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You are here: Home / PLAY / A parents’ date night with a difference

A parents’ date night with a difference

September 20, 2016 by Molly 5 Comments

date-night-outfit

I should get one thing out of the way before I go any further. I’m not a fan of the term “date night”. It seems a bit trite and a bit not very “us” as a couple. However, for the purpose of this post the “parents date night” is a very apt name.

Let me explain. Until last Friday night we hadn’t had a proper “date night” in over two years. I’m talking a meal in a restaurant, dressing up in something other than pyjamas, leisurely pre-dinner drinks in a pub… the works.

Like many couples, our main issue has been childcare. As Baby Girl was always such an unreliable sleeper I was hesitant to leave her with a babysitter until recently. The thought of getting a call from a panicked sitter while my baby screamed in the background just put me off the idea completely.

In our quest for some sort of social life aside from Netflix we’ve compromised and had nights out with friends separately, taking it in turns to stay in with the kids. That’s all well and good but (aside from his annoying habit of not putting his dirty laundry in the wash basket) I quite like my husband and rather enjoy spending time with him.

That’s where the Fairy Godmother of the parent world stepped in and gave us a break. The website Childcare.co.uk is a fantastic resource for parents like us who want to find a local babysitter. You can also look up local nannies, childminders, private tutors and maternity nurses – to name but a few. I signed up to the site, popped in my postcode and did a search of babysitters within a 5 mile radius.

You can send messages via the site (although you need a paid account for this facility) which makes it even easier to organise a chat with a potential babysitter – you don’t even need to pick up the phone. I found a lovely looking lady who lived less than two miles away. Not only was she available Friday and Saturday evenings (result) but she was working as a teaching assistant and part-time nanny. I messaged her and within a week she’d been round to meet the kids and have a cup of tea – just as much to check us out as vice versa!

Friday night rolled around and I won’t say I wasn’t a little nervous. The only people I’ve ever left the girls with before is my parents (aside from an evening at a hotel which included a babysitter – but they were only in the room upstairs so that doesn’t really count!). Funnily enough, two gin and tonics down and the nerves started to go.

I did all the usual stuff you do when you leave your kids with a babysitter – stocked up on chocolate, left Netflix running, wrote down a million “in case of emergency” phone numbers and stuck them to the fridge.

The evening itself was perfectly low key. We went to a pub (I got far too excited about being in a pub in the actual evening with actual adults around) and then for a curry. We ate spicy food and didn’t need to worry about a suitable kids’ menu. We chatted without having to take it in turns to walk around the restaurant with an inquisitive toddler. It was bliss.

Afterwards we went back to the pub for a drink before getting a taxi home and returning to a quiet house. There were no kids wailing – they’d not even woken up – and the house was still intact. Bonus.

The best thing (aside from the king prawn curry, of course)? It went so well we’ve decided to make it a regular event. Even if we don’t go for the full works of a three course meal, just to have an evening outside of the house in a different atmosphere was so lovely.

We’re definitely guilty of not always appreciating each other – it can be hard to find time for each other when you’ve got a kid hanging off each leg – and getting out of the house together proved to be just what we needed. It was also rather nice to wear something other than my pyjamas on a Friday night.

If you’re looking for a solution to a lack of date night in the diary then I thoroughly recommend having a look at Childcare.co.uk. I’m their new biggest fan.

 

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Thanks to Childcare.co.uk for working with me on this post and for being our Fairy Godmother for the evening. All opinions and words are my own. For more information about how I work with brands check out my Work With Me page.

 

 

Filed Under: PLAY Tagged With: date night, husband and wife, marriage, marriage after babies, parents, relationships

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Comments

  1. Emergency Day Care says

    June 29, 2017 at 6:27 am

    What an amazing date night. With kids you can go to places like McDonald’s, grab a coffee and a bench and utilize the play places to keep your kids entertained where you can talk but keep an eye on the children.

    Reply
  2. Kate / Pouting In Heels says

    September 20, 2016 at 10:51 am

    Oh Molly, it sounds amazing! Being in a pub with adults drinking booze and eating curry?! That IS the life my friend. 😉 So glad you had a smashing night out together, the service sounds like a brilliant idea. x

    Reply
    • Molly says

      September 20, 2016 at 2:47 pm

      It was SO lovely. To be honest, even just getting a bit dressed up and wearing something non loungewear related was exciting! x

      Reply
  3. Carie @ Space for the Butterflies says

    September 20, 2016 at 7:49 am

    What a lovely treat – far more practical than glass slippers and a pumpkin coach! We’ve only ever left the kids with their grandparents for similar reasons and the rarity really makes you cherish the time as just a couple doesn’t it 🙂

    Reply
    • Molly says

      September 20, 2016 at 9:22 am

      It really does! I think having a babysitter forced us to do something fun – whenever we’ve left the kids with the grandparents we’ve felt like we need to make the most of the free house to do jobs and boring DIY stuff!

      Reply

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Hello and welcome! I'm Molly Forbes - podcaster, presenter and blogger with a passion for positivity, confidence and body image chat. Regularly writing and vlogging about empowering female issues from a motherhood angle, I also cover lifestyle and fashion topics for like-minded mums who want to rediscover themselves after having children. Thanks for stopping by! Read More…

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Let’s talk joyful movement and.... PRIVILEGE! A Let’s talk joyful movement and.... PRIVILEGE! A nice juicy subject for a Thursday evening 😅
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I absolutely love to see the narrative shift (albeit ever so slightly) to the intrinsic benefits of movement. The focus on intuitive movement and moving our bodies for how it makes us FEEL over how it makes us LOOK brings me huge happiness. 
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BUT... even when we take movement away from a diet culture context, I still think there’s often a lack of acknowledgment of the many barriers preventing people engaging in movement in the first place (hot tip: it’s not “just cos they’re lazy” 🙄). 
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When it comes to my own family - here are some of the privileges we live with which make movement easier for us: 
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✨ We live in an area with access to lots of safe green spaces to play and walk.
✨ We can afford to pay for a gym membership, and extra curricular activities for the kids like gymnastics, Street Dance and swimming.
✨ We have access to the technology needed to take part in online classes over lockdown.
✨ We are non-disabled so experience no physical access issues preventing us from joining in with these activities. 
✨ Our work schedule allows us to get out together during daylight hours. 
✨ None of us lives with a mental health condition which might make getting outside / engaging in movement really hard or even impossible.
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Kids access to movement is not equal so if we really care about encouraging more children to move then, as a nation, we need to level the playing field (pun intended). 
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Some accounts which often discuss movement and privilege: @thephitcoach @amysnellingpt @theaishanash ❤️
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[Image description: Molly and her two daughters standing on top of a hill smiling, with their arms in the air.]
It’s pretty well accepted that certain “fad di It’s pretty well accepted that certain “fad diets” are not the one. But if our definition of diet culture stops there, and we fail to see how diet culture IS fatphobic in its very nature - and that it absolutely depends on a collective cultural fear and vilification of fatness then we’ll never get anywhere with tearing it down.
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Dressing up fatphobia as “health concern”, or “tough love” or “helping people” is just a fluffy way of saying you don’t acknowledge the huge complexity around health, or the many factors that impact weight, or the research showing the harmful (and unhealthy) impact of weight stigma, or the evidence into the long term effectiveness of diets and intentional weight loss. 
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And essentially, those who assert that health only looks one way, and that people have a moral responsibility to prove their health via the shape of their body and not be a “drain on society”, are saying that only people with their version of a “healthy body” are worthy of respect, equality, dignity.
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Children pick up on these messages and learn from an early age that “fat = bad”, and to see some bodies as better, and more deserving of love and respect than others. This could be why we’re seeing a rising number of pre-teens with eating disorders and mental health issues associated with poor body image. 
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Yes we need to lose the fad diets. But we also need to lose the deeper prejudices and anti-fat biases that make them profitable in the first place, otherwise they’ll just continue to show up in different ways, coming in ever more aggressive and insidious ways for our kids.
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(Image description: A yellow slide with multicolour shapes and a screenshot of a tweet overlaid which reads “FYI you can’t be simultaneously anti-diet culture and pro fatphobia. (And yes, fatphobia includes continuously asking “But what about health?” and not listening to the answer...)
You might have missed this in the news over Christ You might have missed this in the news over Christmas. It didn’t get nearly the same amount of coverage as all the diet-related features that are everywhere right now. It was hidden away behind the before and after “amazing weight loss” stories, celeb diet plans and “o*esity causes covid” headlines. But that doesn’t make it any less shocking or heartbreaking. 
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I believe there’s a link between the rise in children being diagnosed with eating disorders and the rise in children suffering poor body image. These issues are fallout from a culture that idolises thinness, vilifies fatness and continually promotes one, narrow, over-simplified version of health. 
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Diet culture is coming increasingly aggressively for children, and the pandemic with the huge mental health toll it’s taken has not helped one bit. We already knew the number of pre-teens diagnosed with anorexia in the last decade had doubled, and it seems the figures are rising even higher. We need change. Fast. 
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Check out the Body Happy Kids resources, workshops and Masterclass and the #FreeFromDiets campaign in my bio, if you want to help change the culture our kids are growing up in. They deserve better.
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[Image description: a section from a news article about rising numbers of children suffering with eating disorders. Full text can be found in Alt Text.]
I’ve been looking a lot at old photos lately. Th I’ve been looking a lot at old photos lately. This pic is from summer 2018, when I could hug my mum and travel abroad on holiday. If I close my eyes I can almost feel the warmth of the sun on my skin, smell the salty sea air and hear the laughter of other families playing on the beach. Holding on to these memories and the hope that the hugs, sunshine and bikinis will come again one day. In the meantime it’s video calls, trackie bottoms and WhatsApp. ❄️☀️ 
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[Image description: Molly and her mum standing on a beach in France, in 2018. They are both wearing brightly coloured bikinis, hugging and smiling. It’s a hot sunny day and the sky is blue.]
❤️❤️❤️ #BodyHappyKids The Masterclass ❤️❤️❤️ #BodyHappyKids The Masterclass is on 30th Jan. Find out more and sign up via the link in my bio. Happy Friday everyone ✨
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[Image description: A tweet saying “Cannot recommend Body Happy Kids enough, especially in January with its incessant ramming of diet culture in everyone’s eyes and ears. They also do teacher sessions and the one I (virtually) attended was brilliant. If you’re a parent, sign up if you can!]
Throwback to when I was last in a gym, back in Dec Throwback to when I was last in a gym, back in December. Seems like a good time to talk about resolutions and goals and how diet culture has muddied the waters with this stuff...
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Having a fitness or movement goal is not the same as having a weight loss goal. Diet culture always conflates fitness with weight loss, particularly at this time of year, encouraging us to move in order to “burn the fat” or “earn the food”. But it’s entirely possible (and, as research shows, more conducive to long term exercise) to move for reasons that have nothing to do with aesthetics. There’s also evidence to show it’s the fitness, not the weight, which is more important when it comes to health. 
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This doesn’t mean that if you move for the love of it rather than the look of it that you can’t have goals though. I’ve got goals - but I’m in it for the gains, not the losses. 
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Swimming and the gym are off the cards at the moment, so I’ve set myself the goal of as many walks as I can fit in this month - ideally daily, but that’s a loose plan as it might not always be possible. I’m seeing it as self-care, a chance to be outside and get some vitamin D and fresh air, and enjoy the hit of endorphins as I move my body up and down hills.
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Have you got any (non diet culture tinted) fitness goals you’re working towards at the moment? 
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[Image description: Molly stands in front of a mirror at the gym. She’s wearing workout clothes, looking sweaty, holding a weight in one hand.]
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