Parent Night: Dating My Husband at Home

“I was talking to your son and I have to ask… what’s a parent night?”

I chuckled because I could hardly imagine how a conversation with his aunt ended up with a discussion on Parent Night.

Also, I began to internally sing the jingle my husband and I created specifically for Parent Nights. The song is usually accompanied with a dance performance due to the excitement of its arrival on the horizon.

In a nutshell, a Parent Night is the stand alone No Kids Allowed moment in the month. It’s a few hours my husband and I set aside to eat what we like, talk about everything under the sun, and chill without the children. It is our way of trying to meet each other in the midst of crazy schedules or the craziness of parenting.

In order to pull off a successful Parent Night we have to wait until the children are fast asleep. Nowadays our boys are older and we simply announce it’s Parent Night (or they notice we aren’t eating at the dinner table with them) and they know the drill.

Although they are mostly amicable, periodically, they tend to respond: Again? Can I come too? What if I just sit in for a little while? Why can’t we join?

We can almost always count on at least one of them peeking their little head around the stairwell sheepishly spying for the umpteenth time. I’m sure they are lured out of bed by the smell of delicious food or outbursts of laughter from their father and I.

A decade ago, Parent Night was accidentally created. It began when our first child was a baby and Zach would grab takeout for us on his way home from a late night shift. It was a sporadic occurrence but during those years we saw very little of one another because of our school commitments. Unless I stayed up after putting our son to bed to meet him we were often two ships passing each other in the night.

Five years ago, Parent Night became an intentional meet up. We lived in a new city so unless a close relative was visiting we were without a babysitter. Thus we reinstated a special night to dine in together as a way to create our own in-home date scene.

How we date each other without a babysitter.

Three years ago, Parent Night underwent another evolution and actually received its name. Nine o’clock would inevitably come and we’d realize we hardly looked each other in the eye throughout the day. We were deep in the trenches of transitioning after another long-distance move and added a third child to the mix.

Two years ago, Parent Night became a lifeline in the middle of the pandemic. Although it fell on unfortunate circumstances our dates in the late hours of the evening grew in effort. We took on new kitchen challenges together like French macarons and croissants. As a result we made an investment in our first Kitchen Aid stand mixer and stayed up late learning to make meringues and bread. Also, our favorite “fancy” restaurants became extremely creative in an effort to keep their doors open. This lent itself to elevated couch dinners. We ate some of the most beautiful carryout and had some pretty interesting dining experiences in the comfort of our living room.

Parent Night, in purpose and in deed, has evolved for Zach and I over the years. How we stumbled upon its creation wasn’t planned or intentional but it has certainly been an anchor in every part of our marriage thus far. One we hope to continue to nurture.