Warning - I am going to take a hard stance here.....

As a child I didn't get to attend a lot of school activities because either my parents couldn't afford it or for some reason or another they felt it inappropriate. I can recall having to sit in the bleachers watching my classmates take swimming lessons. I can recall sitting alone in a classroom doing school work while my classmates were on a field trip.

By 12 I was working and was paying my own way for such activities.

The original poster suggested the trip was 'only $350 in 1991 terms. That was a lot of money. Are they so sure their parents actually could afford it. And to say they could have put it on a credit card seems outrageous to me. Does the original poster not realise that that money still needs to be paid? Also, I ask, what did the original poster do to earn their own way to attending the trip? In what way could the poster have been self-sufficient and responsible for they themselves attending? Yes, it all is unfortunate and I would have been super upset too, but I think doth protest too much.