...to think we as wives and mums deserve a treat or a day off, lets say at least once a month, to enjoy and relax ourselves shopping, eating out, visiting ....

[btfly2]

a friend, museum or art gallery, spending some money on clothes, books or any treat you like and deciding to put on my diary as an appointment that cannot be cancelled. What do you think?...

Is a Mini Trip to Venice a bit like being in The Italian Job?

Oh no. That was Turin.

I have never understood the appeal of a spa day (or the MN obsession with them as a cure-all for everything from a stubbed toe to marital breakdown). It just seems like a very expensive way to get a verruca.

I don't do a whole day regularly, no, but I do have plenty of smaller chunks of free time, evenings after the DCs are in bed, my days off work (DCs are school age, I only work 3 days), some of which is spent seeing friends etc. DH also goes out in the evenings and does things by himself at the weekends too. It isn't really abut deserving it though, it's just what we do, and we appreciate the fact that we are able to do so.

I wouldn't put it in my diary as something that couldn't be cancelled though, unless it is something requiring tickets. If it was something to do with the DCs I would probably ditch out on my own plans unless I was losing money or letting other people down.

I really don't want to have to eat out a friend in Venice.

God, I went to a 'development day' at work recently where there was lots of banging on about me-time. Because we were all women, natch.

I thought about vibrators a lot.

Oh and definitely no spa days for me. A football match would be more my cup of tea.

Well quite. I can't imagine anything worse than sitting around in a towelling dressing gown while someone tries to upsell you a "treatment" to a soundtrack of panpipes.

It reminds me of those adverts where women sit and eat an aspartame laden yoghurt and declare it to be 'naughty' and 'indulgent' or eat 2 Maltesers and act as though they are sharing a crack pipe.

Just go and buy a book, have a glass of wine, watch shit TV, go for a walk, spend time with the people you spend your life with having fun, take a break if you can, and if you can't get some sleep and try not to go insane.

Why are you asking? Essay? Advert?

I dont think deserve comes into it. A?l Mums and wives are in different situations in this country, let alone across the world. I don't deserve such things, none of which sound appealing to me anyway, give me a long muddy walk in the rain any day. I dont even deserve that, if anyone gets time to themselves to do what they want, then they should be thankful.

When my chldren were babies I didnt get much time off, neither did the Dad and Husband. As they grew id take more time to go on longer runs, so would the Dad and Husband. As they slept longer I would have lie ins, so would the Dad and Husband. Now we both do what we want much of the time.

If Mums and Wives were consistently busier than Dads or Fathers, in the same society, then the only thing we deserve is to be fucking pissed off.

A mini-trip to Venice in a day is pretty fucking mini.

If you have a mini trip will you even reach Italy?

SheThinks, not even if you could break for a view of the Rialto bridge?

How about fingering in Florence?

This is a weird thread. I have never found that the two most wonderful, significant and rewarding relationships in my life should entitle me to a treat or a day out.

I have days out doing various things because I'm a regular human being living in the UK in 2015 and that's just what people do.

I do at least one of those things every day. Luckily I'm only a mum, not a wife. Sounds hard work, wife stuff. I'll just live over the broom.

Not a PR or journalist.

I come from a very different culture and language so excuse my English mistakes please.

Is a great fun to have such a variety of answers to a post although I realized I wasn't very clear about the topic ( probably the lack of native expressions, etc)

I do a lot of things, no need for permission just wonder how to manage it more consistently as normally I put the others first...

That's all :)

If you'd asked for tips on managing to build a bit of down time into your life it might have been a different thread!
Talk to your dp or whoever would be picking up the childcare in your absence. Figure out how you can both do what you need to do to be happy.

My feet bloody hurt after a summer's day walking round Venice. It prompted a calculation of the pounds per square inch exerted on my feet versus DJ's feet whereupon I was proven to have suffered more :)

Ah right. Okay, it's quite easy to subsume self into role of wife, mama, cook, chief bottle washer etc. Carving time out after your family has kinda slid into taking you for granted isn't always natural at first. So yes, do "book" yourself out of the family calendar regularly.

I just went to eat a bag of McCoys out of the cupboard but the bag says they are Man Crisps. I guess as a wife and a mother they are off-limits and I should eat an anti-bloating yogurt instead.

DH. He"s not a DJ.

The 1950s called and it wants its little wifey back.

Possibly the best line I've ever read on Mumsnet!