We took three days away, my husband and I, on a trip for two. Our first in five years of parenthood. We flew to Tampa and started our weekend with a big fight in the car. (That wasn’t what you were expecting, was it?)
Once we got that out of our systems we settled into a lovely harmony. We walked slowly, holding hands; we sat in silence; we re-explored the sensation of dancing cheek to cheek. We enjoyed not having to watch for toddlers who like to escape, Houdini-like, while Mommy and Daddy are distracted.
A date night does nothing—I repeat, nothing—to prepare you for what it feels like to go on a trip without kids. On date nights you never really get out of parent mode. You always have that voice in your ear, like a poke in the arm saying, “Hurry, hurry, get back home! The babysitting bill is racking up! You’ve got to get to bed and rest before the kids wake up tomorrow!”
But leave Kid Duty to someone else for forty-eight or seventy-two hours and it’s a whole different story. It doesn’t take very long to adjust to an earlier, more gratifying rhythm of life. We had a heavenly weekend together. Not long enough, by a long shot. I wanted to go to Universal Studios and visit Harry Potter. I wanted to spend a day at the water park, riding slides my little ones couldn’t handle. I wanted more meals prepared and eaten in a quiet, relaxed manner. I wanted more leisurely walks with my husband. More body surfing in the Gulf. More sunsets. More undisturbed nights.
More, more, more.
The more I think about it, the more I realize that time management for a parent and spouse looks kind of like the food pyramid. The lower sections of the pyramid are taken up by the healthy “foods”—time for God, for errands and housework, for kids and spouse and the family as a whole. Then there is the “meat and dairy” layer—personal interests. Good for you, but only if you don’t overdo it and get selfish. And up at the very tip, with the sugar and fat, sits a little cap called “getting away for the weekend.”
My first weekend away taught me that getting away is a privilege to be enjoyed sparingly, because it’s so hard to come back. I was not ready to shoulder the burden of real life again. It’s so easy to feel resentful, to think that the daily task of parenting is unfair and overwhelming, even though it’s the same yoke that I regarded as utterly ordinary and unremarkable three days earlier.
Moms don’t usually admit to this kind of thinking, but I can’t believe I’m the only one who’s felt this way. Sure, I missed my kids. Just not enough to want them back so soon after tasting freedom.
Then again, freedom isn’t really synonymous with parenthood. We’re always having to put our wants behind some small person’s needs. That’s just the way it is. And given a choice, I doubt any of us would go back and choose freedom over children. They enrich our lives far too much.
I’d love to close by saying that the next time the kids welcome us home by bickering, whining and general mayhem, I’ll just remember how much they enrich my life, and that will make it all better. But if I did, you would all be justified in reaching through your computer screens and smacking me upside the head for offering such platitudinous nonsense. I’m pretty sure that no matter how much I wax philosophical, coming home is always going to be a jarring experience.
And maybe that, too, is just the way it is.
7 Comments
How wonderful that you had folks with whom to leave your kids so you could escape for a few days.
Until mine were old enough to leave home for 24-48 hours – dh and I went away exactly 3 times. Once a dear friend kept the kids for a weekend. Another time we were living in Germany but dh was deployed to Kosovo but had a weekend in Italy – a friend kept the kids so I could go visit. The A/C at the hotel was out which didn’t make it quite as enjoyable…. and we escaped for a few nights when dh was on Jeopardy – the kids were scattered at three friends’ houses (despite inlaws living only 2 hrs away)
“On date nights you never really get out of parent mode. You always have that voice in your ear, like a poke in the arm saying, “Hurry, hurry, get back home! The babysitting bill is racking up! You’ve got to get to bed and rest before the kids wake up tomorrow!”
So so true! I have also found that get-aways can never be long enough. We’ve only had one so far, but it was heavenly.
Hi Kathleen,
Welcome to Real Zest!
My parents had the habit of warning their kids at the end of a long evening, perhaps at the end of a ride home, that the lights would be coming on and that we needed to wake up slowly and things would be fine.
Turns out that advice applies to a lot of things.
Thanks for sharing here!
I’m very blessed to have two sets of grandparents eager to watch our kids. We make a point of getting away for at least one weekend a year, preferably 2.
Those weekends are great.
But if we’re doing true confessions, I have to say that even spouses can be needy. And sometimes I just want to go alone, read to my heart’s content, and sleep un-touched.
THAT is a tough-sell.
That IS a tough sell.
I get my fix of alone time with babysitters, and going out to the middle of nowhere for an hour or two…but not often enough!
“Then again, freedom isn’t really synonymous with parenthood. We’re always having to put our wants behind some small person’s needs. That’s just the way it is. And given a choice, I doubt any of us would go back and choose freedom over children. They enrich our lives far too much.”
This reminds me of the recent NY Times article on having children and happiness and all of the fallout from that. I wish that we as a society could recognize that parenting is valuable, and it is difficult. If only more people could take your stance we wouldn’t be stuck with either “children make you miserable, don’t have them” or “oh, children are the best thing ever and so make me so haaaaaaaappy and if you’re not gloriously happy all the time as a parent you’re obviously just selfish.”
I agree with Julia – this is such a valuable perspective to share. I’m always surprised at how many people I know who either present parenthood as an unadulterated joy I must be too stupid to grasp, or a terrible burden I’m smart to avoid.
As someone who has not yet decided about whether parenthood will ever be a part of my life, I appreciate reading columns like this. You are releasing many women from the societal requirement to turn into saints as soon as they give birth.
My own parents were extremely clear with me about the reality of their jobs, and I appreciate that, because I understand what a difficult task both of them had, raising three children to be thoughtful, intelligent people while also living their own lives. I also appreciate that they DID live their own lives, without ever leaving us entirely to our own defenses. It made me stronger and it also made me appreciate them more deeply as I got older.
Being a parent requires great fortitude and selflessness, and so the food pyramid metaphor is apt. Furthermore, all parents share one loathsome experience that, remembering my own teen years, makes me cringe – adolescents! (I’m reading Anne Lamott’s “Imperfect Birds” right now, and I’m staying on the pill for now!)
Thank you for writing honestly about your experience!