Message ID: bii30m$93qm3$1@ID-202214.news.uni-berlin.de
My husband and I recently had our first child and we adore her. We respect her early bedtime and need for sleep, thus we always get a baby-sitter when we make plans to go out with friends. Occasionally (when invited) we enjoy taking her to friends' homes for an early dinner or playtime. What bothers us are the friends of ours who have a young child/toddler and insist on taking the child along to any and all events. This seems disrespectful to our friendship at times only because it is difficult to have the attention of our friends when they are attending to their young one. How does one approach this topic without sounding like we dislike their child?
-- Frustrated
You can approach this by making yourself out to be an exhausted ogre who doesn't like any children -- even your own -- and that you're desperate for adults-only time. Your friends might take the hint. Or give them the name of a reliable sitter and even offer to double-up and share the sitter one night.
Be warned: Some people never catch on to the magic of a kid-free evening. Despite everything, you could be drinking martinis with these kids until the toddlers grow old enough to buy a round.
First, allow me on behalf of the myriad people dining out in nice restaurants, attending concerts and other not-child-oriented events to tender you a hearty round of applause and a resounding thank you. You have grasped the apparently very difficult concept that not all times and places are appropriate for children, and that there are people out there who don't appreciate the wails of an overtired, over-stimulated toddler at such events.
How to deal with your friends who haven't grasped this simple truth? I really don't understand this mentality, it is as if now they have a child they have lost any and all identity out side of the producers of said child. Is it because diaper fumes have cut off the supply of oxygen to their brains that their memories have become so poor that they must constantly have the child around so they don't forget they have one? Or maybe they just don't understand the need to speak words of more than one syllable to other adults in order to stave off intellectual rigor mortis?
These people need badly to be retrained in consideration and the meaning of Adult society. How about telling them flat out the next time you arrange to go out anywhere with them "we left the child at home with a sitter because it is not an appropriate place for a child - an over tired toddler is not a joy to be around. Are you going to get a sitter for....?" If they say they are not, then respond, "then we will miss the pleasure of your company" and stick to your guns. If they don't get a clue, call them back in 15 years, you won't be missing much.
Childfree Abby