Working Moms and Girls’ Night Out: How Often Do You Get Nights Out To Yourself?
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Here’s a fun question for you: How often do you go out by yourself and “ditch the family,” whether to have a girls’ night out with friends, time to pursue a hobby, or in general schedule time to yourself? How often does your partner?
Do you and your partner have unwritten rules (no more than once a week! not on ___ days! we trade “nights out”)? Do you go out with girlfriends from before you had kids, other moms, or just (gasp) go out by yourself for some “me time“?
(Psst: we’ve also talked about other self-care ideas for working moms, as well as held a “fantasy open thread” with a free weekend for mommy…)
For my $.02, my answer to this is in the midst of changing. For the first several years I was a mom I felt downright guilty to go out by myself or with girlfriends — it felt like business-related outings were one thing, while a date night (or a couples’ date night, where we go out with another couple) was another thing. But just to ditch the family and go out with girlfriends or for my own interests during what should be “family time” (nights and weekends) has always felt… very indulgent.
As I get further into my motherhood journey — and as my friends do! — we all seem to be coming around to the idea that it’s ok to ditch the family sometimes, and I’d say what had been a “once a quarter” sort of outing for me is now more regular, sometimes even 2-3 times a month. I almost never take time for myself to just go shopping or see a movie, though.
Readers, how about you? How often do you get a night out with girlfriends or other moms? How often do you go out by yourself? Do you line up childcare to cover for your absence during these nights, or do you leave it to your partner to figure out?
Stock photo via Stencil.
I go out with friends about twice a month. My husband goes out less often, mostly because he just doesn’t remember to schedule outings with friends. We don’t have any rules on time away from family but of course run it by each other.
For the first year and a half of my kid’s life, I felt like if I hadn’t made plans with a friend, I couldn’t take any time off. But I’m an introvert, and socializing isn’t restorative for me. So now my husband and I each get a weeknight off—the other parent does daycare pickup, dinner, and bedtime. If I have plans with a friend, I do that, but if not, I go to the gym and then sit at the bar at a neighborhood restaurant with a book. It’s important for me that it’s automatic, each week, and not like I’m asking my husband to cover for me each individual time.
i work in my office past rush hour twice a week. if i need to i work late and order a good billable dinner. 1-2 times per month i meet friends for dinner. other nights i do restorative yoga, catch up at sephora, etc. it’s necessary time for me, both when i need to get through stuff at work and when i need to do yoga. my dh takes the kids one of these nights and on the other night we have a sitter while he goes to the gym.
When I had a babysitter or daycare had “date night” but my husband was out of town or otherwise unavailable, it took me the longest time to actually use that time for myself, and not to catch up on work or errands. I still feel guilty for asking my husband for a night off, since we relocated last year, I don’t have many friends here. So if I’m lucky I get out once every two months or so, and even then, it’s rarely with friends, it’s usually a professional networking thing. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make friends in a new city?
anon in brooklyn’s system sounds like something that would work for me – when I had “date night” alone, I would often just sit at a bar and catch up on reading. But I hate thinking of gym time as “me” time, since my health should benefit the whole family.
My good friends all live out of town, so I only get to go out with them when I happen to be in their vicinity on business travel. Which does not happen very often.
Basically as soon as I went back to work I’d take nights off for my pre-baby extracurriculars (women in tech networking, sorority and university alumni events, cycling, advising at my sorority, etc.). Most of my girlfriends were happy to hang out with me and kiddo though, so I never felt a strong want to go do things solo with them. If something came up that I wanted to do though that I couldn’t take DD to, hubby has always been happy to watch her.
Hubby and I also trade off most nights on who watches her in general and strive for a balance. So I generally get 3-4 nights a week (or part of the night) where I’m free to do whatever all evening around the house as long as I help with bedtime. (He doesn’t have the patience to brush teeth but otherwise does the rest) That requirement is out if I’ve coordinated something outside the house though and clearly communicated that ahead of time.
I’m extremely lucky in that DH is a huge introvert and never really cares to go out himself, so as long as he is getting enough time on his computer to play video games or tinker on projects, he’s happy to watch her whenever I want to go out.
Every other Thursday I get together for drinks with a club I help lead. It’s nice to have it calendared.
Almost never, especially this time of year (in the Midwest where leaving my house is just awful). We moved about two years ago, and making friends here hasn’t been easy. So I rarely go out with friends. In the summer, I’ll go out on my own more. A shopping trip or trip to the pool. Long run or race. It happens more naturally because more of my hobbies happen in the summer. And hubby golfs once a week when it is nice, so then he feels the need to make me take a few hours off so he doesn’t feel guilty or something.
Does anyone have experience with a stay-at-home spouse? Since he is “on” with kiddo all day, I end up taking over when I get home and he needs a break. I travel or have evening meetings 2-3 nights per month, but it seems difficult to schedule even more days when he has to take care of everything.
A friend comes over once a week after work, and we go for a walk together with my little one. Every other week I also go to a MOPS group, which is a nice way to befriend other women who are super nice.
A group of working moms and I take a private group boot camp class every Wednesday at 8:15 pm I love it so much. I can get the kids to bed before I head out and it’s social and workout time combined. Wednesday is a great day as I’m burnt out from the week but really look forward to this. I’d be tempted to blow off my own workout, but knowing I will see my friends is a huge motivator. There are a core 5-6 of us who have been doing it for 2 years but other people come in out for various 6 week sessions.