Desperate for a Date Night:: Parents’ Night Out

Have the three magical words, Parents’ Night Out, ever filled with you excitement?

Upon seeing flyers advertising childcare for “Parents’ Night Out” posted at my daughter’s gymnastics studio and my gym, I was instantly filled with ideas. We weren’t just being offered a fun, safe place for our daughters to play while we went out; it was being offered at a deeply discounted rate of $15 for four hours of childcare!

You know the book Oh, The Places You’ll Go? That’s how I felt. My mind was racing. We could have a date night! We could have a conversation without being interrupted! We could try a new restaurant, attend a concert, or watch a movie in the movie theater. We haven’t done that since Christmas 2013! The possibilities seemed {almost} endless.

Before we had children, we though that monthly, or at the very least, quarterly date nights would be important for us. Once our first baby arrived, our date nights were put on the back burner. We rarely went out because I was nursing and it seemed like it would take too much pumping and planning to escape our parental responsibilities for a few hours.

Once we got the hang of things and began looking for childcare so we could have our much needed date nights, I quickly learned babysitters make a lot more than I did when I was a teenager. When did this happen? Does anyone else remember charging a dollar an hour per child? That was my going rate as a teenager. How times have changed!

Adding $75+ in childcare costs to any of our plans was reserved for special occasions, and our “date nights” became “family night out! People would say, “It’s so cool that your girls go everywhere with you.” Well, when you are a single income household without grandparents living nearby to provide the luxury of free babysitting, you improvise! We keep encouraging our parents to move to Colorado but so far, no luck.

Thus, the concept of Parents Night Out with inexpensive childcare seemed like a gift from heaven!

My first stop to sign up for Parents’ Night Out was my daughter’s gymnastics studio. Their instructors have more patience than I can fathom, and enviable multi-tasking abilities this was the PERFECT place for my girls to spend an evening there while we enjoyed a date night.

I was almost giddy when I asked for the signup form – until I read the fine print: “Minimum age: five years old.”

FIVE?! My oldest is only four! How could this be happening to me? NOOOOO!

I can understand requiring children to be potty trained in order to attend, but five-years-old as the minimum age seemed high. I set out to do some hard-hitting journalistic investigation and find out the answer to my question: Why five?!

Thankfully, that journalistic investigation didn’t take long. The owner informed me they had included younger children in the past, but based on the ratio of instructors to children and activities they had planned the age requirement ensured a more enjoyable experience for everyone involved. That was an unfortunate answer.

I still had hope that my husband and I would have our Parents’ Night Out, and headed to my gym. Again with the fine print, “five years old.” Seriously people?

The manager of the Kids’ Activities let me know the rule was in accordance with licensing regulations; however, they are now able to include four-year-olds. SCORE! I happen to know a four-year-old who would be thrilled to participate in their upcoming summertime Parents’ Night Out activities. Unfortunately, this darling four-year-old also has a baby sister.

Now, all my husband and I have to do is wait until the year 2018 so that we can drop our little ones off for Parents’ Night Out!

In the meantime, anyone want to work our a kid swap? This mommy needs a date night.