A mom with young children captured my sentiments about "date nights" exactly in her blog post.
By the way, my parents have been happily married to each other for more than 50 years, consider each other their best friend, and are still so gaga over each other that it's almost ridiculous --- and they achieve this martial bliss without going out on date nights! Imagine that...
Thanks... I was amazed, but very happy, to see that so many people agreed with me. I guess that is a nice feature of blogs - it lets you connect with people you probably would never connect with (due to geography).
ReplyDeleteYes, Rebecca. I've told the story before of some friends of ours from an older generation. This was about 15 years ago, and I think my friend was then in her early-to-mid-60's.
ReplyDeleteI had been invited to a baby shower for her youngest daughter. Because I had a two hour drive to get there, I explained that I would love to come but since my youngest was then about two, I had a difficulty. I could mail my gift and decline the invitation to be there in person, or I could accept the invitation if it would be all right to my two-year old with me--because of the distance I was coming, I'd be away from him too long otherwise.
She laughed and told me to bring him, and never to apologize for bringing my children with me places.
She declared in her forthright way that she and her husband had raised their children without using babysitters. In my generation, she said, if you had children, they were your responsibility and not to be fobbed off on people outside the family. She said she and her husband raised their kids with nary a date night. You worked, you had family time, you put the kids to bed. If you had a vacation, you packed the family up and visited other branches of the family.
Well you'd have to know her and her husband to understand how much proof there is in the pudding. They are salt-of-the-earth, no-nonsense people from a farming background. And you never saw two people more devoted to each other.