Just a Day

I bought myself a movie ticket on a Tuesday evening and felt like a fugitive doing it.

That probably tells you most of what you need to know about where I am right now.

My husband Dan and I have an eight-year-old son, Eli. Three years ago, through school, we became close with another family — their daughters are eight and five, their names are sweet, their energy is extraordinary. Over those three years we've fallen into the easy rhythm of reciprocal babysitting: they take Eli when we need a night out, we take their girls when they need one. It's worked. Nobody keeps score. That's what friendship looks like when it's functioning.

What happened last week is that their father texted Dan asking if we could watch the girls on Saturday evening. He wanted to surprise his wife with concert tickets for Mother's Day weekend. The show would run late — they might not be back until two or three in the morning.

Dan told him probably, said he'd check with me. Then he called and asked, casually, what we were doing Saturday. I said nothing, by which I meant we had no fixed plans, not that he could treat my Saturday as a blank he was free to fill. He took it as a yes, called our friend back, confirmed, and then called me again to explain what he'd just agreed to.

When I said that watching children until two in the morning was not exactly how I'd imagined spending Mother's Day weekend, he got annoyed. You were going to be around kids anyway, he said, because we already had Eli's friend's birthday party that afternoon. As though the presence of children is interchangeable, as though an afternoon birthday party and a midnight babysitting shift are the same thing in different fonts.

Then he told me Mother's Day is technically Sunday anyway, so Saturday shouldn't matter that much. That it's just a day.

I want to explain what I do, so that phrase lands correctly.

I work full time. I cook most meals. I handle most of the cleaning. I manage the majority of Eli's parenting — the appointments, the school communication, the daily logistics that don't announce themselves but consume hours. I walk the dog. I do most of this without ceremony, because it's just life and I've accepted that's how our life runs. I don't usually say much about Christmas or my birthday when they pass without much acknowledgment. I've learned not to need a lot.

Mother's Day is the one day a year I let myself hope for something. Not extravagance — just recognition. The acknowledgment that what I do is real and that someone in my house sees it.

Here is the other thing about when "we" babysit: it is mostly me. Dan disappears into the media room and plays video games because, as he's explained, he doesn't really know how to help. So I'm the one feeding everyone, refereeing arguments, organizing activities, managing the atmosphere of a house with multiple children in it. The last time we watched the girls, Eli and their older daughter both have ADHD and they were off the walls until past one in the morning. I had a headache the entire next day. Their daughter was doing somersaults on the couch while my son was finally, finally falling asleep.

I told Dan I didn't want to do it. He told me he'd already said yes and the tickets were purchased.

So I told him fine — when the girls arrived, I'd be leaving. If he committed us without a real conversation, then the commitment was his. He could manage all three kids himself.

He called me childish. Unreasonable. Said I was throwing a tantrum, that I needed to help him handle the situation he'd created. The language was interesting — suddenly it was something I needed to help him with, not something we'd agreed to together.

I bought a ticket to a movie I'd been meaning to see. Something loud and uncomplicated, the kind of film where nothing is asked of you. We've barely spoken since, mostly because he's withdrawn, which is its own statement about who thinks they've been wronged here.

I keep turning it over. The girls aren't at fault. Their mother deserves a nice night. The original arrangement between our families has been good and I don't want to damage it. I understand all of that.

But I also understand that "nothing planned" is not the same as available, and that being told your one day of recognition is just a day is not a small thing to absorb.

I stood my ground. I don't fully know if I should have.

Was I the asshole?