(Forgive the throwaway, I don't care if my husband knows my reddit account but I would rather my extended family not know it, and I don't know if they read this sub or not and I like to err on the side of caution).Our daughter is 12 - she turns 13 and going to high school next year. She’s right in that age where it has gotten hard in the last year or so to buy her Christmas presents because she is in that in-between age where she has outgrown things like toys and craft things and scooters, but is still a couple of years too young to get excited by receiving clothes like her 16-20 year old cousins, and she is not “ready” for things like make-up, hair straighteners, and brand new iPads/laptops (but she does have my husband’s old iPad and iPhone as her own, with her usage monitored).We didn’t know what to get her.She mentioned in passing a boyband she really likes is playing in London early next year but not coming to our country (we live in continental Europe). I know she has always wanted to go to London.My husband said to price it. Even though we are lucky enough that multiple budget airlines fly from our city into London so it is cheap to fly, it was still more than double what we planned to spend on her gifts.My husband was strangely insistent that I buy the concert tickets for myself and her, and that I book us plane tickets and a hotel for a 4 day long weekend.I asked my husband if he was sure and why he was so insistent we go when he is usually very adamant we are frugal and save because our life circumstances mean we are quite behind on that front.I asked him why and he said (paraphrased obviously, I don’t remember word-for-word and the conversation was in our native language) “this is probably the last time she will be happy to take a family trip with dad and mom. She becomes a teenager and goes to high school next year and then she’ll want to go on the school trips with her friends instead of trips with us. It’s normal, I don’t want to make her feel guilty for growing up, but I thought we should take that one last family trip with our little girl before she becomes teenager whose too cool to want to spend time with us, especially because we have not taken many”.It got me right in the feels. He is right. We haven't taken many family trips to be honest.At first I was afraid he wanted another child because he was nostalgic for her being young. She is an only child and we are one and done. She was born when we were 22 and 21, the pregnancy was completely accidental but I couldn’t bring myself to abort.It was hard when we were younger, we had not been working as we were students so only got the bare minimum parent payments, I had to put my studies on hold, and then my husband was working full time while I finished my studies and we had just one income. It was only a couple of years ago where we felt we really “caught up” a bit, and even so, we still feel behind. We talked about it and both agreed that while we loved our daughter, it was really hard when she was young and we were basically “halfway done” and neither of us wanted to go back to the start. By having a kid so young, she is going to be an adult when we hit our 40s, our 20 year old will be off at University and we can go and do some of the things we missed out on in our twenties because we had a baby/toddler/small child (that is one reason we try to be frugal, so we can do a few things in the future). And we are so lucky she is bright and has no special needs, we have seen that take a tole on people we know who have started to have kids. There is no promise a second child would be healthy.But no, he said it was really just that he remembers being a teenager. You don’t want to go skiing with your parents, you want to go on the school ski trip. When your parents tell you they are going out of town for your Uncle’s 40th, you don’t really want to go with them and beg to be allowed to stay at home or spend the weekend at your friend's house. You don’t want to hang out with your parents, you want to hang out with your friends. And he said he just wants to make a few memories with her before she hits that stage in the next year or two, and give her one last big present while she is still young enough to be excited instead of being like “oh cool, thanks so much” in a normal voice at a new Macbook like her cousin (who is not an ungrateful brat, she is just 20 and the magic of Christmas has worn off) or starts picking out her own presents, like I was doing by the time I was 14, or getting money because it was just easier.Anyway, she woke up this morning at 9am, the way you do when you are too young to wake up at 5am anymore but still young enough to want to get up and enjoy Christmas rather than sleeping to noon (like her 20 year old cousin would have if not woken to join for presents). Her cousin let her wear a little of her makeup. Nothing overpower, just a little lipstick and blush, but she was so excited to get to be a bit of a grown up.We gave her the tickets for probably the last time ever, she was an excited “little girl” on Christmas morning. It was the same reaction when she’d get that new dollhouse or bike when when she was little. All of a sudden, it didn’t matter that we are spending about €800 on London instead of getting her €200 worth of presents.My husband was right. In 30 years time, we won’t miss the €600 we didn’t put into our retirement account when we were 32/33. But we will remember how happy our daughter was this Christmas, and we will remember that one last trip we took with our “little girl” to London before she grew up and wanted to explore the world on her own and with her friends.I am glad we did it. I can't believe how quickly she has grown up. I can't believe it has been almost 13 years since March 2006 when she was born. via /r/Parenting http://bit.ly/2PWX2KJ
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