The Fallacy Of Date Night

It’s Saturday night, a drizzly evening, sometime back in 2018. I’ve just spattered myself with neon powdered cheese, which was in the process of dissolving into butter and milk.

My evening plans consist of nothing more than burgers and a movie with a man who has seen me in all forms of dress (and undress), but we’re venturing out in the world without the children, and that is always a Big Deal. It calls for a shirt that is not in the weekly laundry rotation, and if time permits, maybe even a few swipes of mascara. Dangly earrings, perhaps, if I’m feeling frisky.

The 15 minutes before the babysitter arrives are, as usual, a blur. Somewhere in there is a heavily processed and hastily consumed dinner for the kids. A last-ditch attempt to make the bathroom not gross. A wet rag passed over the jewels of urine that consistently glistened off the toilet seat and its surrounding environs. A violent scouring of the sink basin to remove encrusted toothpaste entrails and other unidentified substances.

The hasty bathroom scrubbing is followed by a jog around the house in search of other grossness. Errant snacks under chairs, mildewed towels hunched in corners, and a vaguely sticky something smeared across the coffee table.

It’s not that I feel the need to impress the 15-year-old that my husband is currently picking up. I’m not vacuuming or mopping or dusting, for Pete’s sake. I’m just de-grossifying. When I was an adolescent, I babysat at a reliably gross house. The kind of house where you’re afraid to sit down and you’d rather hold it than use the bathroom. I don’t want our house to be that house.

My partner arrives with the babysitter, and my three-year-old son is clinging to my leg asking why we have to go, and I’m going over all the reminders about bedtimes and after-dinner snack guidelines and screen time rules and logins and Internet passwords.

My mouth and voice form the words: “Please feel free to call or text if you have any questions.” But my eyes say: “Please don’t call or text unless someone is bleeding profusely from their head or the house is burning down. Even then, start with 911.”

Of course, either way, I know I will be checking my phone throughout the night, just to make sure there are no head wounds or house fires that may require my attention.

Thus, the fallacy of date night: I feel spent before the evening has even begun.

As we get into the car, I can feel my son watching us through the front window, doing his best to ensure that we feel properly guilty. I think about how often people ask how come I don’t “just get a babysitter” when I try to communicate how exhausting it is to be a parent in the 21st century. Okay, I say to myself, I’m following your advice. I’ve gotten the darn babysitter.

Of course, just getting the darn babysitter was exhausting in and of itself.

If our two go-to’s are unavailable, there is quite a bit of sleuthing required. And then we just have to trust that our friend’s neighbor’s uncle’s coworker’s kid is going to be responsible enough to keep our house standing and isn’t going to vape in the house or leave fentanyl around that the kids might mistake for candy.

But we are pulling away from the house, and that’s an accomplishment in its own right. It’s 15 minutes later than our target departure time, and I realize I still have neon cheese splattered down the front of my shirt. As I lick my fingers and scrub at the stubborn hardened particles, I try to focus on the 4.5 shiny kid-free hours stretched ahead of us.

They are very precious and very expensive hours. Once the clock is running, every hour costs us a minimum of $15, no matter what else we do. Dinner fits our new definition of “upscale,” meaning that the restaurant doesn’t have fluorescent lights and serves draft beer. Yes, we’re getting beer.

While “dinner and a movie” sounds low-key, it’s hard not to feel a little anxious. Since our date nights happen so rarely, and since we’re reliably at least 15 minutes behind schedule, time is tight and there’s no room for error. There better be parking, there better be no wait, the burger better not be overdone and my pint of beer better not be one-third foam.

It will, in all likelihood, be at least three months before we can get it together to commit to another date night, not to mention find a babysitter, and everything must go as planned.
We’ve already bought our movie tickets, but we want to make sure to get good seats, so we don’t linger for long. At the theater, the concession stand line is half a mile long. The burger is sitting like a greasy rock in the bottom of my stomach, but we have to buy popcorn on principle. Because this is Portland, Oregon, the movie theater also sells craft beer on tap, and we have to buy that, too. It’s our Big Night Out, after all!

As the previews drag on, I can already feel my eyelids drooping. I wonder who decided that movies these days have to be at least 150 minutes long. Whoever it was, they didn’t have kids.

Around 10 p.m., the time at which I’d normally be tucking my bookmark into my novel and adjusting my pillow, I do a time check on my phone (also a head wound/house fire check). By my calculations, there are still 60 minutes of the movie remaining. I’m enjoying it, but it’s now officially past my bedtime, and I also have 1.5 beers and hamburger grease and popcorn butter coursing through my veins.

When we arrive home, the good news is that the children are still breathing and the house is still standing. The bad news is that that babysitter still needs to be chauffeured home and the sink is cluttered with dirty dishes, one of which contains congealed macaroni remains. The macaroni, at least, we can deal with in the morning.

It’s nearly midnight when I drop into bed with the full knowledge that at least one of my children will be rising bright-eyed and rearing to go in six short hours. Our casual “dinner and a movie” date night has cost us a grand total of $170 — $60 for burgers and beer, $40 for the movie + refreshments, and $70 for babysitting services. It has also cost a few hours of sleep, which will never be recuperated.

I don’t regret the evening. But I don’t feel relaxed or recharged. If anything, I’m even more exhausted. A 2023 study by the American Psychological Association revealed that 48% of parents say most days their stress is completely overwhelming, compared to 26% of other adults who reported the same.

Much ado is made about “date night” — how important it is for parents to take some time for themselves, but really, it’s the capitalist solution to the capitalist problems of stress and isolation.
We’re told date nights are important for “healthy relationships.” We’re told they can increase intimacy and relieve stress. The number of parents in this country who’ve admitted to being lost and exhausted has become exponential, at least according to Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, who wrote for the New York Times that he was issuing a warning about the state of parenting.

Dr. Murthy issued an advisory to call attention to the burnout and stress parents face today: Take time for yourself, take time for yourself and your honey. For just $170, parents, too, can enjoy a few hours of fun!

The fact that so many think our exhaustion can be “solved” by a night on the town only highlights the strength of our collective denial when it comes to the problems that plague modern parents. It’s a denial fueled by a profound lack of understanding, a stubborn unwillingness to listen, and an unrelenting insistence that these problems are individual, not collective.

According to a 2024 LendingTree survey of more than 2,000 adult consumers from the U.S., even as the high cost of living slowly starts to ebb, the cost of everything related to childcare, like strollers, diapers, and formula, has hiked for the current generation of parents. Three out of four people with a child report having and raising their kid was “far more expensive than expected.”

It doesn’t matter how greasy the burger, how crisp the beer, how scintillating the conversation, how entertaining the movie, how crunchy the popcorn — date nights may offer a costly respite, but they are not going to save relationships or solve parents’ collective stress.

“Just get a babysitter,” they say. If only my friend’s neighbor’s uncle’s coworker knew how much faith society places in her 15-year-old kid.