what our travel plans were for the future. “Probably going to the cabin every summer,” we answered honestly.

This also displeased Kala. She gave up and said we could tour the new timeshare facility being built.

We toured the unit, which was lovely. If our circumstances were different it wouldn’t be the worst way to travel with a big family. As another couple and salesperson came into the unit, we left to go back to the office.

Throughout this time, we kept trying to tell Kala that everything was lovely, but it probably wasn’t a good fit for us. She didn’t seem to get it.

When we returned to the office, we were back to the place of figuring out how much a timeshare like we had toured would cost.

She went on and on and on about the cost of this option and that option. On and on and on and on about how much of a good deal it was.

Finally, David said, “Let’s move on.” This seemed to finally fix the broken record, and she called in her manager.

He schmoozed in and shook our hands as Kala brought him up to speed. “They can’t afford it,” she snapped. The last step in our obligation was receiving a financing quote from the manager.

He took her comment in stride, scribbled some gibberish on a paper, and left the room with a quick “It was nice to meet you.”

We gave one final “we’re not interested,” and received our vouchers to use at the hotel.

Stumbling back out of our shuttle, we felt like we needed a vacation to recover from the sales pitch about vacations.

I guess it was worth it. We got two lunches out of the deal (I tried lobster tots and a moco loco burger; David had kalua pork nachos and a kimchi burger. We also split a “mahalo milkshake” which didn’t taste as boozy as it was and went by much too fast. We had enough credit left to bring a copy of this home from the gift shop for the girls.)

I didn’t like feeling shamed for having a big family. For being on a budget. To a certain extent, I didn’t like being pushed to answer The Big Question:

What is responsible parenthood? Is it to only have as many children as you can take to the zoo in San Diego, clothe in new Under Armour, and put through college? Or is to only have as many children as you can feed, clothe, shelter, love, and educate basically? Is there value in growing up in a home surrounded by lot of other people, if possible? Or doesn’t it matter much?

I know how we answer that question. Our furniture is almost all second-hand. David met someone the other day who paid more for their dog than we ever have for a vehicle. But our table is surrounded by (mostly) smiling faces who we pray will go out and make the world a better place.

I bet Kala’s boys really did have an amazing experience flying around the globe. But I’m not sure it’s fair to call it more valuable than our family trip to the same place each summer.

We trust that God will continue to provide for us as our needs (and some wants) are met in surprising ways. This summer we were able to stay with a relative in Wisconsin for a few days, which was a fun and affordable. (Thanks, Marla!)

The kids would love to see the ocean and to experience the wildlife (dolphins! manatees! whales!) of whatever bit of it they would be lucky enough to visit. But living in the centerest center of the country, such a trip might not be feasible.

The moral of the story, since I don’t have any answers to The Big Question, is that where your memories are made doesn’t matter so long as you are actually making memories. If you can afford a family trip to Italy, Congratulazioni! There shouldn’t be any shame in going places, just like there shouldn’t be any shame in *not* going places.

Responsible parenthood isn’t black and white, and it’s not one-size-fits-all. Neither the family with one child nor the family with twelve children really need any outside commentary about their life choices.

Most importantly, if you happen to get to Hawaii for whatever reason, be sure to try that mahalo milkshake. And maybe skip the timeshare presentation.