Six nights in Hawaii with a 6-month-old: yay or nay?

Everything else
82

Kids don’t stay small forever. As if by magic they grow up and will enjoy doing stuff and actually remember it.
Why do you need to go on a trip far away every two years - there’s seriously nowhere closer that’s worth visiting? Save up, do local vacations when the kid is small and hold off on that Australia trip 'till he old enough to tell his schoolmates about the crocodile he got to ride.

You’ll all remember it.

Same goes for restaurants. Some are child friendly and some aren’t. If I’ve saved up to go to a Michelin restaurant and gotten a sitter for my kids (who don’t enjoy the food and can’t be expected to do something as dull for so long) then I don’t feel happy that the couple at the next table brought their noisy offspring - either they have money to waste and don’t care about eating hot food, or they ignore their kid trying their damndest to eat. Which ruins it for everybody else including the kid.

But of course as a considerate parent there’s plenty of restaurants where you can go.

And no, we didn’t get to see many movies in the cinema when our kids were small. We had the same system Roger describes - which I did once and my wife several times. Here everybody else is a parent too and of course expects disturbances.

83

If you did, my reaction would be one of bemused horror.

84

Truth. I have no problem dragging my kid to Olive Garden, though I do as I indicated and try and make the experience as easy as possible for my fellow diners. I’ll pull him out of there if need be, and try to take care of him so he doesn’t cry.

However, I refuse to even consider taking my kid to someplace like WD-50, or Le Bernardin. Not only for the fact that any minute whimper would disrupt the entire atmosphere of the place, but for craps sake, that’s expensive, and the kid won’t care. I also question the parents judgement who would bring their kids there. But I don’t think anyone on this thread is really advocating that.

85

Do people bring six month old babies to weddings these days?

86

Depends on the wedding. In my family, my cousins have been breeding at such an accelerated rate that it’s practically de rigueur to have a few infants present at family weddings.

87

Sorry to derail your guys’ derailing, but I thought I’d update.

I’ve decided not to go to, and take my kid to, Hawaii… and not for any of the anti-child reasons mentioned here, but for financial reasons. It’s just too damn expensive since I’m still paying off the birth.

Anyway, I’m the parent you guys all hate!

I take my kid everywhere I want to be: he goes on the bus, he goes to grad school, he goes to restaurants, he goes to friends’ houses, he goes to parties, he goes shopping. I’ve taken him to a bar but it was loud so we left. Maybe I’m one of the “walking dead,” waiting in vain for my childless friends to have children, but I don’t let my new child totally uproot me from the things I loved – and love – to do. It’s different now, and I try to make accommodations where necessary (when the baby cries we go outside and calm down, for example). I wear him on me, and bring something he can sleep in when he gets tired. In the end, I am mainly the same person I was before I had a child. There are compromises I’ve made, but cutting out all the things I love to do isn’t even close to being one.

Oh, also, I breastfeed on cue, wherever necessary, even in public. You guys could have a field day with that one!

I’m not going to pretend that things aren’t different. Having a child has certainly changed things about both the way I see things and the way others see me. Having a child has created a rift between me and my childless friends. I’m simply not as interested in many things as I used to be; they seem material and inconsequential. Having a child really put life into perspective. And my friends may have trouble relating to me in the same way as well.

In the end, yes, parents should do their best to keep their children at a socially-acceptable volume. But everyone else must accept that children are just noisy, excitable little people. Sometimes they make noise. And no one’s going to stay home for 5 years just because their infant, toddler, or preschooler may cry.

88

Dunno how it is with you, but with me, I’m not going to leave my 6-month-old with someone else for a week. Where I go, he goes.

89

Ignoring Flowers, I agree this isn’t for the baby (baby won’t remember), but it’s certainly both for the grandparents and for the parents. You would remember, and that memory is important to you and your siblings(?) and spouse (?). Family is important to many people. Babies are part of family. Babies and family should meet. QED. Also, I see you already addressed this, and pre-emptively agreed with me agreeing with you.

90

And subsequently you will pass that memory on to your child who was there. With photographs and the story you tell it will become part of the fabric of his memory. This is important as well.

Good on ya, fire.

-xtien

“Look at you. You have a baby…in a bar!”

91

Fire, both you and ChrisPal are still approaching the question from the adult perspective. As the kids grow & begin to psychologically differentiate themselves from you, they will begin to express their own wants. Since they aren’t tiny adults, those wants will involve a lot of loud places, bright colors, sugar, and chicken nuggets. As you then adjust your life to incorporate what they want, that’s when you realize your life changed radically & you haven’t been doing the things you used to love.

It isn’t that childless adults lock you out of your old life, it is that the kids draw you into a new one. I’ll be happily spending my birthday at my daughter’s swim meet this month. Ten years ago, I would have laughed at the idea of spending my birthday hauling heavy gear, timing events in the sun for a couple hours, and sitting around bored for hours between events.

So that’s why I make the joke about the walking dead. Your lives have already changed course & headed into Kid Land, you just haven’t seen the true impact yet because babies are still like really cute luggage.

I had my wife read over my comments to make sure I wasn’t off base. She literally laughed out loud at the idea of a kidless trip every two years, and reminded me of our pre-child custom of spending each anniversary at a different Ritz-Carlton. It was fun while it lasted. We just took our first kidless trip this past May - our oldest is 13 - but we’ve been to Disneyland/Disneyworld over 15 times in that period.

She also pointed out that it can depend on the kid. If you only have one, and happen to get lucky & get one of those “old soul” kids that acts like a 35-year-old, you can still continue on the adult path & just bring them along. I could see our youngest doing that, but not her older sisters. But don’t get too entranced about your parenting being the difference, you just got lucky on temperament.

92

This is going to sound rude, but was the child in question actually, well, invited to the wedding? Particularly since this isn’t a family wedding, but the wedding of a friend.

At risk of speaking too broadly, most women invest a great deal of thought into many small details of their weddings, such as do they want children that might cause a distraction in a church on her special day. I know all brides might not care about this, but some definitely do.

The reasonable presumption is that the invitation describes who is actually invited, and the number of guests, if any. Presuming otherwise, is well, presumptuous. A mother and her baby may be inseparable, but that is a separate question about whether or not the little person is invited. And if you find yourself asking the question, oh what bride would care whether a six month old is at a wedding then perhaps you should talk to a few more brides.

I casually mentioned this scenario to three women at work tonight, and received two emphatic defenses of the principle that the bride is entitled to virtual infallibility when it comes to the question of the guest list regardless of emotional or physical harm it may cause other people. The third allowed that bringing a uninvited infant would be permitted only in the case of untimely babysitter demise. I exaggerate, but not by much.

Wedding invitations that include children will mention them by name or say “and family” on the invitation.

93

In my experience, people who prefer not to have kids at their wedding/reception print “Adults Only” on the invitation.

This is perfectly acceptable. Offensive to some people (but then everything is), but well within the bounds of etiquette.

-xtien

94

I casually mentioned this scenario to three women at work tonight, and received two emphatic defenses of the principle that the bride is entitled to virtual infallibility when it comes to the question of the guest list regardless of emotional or physical harm it may cause other people.

The problem there is with the culture of modern weddings, not with people bringing their infants to weddings. I know there are brides that believe that, but there are also brides who believe that if the florist goofs and their flowers are “cornflower blue” instead of “Tiffany blue,” it’s a capital offense.

But yes, people specify “adult’s only,” otherwise they have to accept that people will bring their children. And they should be consistent - if family are bringing their infants, friends should be able to as well.

95

For my wedding, we just didn’t invite people with kids. Not that I go in for romance, but if a baby would have disrupted my wife’s special day, I would have whipped it against the wall like a whacky-wall-walker.

I agree with fire, insofar as couples with children drift away from couples without. I chalk it up more to being disappointed to hear someone I respected built a living shrine to themselves. A shrine that gets syrup on everything.

And for the record, regarding having your children meet someone, not remembering, and then being told? Oh yeah, keep telling yourself that they’ll give a shit. “Oh! Here’s a picture of me in the hands of a liverspotted experiment in plaid. Hooray.” I’m not going to lie, it’s a very womanly thing to assume that someone will care to hear about a person they don’t know with no other point of reference than the fact that you know them. But don’t expect your stories of gamp-gamp to go over any hotter than your average riveting tale about what your coworker Linda did on her last vacation.

I don’t take my dog on a plane, and my dog is, for the next couple years, smarter than all your babies. He can control his bowels, he listens to verbal commands, but I am a decent person, and I don’t showcase my desire to hug things goes so far as to buy something and keep it trapped so that I can hug it all the time, in situations where it would inconvenience people.

96

Yes, the baby was explicitly invited. Even so, my budget also accounted for bringing my mom, the token babysitter, on the trip. If we’re going to Hawaii then we’re going to make a vacation out of it, spend a week there, and go do things like snorkel and kayak. Some things are baby-friendly (hiking, laying around on the beach) but the rest (SCUBA, bachelor parties) aren’t. Mom would stay with baby.

Moot point now, though.

97

We’re not looking for a kidless trip (not sure if I was unclear on that), just a trip further than a drive. All vacations we have planned right now are centered around the toddler. Visiting my mother so she can see him once a year is one. We want to go to Arizona, so we’ve booked a family friendly place to visit with him. Also, in 2012, we’re planning on returning to Fiji, and rather than just her an I, we’ve decided on one of only two kid-friendly time periods per year the island we’re going to has.

I don’t remember (I can’t remember much of life before the baby) being under the assumption that my life would stay the same. We already realized we were becoming distant from the single friends. It’s only now that some of them are in serious relationships that we’re becoming closer as couples. I feel we grew apart from them on some level but are now drifting back towards each other.

I think the biggest change in our life has, as you indicated, been doing stuff for him as opposed to what we want to do. We make it a point to take him out to parks and things every weekend day, and in general almost all of my time has become less ‘mine’ and more ‘ours’. I don’t get very much alone time anymore, but that’s been replaced with other fun stuff to do. I do miss playing video games for hours on end though.

In short, the change in lifestyle is very prominent, but we’ve adjusted to it pretty well. We’ll take what we can get when we can get it, but I don’t for a minute mourn my old life. Well, maybe the games…

98

Supertanker, I see that we were talking about children of different ages. I know it’s hard for me to say now, since my son is only 5 months and I don’t know anything about older infants or toddlers or kids, but it is my hope that in exposing him to a variety of social situations, he will incrimentally learn through experience and example what is acceptable behavior.

99

I know a woman whose 2 year old was explicitly invited to her friend’s black-tie wedding. She called to verify and the woman explained that she’d love to have the little boy attend as long as he wears a tuxedo.

They aren’t going.

100

Next time I get married, it’ll explicitly be a t-shirts and shorts wedding. Anyone wearing a tie or any sort of shirt/blouse with buttons will be shown the door.

101

I was curious how old your child was, and I had a feeling he was still a baby. I guessed right ;).

Right now, your child has simple needs: food, love, sleep. As they get older, and learn to both (a) move on their own; and (b) express their wants and needs, things change drastically.

Not to mention if you want another kid. My two boys are 15 months apart…and now that my younger one is 2, we’re only finally really able to take a breath. With one young kid, you and your significant other can take turns watching that child. With two young kids, you’re both on duty all the time. Two kids isn’t two times the work…it’s more like 30 times. But the payoff is watching a relationship and bond form between the two kids.