Yes but seeing extended family is not "for fun". Family is important.

agree, and extend... ask any parent if taking small kids anywhere is a "vacation"

there is literally no such thing.

its like people who say that parental leave is a vacation. wildly miss informed and completely tone def.

That’s not correct. I took my small children on vacations to grandparents all the time. Taking the kids to any extended family that can help watch them is a vacation. The best vacations you can have involve just taking kids to see family.

i mean "vacation" in the sense that people use the term to mean "a break from work"

small kids are always lots of work and this its pretty hard to have a vacation.

i agree that visiting fam is the best, partly bc they will help with the kids :)

That’s not what the idiom “don’t do x for fun” is about.

The expression means that X is the best of unpalatable options to accomplish something else, where X is taken in a literal and narrow sense.

People don’t fly with babies for fun. They do it because visiting grandparents is fun, and driving isn’t a good option. Or, if it involves a trip across the ocean, the alternative would be sailing.

Well that’s idiotic. Approximately nobody “flies for fun” under that tortured definition.

> Approximately nobody “flies for fun” under that tortured definition.

Yes. That is exactly how it’s supposed to be used. The vast majority of people do not enjoy the airport/airline experience and were there any other reasonable way to get where they are going they would probably take it. They are not doing it because it is fun, they are doing it because they have to.

It’s a common idiom. And idioms are often weird. But that is exactly the point.