I had an odd sort of email conversation with a slightly younger, childless friend today. She was telling me about going to the theatre on the weekend and I said something about hoping to do more of that later, when the kids are older.
Her response was 'why later? why not now?'. I explained that, what with mortgages and school fees, we don't have a lot of 'play money' and that babysitting is expensive, etc ... and that we mostly enjoy eating dinner together every night and spending our weekends as a family. Of course, Spouse and I do go out sometimes, but not like we did in our well-spent youth.
She was entirely bemused and said, a little patronisingly, that she hadn't picked me as the type to be a martyr to parenthood. The thing is, I'm not. I just think that I'm at a particular stage in my life where, most of the time, it's the family stuff that takes priority. This shifts and changes constantly, and before we know it we'll be empty-nesters with all the time in the world for entertaining ourselves. Until then, I choose to make the most of how life is right now, even if it means other people think I'm boring.
How I amuse myself when I should be working
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Echo, echo, echo...9 years ago
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Under the greenwood tree9 years ago
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4 comments:
I absolutely agree with you! While we managed some lovely getaways and the occasional evening out, concerts, plays perhaps once, maybe twice a year, during those parenting years, I didn't feel like a martyr at all. If others thought I was boring (and I sometimes suspected my childless and/or more career-directed friends did), I wasn't often bored, and I found my family's company enjoyable and entertaining.
Now that our nest has long been empty, we enjoy the many cultural and social events we had little time for when the kids were home, and we appreciate being able to do that, but trying to combine the two, I think, would just have been frustrating. Ages and stages. . .
Thanks, mater, I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels that way. I agree that trying to do everything at once just doesn't work; it's not that I don't want to do these things, just I'm happy enough to wait until we hit yet another stage in our lives ...
Me too! Plus, I've already done the bar thing, I've partied until I could party no more, I saw movies and I dated until I became bitter.
And these days my hub and I just love hanging out with our hilarious kid, and sometimes even quietly spending precious time at home alone together.
I guess you have to experience it to understand, don't you?
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