Is Your Parent And Step-Parent Worth A $400. Expenditure?
Here's a scenario that I was involved with awhile ago and I'd like to run it across with you and then seek your opinion and/or observations.
Awhile ago my dad and step-mother observed their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. My dad had three kids from a previous marriage and my step-mom had four kids from a previous marriage. That makes a total of seven grown kids, all married, all employed and all of them in their forties and fifties.
Since my dad and step-mom went to Hawaii on their honeymoon, and knowing that they would be thrilled for a return visit, I put together a package deal with a travel agency that would offer them a week in Hawaii, airfare, lodging and rental car included. If all seven kids contributed their fair share in paying for the cost of the trip, it penciled out to $400. per kid.
When I presented this proposal to the six other kids, their reactions (except for one) were such that you would have thought I was asking them to contribute $10,000. apiece. Either they or their spouses came up with cheaper, counter-proposals such as sending them on a boat cruise to Catalina or Ensenada.
My sister was the only one who sent me a responding email with the sentence, "I will do whatever it takes to send them to Hawaii."
So my question to you is this: If someone came to you with a package deal that could send one of your parents and a step-parent to Hawaii (airfare, lodging and rental car included) for $400., would you find a way to come up with the $400.? Remember, this is for their 25th wedding anniversary and they're getting into their advanced ages when mobility and other complications are going to make travel more difficult for them as time goes on.
Could you find the $400.? Under these circumstances, is your parent worth a $400. expenditure such as this?
M_P
Awhile ago my dad and step-mother observed their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. My dad had three kids from a previous marriage and my step-mom had four kids from a previous marriage. That makes a total of seven grown kids, all married, all employed and all of them in their forties and fifties.
Since my dad and step-mom went to Hawaii on their honeymoon, and knowing that they would be thrilled for a return visit, I put together a package deal with a travel agency that would offer them a week in Hawaii, airfare, lodging and rental car included. If all seven kids contributed their fair share in paying for the cost of the trip, it penciled out to $400. per kid.
When I presented this proposal to the six other kids, their reactions (except for one) were such that you would have thought I was asking them to contribute $10,000. apiece. Either they or their spouses came up with cheaper, counter-proposals such as sending them on a boat cruise to Catalina or Ensenada.
My sister was the only one who sent me a responding email with the sentence, "I will do whatever it takes to send them to Hawaii."
So my question to you is this: If someone came to you with a package deal that could send one of your parents and a step-parent to Hawaii (airfare, lodging and rental car included) for $400., would you find a way to come up with the $400.? Remember, this is for their 25th wedding anniversary and they're getting into their advanced ages when mobility and other complications are going to make travel more difficult for them as time goes on.
Could you find the $400.? Under these circumstances, is your parent worth a $400. expenditure such as this?
M_P