This Grandma Says There's Nothing Wrong With Leaving In-Law Spouses Out Of Family Vacations

Picture, for a moment, that your spouse came up to you and announced that he was going to take a trip with his parents and his siblings...and you were not on the guest list! You don’t even get a courtesy invite. How would you feel about that? For one grandma, this is how she operates her family unit, and she doesn’t see a damn thing wrong with it.

TikTok user @GrandmaCampPlanner shared that she does this exact plan with her own family, noting that, “It’s okay to have family trips that don’t include every branch of the family tree.”

“Okay” for who, exactly?

In her video, she begins, “Let me say something a lot of parents are afraid to admit. Yes, it's absolutely okay to take a vacation, a family vacation without your sons and daughter-in-law.”

“And it doesn't mean you don't love them. It doesn't mean they're not welcome. It doesn't mean there's drama. Sometimes you just want time with your own kids, the ones you raised. The ones you survived life with. The ones you rocked through teething and heartbreak and their first apartment. That relationship deserves its own space too,” she says.

Doesn’t excluding someone from a family trip mean that they are definitely not welcome? We’re confused over here, but she continues, doubling down on this logic.

“And honestly, in-laws might appreciate having the option not to go. Trips are expensive. Schedules are tight. People have jobs, kids, routines and needs. A vacation without them might be the one thing that actually keeps the peace.”

Then she says the most ass-backward, diabolical thing I’ve ever heard: “And listen, there's a big difference between excluding someone and planning something that isn't meant to include everyone.”

Okay...sure!

She continues, “Families are allowed to have branches; not every branch has to be on every trip. If you love your in-laws, make sure they know it. But also honor the part of your heart that still loves the ‘just us’ moments with your original crew. Both can be true. Both can be healthy. So, tell me in the comments, would you or your in-laws be offended or totally relieved if you took a trip without them?”

The comments were...not on Grandma Camp’s side on this one.

“I feel a ‘no contact’ in her future,” one user joked.

“Nope. Once your child is married, their partner IS family,” another said.

Another wrote. “Dinner ? Yes. A visit? Yes. Vacation, no”

“You do realize when they got married YOU became a branch, not them? Their family unit is the tree, you da branch,” another pointed out.

One user wrote, “Space is one thing: vacations are another — take your bio kid to coffee; but the whole family to Disney”

In a follow-up video, Grandma Camp’s daughters made an appearance to share their thoughts on this whole taking-a-trip-without-in-laws thing.

“We're the daughters, and our in-laws don't give a s**t,” they say.

“If they did, they're insecure. Leave them. And you can take mother-daughter trips and father-son trips, and that should be okay,” they say.

Unfortunately, a mother-daughter/father-son trip is not what Grandma described in her video.

One user reiterated this point and wrote, “‘Girls trip’ is not the same thing as a ‘family vacation.’ Also, ‘vacation’ is a loaded word to use. It invokes planning, travel, extensive time off of work, higher expense, etc. A ‘trip’ could be a weekend. Words matter. And y’all are using different words.”

Another user pointed out a very good point and said, “Know who comes on our mother-daughter trips with my sister and my mom? My two sisters-in-law. It’s the five of us together. And if my dad and brothers were going to take a trip, they’d bring my husband and my sister’s husband too.”