On the etiquette of going out

Going out for a social gathering since having a Baby has become a bit more complicated. On the one hand we would like to take Baby with us so that he would be exposed to as many different social experiences as possible, but on the other we are often not sure if he would be welcome to attend. We do have a baby sitter that we trust who could be asked to help on those  occasions when we feel we cannot bring him with us. Some events, e.g. evening drinks at a bar, are obviously not suitable but others are less cut and dry.

We don't want to come across as parents who cannot bear to be separated from their offspring but he is one of us and where we are going out with friends, say for a meal, we often don't think it is inappropriate to bring him along. The invitation is frequently not specific. 'Us' these days is three people, not two. Not everyone will agree; I suppose we will learn from experience with whom it would be a definite no-no. We may end up not seeing some people as frequently but I cannot see how else to rationalise spending time with everyone that matters to us. As one friend said, there is a sense of guilt at not having one's child at a meal with friends. I can relate to that. The fact is that people may decide not to attend social gatherings if they felt they needed to make a choice between going out and spending time with their children. These days time is at a premium and the family takes priority.

Recently, when out for dinner with a group of friends, the delicate business of the bill came up. Baby is now old enough to order a child's meal. Everywhere we have taken him so far has had a kid's menu for a drink, food and dessert for about the price of an adult starter or dessert. Either myself and/or my husband would forego one course as Baby would invariably leave bits behind so we end up eating bits of his meal; we are against wasting food. We also tend not to drink as much alcohol- one of us would not drink at all and the other would generally not partake as much as the others in our party in order to be able to help with Baby. In the end we usually pay more than our share of the final bill if we just split it evenly among the adults but we are fine with that. On one occasion one of the party brought up the question of Baby's share probably not realising that we had not actually ordered every course or had the wine. Others who were dealing with the bill explained it to him. We have been out with this person and Baby on at least one other occasion and I wonder whether he thought the same at these other occasions, or indeed if others may have had the same thoughts. One way around this would be to calculate everything separately which is a hassle and may not improve our popularity if we insisted. This perhaps needs a bit more thought on our part. Perhaps we need to be more proactive in discussing the bill openly rather than just assume people realise we are not impinging on them.

As always, new situations require some getting used to. Baby is new to the 'herd' and it will take time for us to understand where and how he will fit in. I suppose we will work out some balance in the end.