nu·cle·ar fam·i·ly
noun
a couple and their dependent children, regarded as a basic social unit.

Your children are part of your nuclear family, BUT their spouses and children are their nuclear family.

Keep being a shrew though and you won’t have to worry about your children’s spouses even wanting to spend time with you. That’ll play out extra hard at holidays.

I remember reading a post on here a little while back and the OP said every other Friday her MIL and her kids which included OP's DH would go out to eat and exclude OP. I think that is way too often to exclude a spouse. Almost everyone seemed to think that was ok and I was in complete shock at how many people thought this was ok to just exclude someone's wife 2x a month.

It seems to happen naturally, as far as I can tell. Like a lunch with just your child is fine. But something like having a vacation with only your kids and not their spouses seems weird.

I think it's a similar level of awkwardness if your son just invited you to dinner and not your husband/his father (if you're still married). Like, I can totally see a good reason to do that, but also it seems hard to do it without being exclusionary.

Since me and my siblings have been married (well, really since my older sister was married almost 20 years ago), this scenario has happened exactly once. It was just a weird coincidence when we were in town for my cousin's wedding. My kids and DH couldn't travel for some reason that I can't remember, sister lives nearby and her kids and BIL had some event for the kids, and SIL (brother's wife) was visiting with her family. It was actually sort of fun.

But I can't imagine my parents actually planning not to include our spouses. That would seem really strange.

Anonymous wrote:When is it appropriate to have something with just the nuclear family? My kids are young but I can imagine one day wanting to go out to dinner with just them and not their spouses. DH and his siblings sometimes take their mom out to dinner without SOs involved (I imagine I could come if I wanted to but I don’t want to crash family time). Vacations, no, but do we feel like dinner or coffee or drinks is okay?

Once they are married and/or have children-that family becomes your child’s nuclear family. You are no longer part of their nuclear family.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No snark but honestly it strikes me as a little odd that you’re thinking about this when your kids are young. I guess you just really love being around them, and that’s sweet!

DH and I never do things with just nuclear family. He regularly does things with just his mom or dad (that he arranges, like taking his mom out to dinner) and I don’t always come to family activities. But it seems like with our families, once you’re married, you’re basically a set that people don’t ask to split.

Op. I’m mostly thinking about it because of the lady who wanted to do the cruise and I realized that while I thought that was weird, a shorter “me and my kids” thing seemed nice. Right now I would pay someone to take them away from me for dinner.

Lol okay gotcha. Yeah I’m sure it depends on the family but that isn’t something either my immediate family nor my in laws would do.


Have you read Priya (maybe I misspelled that) Parker’s book The Art of Gathering? She has a chapter on who to invite and it grapples with the issue of exclusion. It’s really interesting.

I think there are a lot of variables that will determine what works best for different families. If you live near each other, it's easier to do events without spouses sometimes. If my dh, kids and I flew 3000 miles to visit his mom and she excluded me from a dinner on one of the 6 nights we'll see her for the next 2 years, I admit I'd be offended. If we were neighbors, no big deal because I'd likely see her more often and I didn't spend money and waste vacation time to eat dinner alone.

I also think the grandkid situation matters. If you child has children, will they be invited too? So you're literally only excluding the spouse? Or do you take your child out and leave the grandkids and spouse at home? Again, unless you see them frequently, I can't imagine not wanting to hang out with the whole family.

And then you have to consider what the dynamics are for you with each of your kids and their partners. If you get along with one really well but there's tension with the other, excluding one while including the other could be trouble, even if other factors are influencing your choices. It gets tricky, and in tricky social situations, inclusion is usually better than exclusion.

Why do you want to; what difference does it make?
I think it’s fine if it happens naturally; but it’s rude to ask for it. For example, DH doesn’t always feel like visiting my nuclear family, so I’ll go without him. When we visit his mom, we stay there because it’s a plane ride away. Sometimes I will go to bed early so they can hang together, but no one asks me to leave; that would be weird and mean.

Anonymous wrote:No snark but honestly it strikes me as a little odd that you’re thinking about this when your kids are young. I guess you just really love being around them, and that’s sweet!

DH and I never do things with just nuclear family. He regularly does things with just his mom or dad (that he arranges, like taking his mom out to dinner) and I don’t always come to family activities. But it seems like with our families, once you’re married, you’re basically a set that people don’t ask to split.

Op. I’m mostly thinking about it because of the lady who wanted to do the cruise and I realized that while I thought that was weird, a shorter “me and my kids” thing seemed nice. Right now I would pay someone to take them away from me for dinner.

No snark but honestly it strikes me as a little odd that you’re thinking about this when your kids are young. I guess you just really love being around them, and that’s sweet!

DH and I never do things with just nuclear family. He regularly does things with just his mom or dad (that he arranges, like taking his mom out to dinner) and I don’t always come to family activities. But it seems like with our families, once you’re married, you’re basically a set that people don’t ask to split.

If you are annoying enough, you will never have to go to dinner with any of their spouses. Ever.
They will be “busy.” All the time.

Take advantage of any time your DIL is out of town.

I think dinner/coffee/drinks are okay. Could be a little weird if it's part of a vacation where DILs/SILs are left to awkwardly entertain each other, though. My family doesn't do that; we only have exclusive get-togethers when someone wants to make a specific money gift or talk about wills/estates, so it usually involves spouses anyway because if I ask my sister to be guardian of my child in the event of my death I kind of want to know that my BIL is also okay with that.

Tread lightly. Enjoy Mother’s Day with just your kids, but be prepared to defer once their wives become mothers. I think it’s ok to occasionally invite your sons for lunch. OCCASIONALLY. I don’t think dinner should ever be spouse-free, personally, especially if this means she will have to figure out dinner for your sons children.

When is it appropriate to have something with just the nuclear family? My kids are young but I can imagine one day wanting to go out to dinner with just them and not their spouses. DH and his siblings sometimes take their mom out to dinner without SOs involved (I imagine I could come if I wanted to but I don’t want to crash family time). Vacations, no, but do we feel like dinner or coffee or drinks is okay?