All I want is a few free hours away from my kids.
Wait, actually I don’t want to be away from them because I’ll miss them.
…But wouldn’t it be nice to have like half a day or maybe even a WHOLE day when you’re not working and also not running after a toddler and feeding a baby?
Well yeah, sure, but what if something BAD happens during that half day or whole day? What if they need me? Or, ooooo, what if something GOOD happens and I miss it??
Okay, I get it, but they’ll most likely be fine and SERIOUSLY, just think about how relaxing it would be to have some “me” time.
But it won’t be relaxing if I’m worried something is going to happen to them.
That makes sense but you have to let go of the anxiety and just have some fun.
But maybe it would be MORE fun if the kids were with me!
No it wouldn’t.
Okay, okay, it wouldn’t—but what if there’s an emergency?
Now we’re just talking in circles. Just go wine tasting with your girlfriends. You know you want to.
But … What if they need me and I’m tipsy? I can’t be a drunk mom.
FINE how about going for a hike? You won’t be drunk on a hike. Probably.
But then I might not have phone service and what if…
Yeah, yeah, yeah, what if there’s an emergency. I get it.
You know what I mean! I wouldn’t even be able to enjoy the hike, wondering if my husband is trying to call while rushing one or BOTH of the kids to the emergency room. Oooooo and I bet the kids would like to go for a hike! The big one would love the scenery!
No he wouldn’t. He’d rather be inside watching that Baby Shark video that plays different versions of the same song on a loop.
But I should be exposing him to the great outdoors! If I’m doing things like that, I should bring them with me.
Sometimes you should bring them with you, but also sometimes you should have time without them.
I understand that, but my husband should have time without them, too, and if I go out, he’ll be alone with the kids and I’ll feel guilty and then maybe I won’t enjoy it anyway.
Well, speaking of your husband, since the wine tasting and the hiking are so fraught with terror, how about going out to dinner with him?
Awww, family time without the kids? We would miss them!
—Me, having a conversation with myself.
Before I had children, I assumed my friends with kids would almost always welcome time away from them. In my mind, why would they want to bring their kids to an event if they could NOT bring them? Sometimes I even said things like that: “Hey, do you want to do this thing this weekend? And wouldn’t it be fun if you left your son and daughter with your husband and we could do this thing without them?”
Now I realize I was kind of a jerk.
I mean, in defense of my former self, a lot of things are more fun without kids. But also, when you’re a parent, it’s just not that easy to do things sans children. That’s true logistically (babysitter? where?) and emotionally (see above).
Life as a parent is full of dichotomies, and this is a big one: It sure would be nice to have a break from your kids, but also it sure would be nice to be around them.
This past weekend, my friend and I left our kids with the husbands and went for a hike, just the two of us. Of course, as soon as we got to the trailhead, we saw several families with little kids and I immediately felt guilty. I should have brought them, I thought. But then, about two minutes into the hike, we ran into a mom with her two-year-old daughter. “That’s so cool that you brought her with you, what a great activity to do together,” I said to the mom. “Oh, she’ll probably last about five more minutes, then we’ll have to go home and I won’t actually get to do the hike.” That was exactly what I needed to hear. Sure, I could have brought two-year-old Miles and seven-month-old Linnea on the hike. But it wouldn’t have been a hike. It would have been a slow-paced family activity.
I realized something super simple that I’m sure most people already know: You can sometimes do things with your kids, and sometimes do things without them. Both things are fun. They’re just different kinds of fun.
It’s just that one kind of fun requires a lot more patience and a lot more Cheerios than the other kind.