Not Your Usual Spring-Break-in-Florida Story

Travel Blog  •  Eva Holland  •  05.17.12 | 12:42 PM ET

This essay from the NYT, about Alessandra Stanley’s mother-daughter vacation, is causing a stir—no huge surprise, I suppose, when it starts with a line like this: “One of the good things about divorce is that you get to see less of your children.” Stanley and her daughter spent a less-than-idyllic spring break at a super-luxury resort on a private island near South Beach. Here’s a taste:

I imagined sunrise walks on the beach, giggly mother-daughter spa treatments and intimate candlelit meals during which Emma would lean in and at long last tell me what college was like besides “fine.”

I failed to anticipate that exam-rattled 18-year-olds sleep long past noon and then stay up all night (I get up around 6 and am asleep easily before 10). Nor had I known that embedded in the ethos of this particular private island is a class system that places short-term guests below the salt.

Refreshingly honest? Privileged and self-indulgent? The Times commenters are weighing in bare-knuckled. (Via Ta-Nehisi Coates)


Eva Holland is co-editor of World Hum. She is a former associate editor at Up Here and Up Here Business magazines, and a contributor to Vela. She's based in Canada's Yukon territory.


1 Comment for Not Your Usual Spring-Break-in-Florida Story

Maynard Gates 05.18.12 | 7:44 AM ET

Thanks for sharing the story! Love your post!

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