I don't think I'm alone when I say there are times when I forget to insert my daughter into the equation when invited to social functions.
"Hey, some of us are going out to dinner tonight if you're interested."
"Sounds great!" I say...
Except, it doesn't, because I'll spend the entire meal splitting my focus between an attention-seeking toddler and friends without children trying to share their excitement and existential dilemmas while becoming increasingly intoxicated.
"We're going to the beach, you should come!"
"Sounds fantastic!" I say...
If we weren't meeting an hour before our daughter's bedtime and I didn't have to spend the entire experience directing her away from an obese woman's thong twenty feet away (this actually happened) while keeping her from ingesting half the beach.
I didn't want to be this person when I became a parent. Despite being thirty-three when our daughter was born, my wife and I were somehow the first of our immediate peer group to have kids. We wanted to make it look easy. We wanted to keep going out and show everyone that it's not so bad and that they should join the parent party. But I have since learned that this is futile, and no fun for anyone. The switch has to happen. Parents have to become family-first people, or live with the turmoil of having one foot in the world of early evenings and child-focused outings and the other in trying to appear sane and completely content with people already skeptical of your sanity for wanting children. Most people without kids don't care about your kid. They may enjoy playing with her for a few minutes here and there when she's around, they may allow you to tell stories that are of the utmost significance to you as a parent, but boring as hell to everyone else, but, ultimately most people without kids wish you had a permanent babysitter for your child so you could be the person you were before reproducing. They forget when inviting you to events that you will have to bring her along, or forget, as I do myself sometimes, that bringing her along doesn't mean she will sit quietly and allow you to carry-on as though she isn't there. In truth, both parties should consider what it would mean to invite a psychotic person to the event and then ask, "Does this sound like a good idea?"
This being said, some people do have relatively tame children. I have met a few who actually will sit still in a restaurant and entertain themselves with food and toys without the need for constant parental intervention. They can sit quietly on the floor and play while adults talk, and they only speak up when tired, hungry, or soiled. This is not my daughter. She's a wild woman--a huge presence with a big voice and boundless energy. She hates being restrained, be it in a high-chair, car-seat, changing table, crib, stroller, or by mom and dad's constant chorus of, "No honey, don't do that/ don't push her/ don't eat that/ let's stay over here/ he was playing with that first/ can you not pour that dirt down your shirt, please/ let's not rub peanut butter in our hair (you get the picture)." We turn our attention away for thirty seconds and she will inevitably find the messiest, most dangerous, most socially awkward way to entertain herself within a thirty-foot radius. And yet somehow I forget this about her on a weekly basis. Or, if I don't forget, I stubbornly insist that I am up for the challenge and go out anyway. If being insane is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result, I'm as nutty as they come. But then, one has to be nutty to be a parent, because at some point kids do produce different results (after all, most of us, as adults, don't throw our food in restaurants and scream our heads off because we're bored--though, we may be tempted).
Hence, parents remove themselves from civilized society. Our houses slowly denigrate from tasteful, yet easily destroyed decor to brightly-colored durable plastic furniture and educational throw rugs--couches with food stains, and toy chests bolted to the walls. We create a sort of insane asylum for little people where they can literally bounce off the walls and rummage about impulsively without injuring themselves. We scatter toys throughout each room and in the yard so that no matter where the adults venture, the children may be entertained. Fortunately, our friends with children do the same to their houses, making it much more enjoyable for everyone to corral the kids into a playroom leaving the adults free to converse like grown-ups. Eventually, in such an environment, the kids will wear themselves out and can be fed in an area that is easily cleaned before carried off to a quiet back room to sleep in pack-n-play. Parents also know that an enjoyable night out does not mean an enjoyable morning after. Thus, we know to leave at a reasonable hour so that we and our child-ed friends can sleep before our lovely little ones crow like roosters at dawn.
We mean no offense to our friends without children. We really don't. But it is impossible to appreciate the muted joys of manageable social functions if one does not have a child. The criteria for such an event requires arriving on-time (none of this fashionably late business, parents do not appreciate having their very limited social hours robbed by those with a careless sense of time) and cutting the evening short no matter how much fun you are having (and this is earlier than you think, 10:30 PM tops). It requires the aforementioned safe and untethered environment for the children, and it requires drinking--if drinking will occur--to occur immediately so that parents can get a buzz on and sober up to drive home within a matter of a few hours. So, it is not that parents are shunning their friends without kids, it is that we know you all have no desire--nor should you--to abide by these guidelines and we can't bare your bummed faces expressing that we are the lamest people you know.
I remember events when we were childless. Those with kids were there, but not present, and usually disappeared abruptly without my understanding why or even taking much notice. I never stopped to consider what they did with the rest of their evening when they left a party at six o'clock while the rest of us devolved into drunken hyenas. Now I know. They went home and sadly lamented their inability to join us in our devolution. They watched television or read a book or perhaps had another drink and tried not to bring up endless life logistics and then went to bed at nine-thirty (and were excited about it).
So, please, to the child-ed and childless alike, may we come to the understanding that our lives are incompatible without some serious compromises. Parents, get sitters if you're going to hang out with childless friends, and childless friends lower the hell out of your expectations when hanging out with parents. Understand that that extra hour of laughter at the end of the evening is costing us an extra $15 in sitter fees and robbing us of an extra hour of sleep (which in turn robs our children of a patient and competent parent the following morning). Parents, stop expecting your friends without kids to care about your child's developmental milestones and try to talk about something worldly. Read a newspaper (aka: a news website, what is this 1998?) before you go out. Bring up something halfway interesting. Childless friends, forgive us if we are incapable of bringing up anything halfway interesting. To the childless, we cannot start a "kids welcome" function at six o'clock. Toddlers go to bed at seven and they are relatively inflexible with their routines. Parents, stop getting offended that your childless friends don't plan around your decision to have a kid. They aren't bad people for not living family-friendly lives 24/7. In fact, they're doing us a favor by boring themselves to tears just to spend some time with us and our family. If we can all take a few things into consideration when hanging out together, we can make this work. If not...well, it was fun while it lasted, may we part ways in peace.
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