AIBU to ask if you take your child to adult get togethers if they haven’t been specifically invited?

[WinegumsPlease]

If your friends are having a get together in a restaurant or bar in the evening, or similar event, would you take your toddler or pre schooler along if they hadn’t been specifically invited?

TIA

Hang on! What? Very few people hate kids, but many parents would like to have a social life that occasionally excludes their kids. Crikey I have a toddler and he is adorable, but he would be tired, bored and cranky and demanding of my attention if I dragged him out to have an evening out with friends. Sometimes I'd like to leave the house without wearing a nursing bra and a bag full of books and toys to get through a meal. I don't want to have to sit there in adult company doing horsey rides on my knee while everyone is trying to have a nice meal. Would you suggest he might even come along to late night karaoke and give us all a rendition of Incy Wincy Spider? Personally I think he would be best off tucked up in bed.

It completely changes the dynamics if kids are there. I'd really resent it if I'd got childcare only to be expected to socialise with other people's kids.

So luckily the child has two parents to parent it.

No! How could anyone think this is okay?

Do the Dad's then do the same, because they all like kids? It can feed into the idea that women are the default parent.

God, no! I’d find it really weird that a child was brought to an evening outing.

@Lampslights

it’s not about hating kids it’s about wanting some adult only time. That’s allowed you know!

No definitely not. And I don’t hate kids at all

Do you never want to talk about topics that aren't appropriate for children? Or have an uninterrupted conversation? Or are you one of those parents whose conversation revolves around their children and can't think of anything else to talk about anyway?

I don't hate children. Not mine nor anyone else's. Doesn't mean I want to be sitting in a bar on a Friday night listening to someone persuade their toddler to watch another episode of Bluey or whatever toddlers watch nowadays on an ipad. And that would be preferable to pretending to be entertained by someone else's toddler running around annoying everyone else. Or listening to their toddler whine because it's bored and in a totally unsuitable environment...

Agree. I don't hate kids and neither does DH. We even had a child-friendly wedding before we had our own children.

But I wouldn't take a child to an event in the evening. Apart from anything ever, they'd be in bed.

DH would put the child to bed and I'd go out. Or we'd get a babysitter and go together.

Personally, I don't care if someone brings a friend along. But generally other adults don't need someone else to take care of their food intake, entertainment and toileting needs.

Depends on situation, but evening meet- up in a bar no. Different if it were a lunch-time meet-up in a cafe.

It's nothing like that

No. They're not invited for a reason!

OP I think only the most self-absorbed of people would think that was the default

No, children change the vibe and evening events at places like bars are not meant for children.

If I invited a friend to my house for lunch, I would assume she would bring her child as its the day and child friendly but she would still mention it, not just appear with him.

It’s not the norm, but occasionally it happens.

I recall an occasion or 2 when I ended up taking a young DS to Christmas lunch with girl friend group. The reason was last minute childcare failure - baby sitter ill, snow day at nursery. I mentioned it was bring DC or can’t come and they definitely wanted to see me, so …

We’ve just been invited to an engagement party- it’s 2pm on a Sunday in the private area of a local beer garden. We’ve assumed 10yo DS is invited. If the happy couple were doing 7pm we’d assume he isn’t.

Depends on the group. No right or wrong answer.

DP and I used to take dd out with us but our friends were fine about it. I also made sure that she wasn't allowed to spoil things for others eg if going out for a curry, she sat next to me, was well supplied with sticker books etc and I spent a lot of the time talking to her (it meant I didn't talk to our friends as much as if I'd left her at home but I wanted to make sure I was a parenting and not expecting others to do it for me).

Dd would chat away to friends who talked to her but was brought up not to interrupt adult conversations.

Don't be silly.

There's a 'movement' on MN that wants to say that modern society 'hates kids' and another that says modern society 'hates dogs' when it's nothing of the sort but just that kids and dogs aren't necessarily appropriate guests at every single social gathering or in every single social space and that their parents/owners believing they should be included at all times as "my family" does not necessarily mean they should and that other people agree.

I think it's fairly obvious why tired toddlers and evening gatherings don't mix well.

There's a 'movement' on MN that wants to say that modern society 'hates kids'

Agree. There’ve been a few threads recently with people saying that posters not wanting to welcome kids to everything, or not wanting to prioritise parents over every other class of person, must ‘hate’ mums and kids and it’s so entitled.

I don’t have kids but I did have friends who would bring kids to adult meet ups and it was super annoying. They would get huffy if you objected to it so they slowly stopped being invited themselves (they didn’t stop once the kids were a bit older, we had a 10 year old at a hen do once).

I find it amusing to regularly be accused on hating kids on here just for thinking they don’t automatically need to be at every event.

i have 6 of them. Im obviously rather fond of kids!

It’s just not the way my friendship group works to assume its ok to bring your kids along to lunch/dinner/drinks.

DHs group automatically assume kids are invited as that’s how they work.

He and his friends don’t actually like kids any more than me and mine. We just work differently with regard to get togethers

No

Absolutely not. Unless I've been told other kids would be there, I would assume we'd be drinking and having adult conversation.