Let Your Spouse Book the Babysitter

It was February 14, 2006, ten years ago to nearly this day, that my future husband planned an epic Valentine’s Day. We’d only been seeing each other for about two weeks, and he had planned a romantic evening, took me to a fancy Italian Restaurant in the downtown area of our college town and gifted me a handmade collage with a poem and a photo of us together. Ah, how naïve I was, eight years BC (before children), when we could just take off into the night, without any preparation, and the most stressful part of a relationship was picking out what to wear on a date.

And fast forward ten years later, where we most recently attended a Wine & Canvas event last week. I had a gift certificate for well over a year and finally got around to reserving some seats online, asked my mother to babysit, and told my husband to clear his schedule. As we are sitting at the table, getting settled in front of our canvases, he was talking about how excited he was and he had been wanting to do this for months… months.

So I turned to him and said, you know, if you wanted to try it so badly, you could have planned this date instead of me. And the more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that probably nearly every mother in the universe must plan the date nights, or at the very least, schedule the babysitter.

Now, I’m not faulting my husband for never planning the date nights because that’s not true. However, it has become more of the norm since our daughter was born. When it comes to scheduling them and finding someone to watch our daughter, that duty typically falls to me. Even a month ago, I asked him to plan a date night for my birthday and told him I was making it his responsibility to find the sitter. He did, but just before we were about to drop her off he asked me if we were supposed to feed our daughter dinner or was that something they were taking care of?

Why can’t we just hand the date night planning over to our husbands? Why do have to find the sitter, book the sitter, pay the sitter, and detract from date night? For the longest time, my husband and I didn’t venture out on any dates because I didn’t want to have to pay someone to watch my child. But honestly, if I’d handed that responsibility off a long time ago, I would have made date night more of a priority. I recently read a fairly interesting article about how paying for a sitter (and talking to them when you get home) can actually affect sex after date night because we fall back into the “mom mode” instead of staying in the “wife mode.”

Sure there are probably some mothers out there that would prefer to handle the sitter; less stress for them during date night. But honestly, wouldn’t it be thrilling and relaxing to walk into an empty home, your husband saying “Honey, I have a surprise date night planned. The kids are already gone and settling in the with the sitter so you can take your time peeing and putting make-up on without a two-year-old attached to your shoe while you get ready for a night on the town”? What’s the likelihood you would actually go put on make-up or would you tackle your spouse to the floor and rip his clothes off?

I realize Valentine’s Day is just a week away, and there are so many great date night ideas in Knoxville, why not give yourself a break? Let your spouse book the babysitter.