Reading a party invitation, I look up at my husband and ask, “Whose turn is it this time?” We both struggle to remember who went out last. In the end, we just pick one of us, figuring that even if it’s wrong, it’ll work out in the end. And it always does. Paying a babysitter would be easier, but we’ve never gotten around to hiring one.
While we’re too busy to have extensively vetted a babysitter and too cheap to pay one anyway, we’ve remained committed to seeing our friends on a regular basis. Here’s some of the ways we’ve managed to maintain those relationships, our wallets and our sanity:
Switch off with your spouse/partner
My husband and I frequently go to events without each other. We have most of the same friends, so this isn’t a matter of girls’ night / boys’ night out. But one of us being able to go to a friend’s party is better than neither of us going. In addition, there are some experiences that you can spread out over two (or more) days. If there’s a movie we both want to see, one of us will go one day after dinner and then the other person will go the next day. Then we can talk about it afterwards!
Ask relatives to babysit
I know this isn’t possible for many people, but it’s always good to take advantage of grandparents when you have the opportunity. Even when both sets of grandparents lived far away, we tried to use the few times when they visited us or we visited them as a way to fit in at least one date night.
Swap babysitting with friends
This is one of those ideas that’s brilliant but I never thought of until a friend suggested it. While this won’t work for nighttime, it’s a great way to get away for an afternoon. Drop your kids off at your friend’s house one weekend and have them do the same for you the next weekend. Of course, it has to be reciprocal – you can’t just ask for free babysitting!
Meet in a kid-friendly location
For a long time, most of our friends lived in the city while we lived in the suburbs, so this wasn’t a great option. Now that we’ve lured some of our friends out here, it’s a lot easier to meet up in a nearby location that’s kid-friendly but still tolerable for adults. Bringing a picnic to a park is a great option, especially one with a great playground. (And we have some nearby parks with fantastic playgrounds.) Going to a restaurant with outdoor seating is a good choice as well. Even if your kids aren’t the best behaved at restaurants, loud talking and random wandering are much more tolerable outside.
Invite people over to your house
I know, I know, this isn’t “going out.” And it requires cleaning (my personal nemesis). But sometimes, the only way you can hang out with your friends is to get them to come over. This is especially true once you all start having kids or busy careers. While we’ve largely taken a break over the summer, we’ve been trying to have regular “board game afternoons” with our friends. It allows folks both with and without kids to come over and play games with us in a very casual, relaxed atmosphere. No dinner, unless we order pizza. Kids run around like maniacs in our basement. It’s actually pretty awesome.
As we were some of the first people in our group of friends to have kids, we’ve never assumed that they’d adapt things to be kid-friendly for our sake. Check out some posts on connecting with friends without kids, from why I don’t get offended when people compare their dog to my kid to meeting up at restaurants without kids menus. And be sure to follow us on Facebook!