To ask what kind of social life you have?

[stuckindamiddle]

Posting here for traffic (and because I can never find the Chat thread on the mumsnet app...!)

I'm curious to know to what extent other parents have a social life. I mean, nights out with your friends, does your partner have the same, do you socialise with other couples / families and do you have any regular
activities - sport, choir, book club, politics etc.

Just asking as me and DH feel our social lives have taken a real dent since we became parents and would like to hope things improve as kids get older. I think the current situation isn't helped by us having no real couple friends where we now live (we moved cities just before we became parents), only one babysitter we can call on and also because we both
enjoy spending as much time as possible with DS and / or are pretty knackered most of the time still.

I guess a lot depends on how old your kids are, whether you have a partner or not, if you have access to reliable babysitters and how long you've lived in your area.

Please tell me how it is for you and give me hope!

DC 10 & 7. DH and I both go away separately for anything from 1-3 nights each year, with friends. Eg I went to Paris with girlfriends, he is currently playing golf in Spain with his friends.

We go out in the evenings solo with friends once or twice a month and together roughly once every two months. We often have other couples and their children over for parties or go to parties at theirs.

We either ask PIL a to babysit or pay a babysitter when we go out together. We rarely go away the two of us, we went for one night for our 10th wedding anniversary, that's all. Got BIL/SIL to babysit for that.

I see lots of friends in the day, with children in tow, seldom go anywhere at night, and have had one venture out with only my dh (to a wedding, home by 7pm) since I had ds1 five years ago!
I don't quite know how it got to that point. We don't have any family local and I didn't want to leave ds1 when he as tiny, then ds2 came along, I started to go out a bit more when ds2 was over one, but then had (a surprise) ds3. Ds3 is still a baby, so I don't want to leave him yet (but can take him with me to some evening things) but three children seems like a lot to leave, for example, my parents would be happy to look after one, two at a push, but say they don't feel happy with all three. So my social life is on hold for a bit longer.
Dh seldom goes out in the evening either,but does escape on work trips for a week or so quite frequently. From my perspective, that seems like a social life, but that might not be accurate!

I really think this whole thing rests on the type of social life you had before

We go out about once a month to be honest I baby sister is fab but won't go any time after 12:30 and oh works a lot so it's difficult

A social life isn't just about clubs and bars though is it.

Very true flipchart, i dont go clubbing with my friends, we prefer going out for meals or going to a quiet pub for a couple of drinks. Or the cinema. The thought of going to a meat market pub fills me with dread and would probably embarras the life out of DS19 if i were to bump into him there.

Well it was for me at certain times in my life!! Not now though.

I'm certainly not saying it is/was for everyone.

We have one 12 yo DS and we have a night out together once a week with a paid sitter, plus another couple of nights out a month on average as he's with family/at sleepovers. I also do an evening class once a week and DH goes to the gym twice a week, but we don't see that as socialising although I do have friends there, but it's a health/hobby thing really. We get together with family about twice a month (they all live locally) for a dinner/day out.

DH and I go away just the two of us a couple of times a year, and DH goes abroad on his own a few more times (he used to live abroad so has lots of friends to visit).

It's much easier now that DS is older, but even when he was a toddler we'd make sure we had that paid sitter and had our hobbies - I really think it's saved our marriage. I don't know how couples survive just with the day to day drudgery, I'd have gone mad if I hadn't had a night out for years.

We have a 1 yo DS and don't get a lot of time to ourselves. I've got bookclub once a month where DH does the food, bath, bed routine and a very occasional night out with friends, but probably no more than once every couple of months.
DH has friends round for tabletop gaming once a week, bookclub once a month and will often be out once a week for food with friends in the evening.
What I miss the most are the ad-hoc nights out e.g. we're out in town so let's grab some food or go to the cinema. We have a small handful of friends who can babysit but we've not tried paid babysitters yet. Having said that we are off to the Elbow gig in April in Manchester which I'm really looking forward to. The last time we saw them I was pregnant with DS!
We've had one night away from DS where a couple of friends had him for the night, but we definitely need more than that as we don't get enough quality time together. My parents unfortunately live too far away and are a bit too old to do the night shift until he starts sleeping through.

My husband goes out once a month for a pint with his granddad for an hour, that is it.

I go to my local pub every few weeks. I am a homebody at heart and prefer staying in to be honest. You couldn't pay me to go clubbing or into a busy pub. A girls night out sounds like torture to me, I much prefer my local pub, they have a band (Lee Vasey if anyone knows of him) and it's good fun but once every few weeks is more than enough.

I have 5 under 8. I go to fight klub class twice a week, netball once a week and see my friends once a week. I work full time. DH doesn't really go out. I wouldn't mind if he did but he doesn't have many friends and isn't in the kind of job where he would meet some new ones. DH and I rarely go out together, logistical nightmare.

We have a great reciprocal agreement with a friend who has one DS, either her DS comes here for a sleepover with our two, or she comes here and sleeps over too with her DS and we go out / away. Then you get a night out and a lie in in the morning too! None of us has any relations in the area so this is brilliant for all of us.

Hi when they were little we went out less, but they have always been good sleepers so we always had our evenings just me and dh or friends/family.
We probably went out twice a month and had grandparents on both sides nearby so always had a sitter. As they got older (now 12 and 14) we go out more and if we are local or just going for a meal we leave them in by themselves for a couple of hours. If we are going to a concert/out the area we will get gps over.
Also we have friends round quite a lot with their similar age dcs- they go to entertain themselves in the den while get to talk/drink uninterrupted and we do the same at their houses.
We also go to cafes every week and at first dcs would come too, but now they meet their mates so we get coffees in peace too. We have always both been very sociable and dcs are obviously following in our footsteps. Some of the time they come with us to see bands/meals/theatre/festivals/beer gardens/ If nice enough.

Dh and I work full time. Two dc - 8 and 3.

We go to about 4 events a year as a couple.

I go out 2 or 3 times a year without him and he the same without me.

That's it. I'm happy with that though .

oh and we have their cousins for sleepovers and vice versa

Whats a social life!?

Pretty good. My secret is being a single parent with an amicable co-parent who is happy to look after DS when I want to go out. I also have a couple of kid-friendly hobbies so I can take DS with me on weekend trips and some evening events.

At 40 I love going out to bars and see bands etc every bit as much as I did at 18. I could never give up nights out!

I don't really go out in the evening as dh works evenings. I tend to do something social once a week-lunch out, hosting a friend for eg. We've just moved house and it's not a very friendly area I think. Lots of my social life was on the street where we used to live, you'd bump into friends and neighbours all the time and it made me lazy about getting organised with friends not in the area.

I go out once a month with friends without DH or children I guess, out of choice as I realised since becoming a mum I like my own company best sometimes a little more if there are events happening. DH and I don't often go out together, rarely in fact, but the children are now 4 and 7 so that is changing. We went out twice in one week a month ago! unheard of, and probably more than we had been out in 6 months, together! DH goes out more than I do, about 3 times a week to visit friends and play x-box games, nothing exciting!

I try to go to the gym a few times a week but find it hard to get the time even when a health condition doesn't stop me.

But, as I said, now the children are growing older I am less tired and getting more energy to want to go out, as up to recently I have not wanted to even if I had the time/babysitter to go due to no energy.

I don't resend how it's been though, i think I was ready for some enforced staying in!

None whatsoever. Actually, I lie, the children and I have a great social life together. I don't feel the need to go out without them, and I'm too tired anyway. I meet my friend for lunch every few months, and have stayed overnight twice in the past year. DC 6, 4 and 2.

Actually, I'd hate to go out in the veening, but I'd love to go swimming by myself a couple of times a week.

oh yes, and I also have friends with children so we do dinner at each other's houses, chuck the kids in with a film and try to grab some adult time! That is also getting easier as we get older. A couple of friends of ours are coming over tomorrow, we are spending the afternoon with another set of friends for afternoon tea, with all our children, then in the evening the couple of friends are coming to ours and our children will go to bed, their older child will watch a film on netflix as a treat, in our bedroom where he can sleep if he wants to or can stay up for a bit, while we catch up with some adult time. They won't go home really stupidly late as their DS is 11 but it won't be at 8/9pm like it is with friends with younger children, maybe 10-10:30pm as it's not a school night? something like that.

I am looking forward to that actually! And the start of more of those kind of nights.