My husband and I don't have date nights. Instead we have solo nights out, without having to rely on a babysitter to have fun.
Courtesy of Elyse O'Dwyer
- Before having kids, my husband and I spent time apart exploring our individual interests.
- The logistics and cost of finding a babysitter made us reconsider our nights out.
- We each take turns going out, and whoever stays home is also in charge of the kids the next morning.
Before we had our first baby, my husband and I were afraid of leaving our old lives behind. As much as we love being parents, and as much as we wanted children, the thing we really hoped to avoid was letting parenthood define our lives.
Separate nights out became our best defense to avoid living in an endless routine and exclusively for our kids.
Sure, an escape together is important, and we do make time for the proverbial date night. We do need that time to reconnect, and when we're afforded a babysitter for the evening to be away from our children and act like adults, it's a relief to exit parenting mode for a while.
But it's not always easy: There's the planning and bargaining with grandparents and watching the clock the whole time we're out. So it became a less frequent escape than what we needed. Instead, we started to take nights out by ourselves, with our friends or alone, exploring our interests and getting some time off from our job as parents.
It's much easier for one of us to go out than both of us
When only one of us goes out, it's so much easier to plan. There are no favors to call in, no worries about kids' safety, and we can rely on the blood oath we made to let the person who went out sleep in the next morning. I don't even mind returning the favor, because when it's his turn, I can pick my own takeout and bad movie and enjoy the silence.
Even before we had children, we were at our most harmonious and interesting when we were spending some time apart. I like that that my partner has interests and joys outside of me, that he can bro out with his bros without having to accommodate me to make sure I'm not bored as they pour over the minutia of every Frank Zappa live album. I don't like seeing us as a stagnant unit where each part can't exist on its own.
I didn't get the memo that the second my uterus expanded I ceased to be the person I had been working on for 30 years. I don't want my daughters to grow up seeing me only as a mother and a wife, when I am much more than those two things.
There's an added benefit of missing my children and spouse when I'm out by myself, which strengthens our bond as a family.
I don't want to look back at photos of myself at music festivals and restaurants and feel sadness. I like knowing those freedoms are still at my fingertips, that I can still flex my creativity and gregariousness. My partner and I are still a team, but we've found that the best way to support one another is by giving each other the space and freedom to feel like independent humans.
After a late night out recently, I gently locked the door behind me, my stomach aching from laughing and throat tired from yelling in a loud bar. And as I climbed into bed, too wound up to sleep, I took comfort in the fact that my husband was going to wake up with the kids at 6 a.m. without me.