Looking forward to the days when I will no be working any more (17 months and counting!) I have been making a serious effort to do more socializing. It seems that my job is really cutting into my attempts to make friends, because everyone I want to be friends with has kids that have to be fed every night and then go to bed at a fairly early hour (as does my kid). Thus it is very difficult to actually hang out on school nights. By the weekend, I generally want to spend some extra time with Miss M and A.
So, lazy and shy girl that I am, I have been really making an effort to get out and do stuff. I even suggested to my old playgroup that we have a "mom’s night out" this weekend. I haven’t seen most of these folks since our halloween playgroup, so it isn’t like we are BFF or anything, but they are a nice enough group for the most part.
I had an enthusiastic response from about eight people, some of whom have not been out without their kid in almost TWO YEARS. (And when I say they haven’t been out, I mean they haven’t even gone to get their hair cut without bringing the kid with them because they don’t trust their husband/kid’s father to be alone with the kid for an hour! WTF is that?!? Co-parenting anyone???)
Anyway, everyone was very excited.
Then, one mom wrote an email to the group asking if she could bring her kid because her husband works late.
And of course everyone on the group is too polite to say NO DON’T BRING THE KID! So there was a resounding silence after her question.
Hopefully, she interpreted that silence for what it really meant:
Um, NO.
You can’t bring your kid to the first grown-up night out these women have had in YEARS.
I don’t care how well-behaved your kid is. We aren’t going out until after most of the kids’ bedtimes to lessen the moms’ separation anxiety. The playgroup meet TWO times a week WITH THE KIDS, you can’t miss out on this one night?? We are going to drink WINE, dammit. And eat snooty fusion cuisine. And sit on big fluffy sofas and gossip like regular grown-ups who don’t have to be interrupted every two minutes to retrieve a toy or find a sippy cup.
Just for one night, for a few hours, that is all we want.
Do NOT bring your kid to mom’s night out.
