Babysitting

So last night I was awake thinking about my personal views on babysitting. My children are two and five and except for when I spent the night in hospital having my second, my children have never been put to bed by someone other than me or their father. We never went out a lot before we had kids and now we just choose not to. I am much more social than their father and did a lot of social stuff by myself before we had kids and I was less ok with that then but now I love it because it means I can go out (like to an event through work where you can invite your partner or to the ballet) without any anxiety about the kids sleeping because their dad is great with that. The only person I would feel comfortable leaving them with who lives in town is their 20 year old cousin and I always feel like I am going to be imposing on his life in some way. It occurs to me that all of my friends are bringing their partners to this big work event and just getting babysitters and some have children younger than mine. It made me think because I know other people in my generation probably regularly have babysitters and date nights and we don’t. I was thinking how eventually we won’t need babysitters so why bother if my partner and I can have a relationship without date nights? Or, am I stopping my kids from developing by never letting relative strangers put them to bed? I’m sorry this is rambling, not even sure if there is a question in this mess, maybe you guys could just give me your opinions on the topic of babysitters? via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2pmSaaC