A little self examination…
February 12, 2010I think I might be a little too self-righteous when it comes to encroaching on family time. I have two recent examples:
Example one: An old friend was scheduled to come into town for a visit earlier this week. Plans had tentatively been made to meet up at a local bar/restaurant after work on Monday to catch up. The person making the plans was a little vague on the details, but since the location was family friendly, and I hadn’t seen this person in a long long time, Zach and I decided we’d be brave and have the kids tag along. So, Sunday night was full of preparation – I packed a diaper bag, and a bag of toys to hopefully keep the boys entertained. I prepared Xander for the following day’s plans. I carefully picked out clothing for school that wouldn’t accentuate the large amounts of food my kids manage to spill on themselves throughout the day. The next morning I packed a few remaining supplies – milk for Parker, a juice box for Xander, gummies for both of them. I continued mentioning Xander our plans for after school, and told him he could even have a “special” drink (a.k.a. shirley temple). 3pm rolls around, and I hear that plans have changed – they are no longer going to the family friendly location, but rather to one of the sketchier bars in town. Needless to say, there was no way I was bringing my kids to that bar. This made me so frustrated. Not only was I really looking forward to catching up with my old friend, but I had put so much effort into planning for the evening and I just knew tears would ensue when Xander found out we were not going to a restaurant and he would not have his special drink. I ended up sending off a short and rather snarky email – the location was shifted back and we all had a pleasant time visiting before the kidless crowd relocated themselves to the sketchier bar.
Example two: Wednesday night we arrived home at 5:30. At 5:40 Zach received an email from his boss with a request. After a follow-up to check the deadline, Zach learned that he had exactly one hour to finish the request. This threw our whole evening out of whack. My plans for a healthy meal – gone. My hope to help Xander with a thank-you note and Valentine’s Day Cards for school, not happening. Instead, I packed the boys back into the car (over many protests) and we drove to McDonald’s. We spent $12 for the three of us to eat fried crap and Xander to get a junky toy. An hour later, we drove back home (again). I understand that Zach’s job requires more than just 9-5 attention. I am completely supportive of his efforts to tweak scripts and research problems in the evenings and respond to emails nearly 24/7. What I couldn’t fathom was why Zach (and others in his office) had to drop everything from their evening routines to get a request done for 7pm on a Wednesday night. There was no 8pm meeting that I was aware of. And other than convenience for the boss to have some extra reading time, I couldn’t see any other logical explanation for the upheaval in our evening.
Twice this week my hackles have been raised by people without children failing to consider the massive amount of effort that goes into shifting plans or last minute requests. I feel like I’m being unreasonable – as one of my childless friends loves to remind me “kids are a choice” – and he’s completely right. I chose to have children, and I accept all of the responsibility and hassle that comes with that choice. But, I do get frustrated when others forget about the effort and hassle that I’m juggling.
Am I being unreasonable in expecting those without kids to remember the time and effort that goes into preparations for them? Should I just suck it up and continue juggling without complaint, or should I continue to remind people when they forget that it is more work and effort and some consideration is appreciated?
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Well first. you are a MAD BLOGGER THIS WEEK!!! WOW! good for you.
The first case, if they hadn’t know you were bringing the kids, then yeah i guess, but something that can be described as a “sketchy bar” doesn’t seem like the best place to catch up with old friends. Honestly, it seems like you pushed and the evening ended up better!
The 2nd, that is something that should have been known ahead of time. Especially in this time of conservation, for Z to leave work and then possibly have to go all the way back in to finish something that was not VITAL, seems a little wasteful.
Yes having kids is a choice, and yes its a big choice, but friends and employers know you made that choice and should not be unreasonable. Which usually, they aren’t. But those examples, so close together, really grind on ya
Right there with you Sara!! Kids are a choice but “HELLO” give us a break…most of the “kidless” people are quite frankly annoying in my book…they couldn’t hack a day in our shoes!! (I don’t mean those understanding “Kid less” people..I wish I has more of those friends to help me:)
It’s not even a case of not realising that you have to juggle time with military precision when you have kids. The simple act of causing you to change plans at the last minute is rude, regardless of whether you have kids or not. I always got annoyed when people dumped things on me at the last moment before I had kids. Now I have kids my annoyance is multiplied.
I always make it a point to give other people at least 24 hours notice (although if I can help it then I will give them at least 48 hours). It’s common courtesy.
So no you are not being unreasonable in any way, shape or form.
Phew that was a bit of a rant
Ok, I’m going to register my two cents here … none of us knew you were planning on joining us at all, nevermind with kids. That sketchy bar regardless of how sketchy was our hangout for at least 2 nights a week before our friend moved to California, and thus was a natural choice for us to want to visit again while he was home. We have friends there, and get treated pretty well when it comes to the bill at the end of the night, whereas at fosters we pay an arm and a leg. Up until we went to walk out of the office, we hadn’t announced where we’d be going, so I’m not sure why you assumed it would be Fosters.
If everything had gone down as you had said and we had known the kids were coming, and had said we were going to the kid friendly place, then yes, we would have been total a*holes to change our mind at the last minute. But since that was not the case, I don’t think you have a leg to stand on, and the “snarky” email was a bit rude given the situation.
Thank you Al for perfectly highlighting the rift between families with small kids and those without small kids. I’m trying, you’re sort of trying, but in the end it still doesn’t work. To you, the plans were nebulous and up in the air until the last minute, because they could be. To me, it was something that I had been planning on and looking forward to for four days. Something I had carefully prepared and planned, and my only opportunity to spend time with friends outside of my home in two months with no hope of another night out in the foreseeable future. From my perspective, the last minute change in my evening had me fighting back tears at my desk at the end of the day. But, trying to maintain relationships this way is a lot of work. Perhaps I should just concede and say, see you in 18 years…
see, I think you’re missing the point of my last post. If in your planning, you had said to us that you were interested in attending, and would be bringing the kids, we would have picked an appropriate location ahead of time and all this would have been avoided. But since we didn’t know, we didn’t realize we were throwing a kink in your plans. It certainly wasn’t intentional, and I hope you don’t think it was.