Reply to Little kids and adult social life

Forum Index » General Parenting Discussion

Reply to "Little kids and adult social life"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We have regular sitters and try to go out at least once a week as a couple.

Most people I meet seem only interested in socializing as a family.  I rarely meet a couple or woman who is open to getting together without kids.  It makes me feel strange that I seem to have this desire for independence that other women don’t seem to have.  When I go out with adults I also don’t feel the need to talk about kids.

The other day I got together with a mom and her child and found out the mom of a 7 year old has never had a babysitter.  What?!  I can’t fathom this and don’t understand how this happens.  It’s not a financial thing.  I do think there are a lot of women living like this these days and perhaps it’s anxiety.

[/quote]

I have a 7 year old and have never hired a babysitter. We did have a summer nanny one year in 2020 when preschool closed, if that counts. And that nanny watched our kid maybe twice after that summer. We have some local family that comes over in the rare occasion that we have a kid free obligation. Maybe 3 times a year. We also drop our son off at my parents for three weeks throughout the year and have solo time then. Otherwise we either socialize with our friend while the other parent is home, which is probably 1x week, or we do things with other families.[/quote]

I’m sure your husband loves living like this.  [/quote]

[b]I think you didn't read past PP's first sentence, because it actually sounds like they have more childcare than many families, including three weeks during the year where her kid stays with family, as well as a few other occasions throughout the year. Plus they take turns staying home with their kid so the other can go out and socialize once a week. That's actually not bad for a family with young kids.[/b]

Hiring babysitters can be a huge pain. We do it but we can't afford to do it all the time. Where we live, a babysitter is going to cost $20-25/hr, and most occasional sitters have a minimum engagement of 3-4 hours. Including tip and sometimes transportation costs (we sometimes pay for an uber home if it's very late and they don't have a car), we're talking $60 minimum and it can easily cost up to $150 just for the sitter, which is of course on top of whatever we do while we're out. So we save sitters for anniversaries, birthdays, the occasional big outing like a concert or something. People on here saying they hire sitters once or twice a week? Great for them but it's just not in our budget.

One way we sneak in dates is to sometimes take time from work during the week while DC is in school and go out to lunch, or even take more time and go to a movie or a museum. Obviously can't do this all the time but we try to do it every few months and it's really nice to not have the added stress of finding and paying a sitter on top of other date-planning -- it makes our time together more enjoyable to not have to arrange the sitter and also to know our kid is on her normal schedule with her teachers and friends, instead of worrying she woke up with a bad dream and the babysitter couldn't comfort her.

I'm not anti-babysitter, but the idea that sitters are easy to come by, or convenient, or accessible to most families, is ridiculous. The families I know who leave kids at home in the evening with frequency all either have local family, or they had a nanny for many years who has become their occasional sitter. I just don't know anyone who hires one-off sitters more than maybe once a month because it's so inconvenient and annoying, and for most people it's much less.[/quote]

That’s great, but PP didn’t even mention her husband in her post.  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics