The Wednesday-Date principle
A couple of friends were at their 1-month check-up with their newborn. The doctor took a lot of time, examined the child thoroughly (everything was fine!), listened to the parents' little worries and big joys and then suddenly asked this question: «How are you? As a couple?»
I can't say with absolute certainty, but I think this woman is the smartest paediatrician in Switzerland.
What if you put as much energy into your relationship as you do into your child?
Because what she was insinuating with her question was not: Do you have relationship problems? Rather, she was aiming at a question that is often neglected by parents, namely this: What if you put as much energy into your relationship as you do into your child?
Children today generally receive a level of attention that no generation in the entire history of mankind has ever received. Every breath, every stage of development, every reaction is registered, analysed and compared.
And we're not just talking about the first fragile months of life here, the whole of childhood is actually like trying to find the perfect conditions: the right school, the right instrument, the right sport, the right screen time - there are surveys, discourses, opinions on everything, and nothing, absolutely nothing is left to chance.
But that's exactly what parenting is: realising that things turn out differently than planned.
We had a date every Wednesday
My friend's paediatrician says: "Of course a child needs loving, caring parents, there's no question about that. But it also needs happy parents. And in all the excitement, joy and worry about our own offspring, we shouldn't forget that we are not just parents, not just a team focussed on logistics and multitasking, but also lovers.
Funnily enough, I - without realising what I was actually doing! - followed exactly this advice with my partner. When our children were small, we went out every Wednesday. Not because we thought it would be good for us as a couple, but because we were young and wanted to go out.
I would do a lot of things differently in parenting today. Not the Wednesday date.
Anyway, we had a date every Wednesday. Sometimes we went to the cinema, sometimes we went out to eat, sometimes we just sat on a park bench and looked tiredly in the same direction. Most of the time, however, our path led us to a somewhat dimly lit bar around the corner.
We were the first guests each evening and the bartender nodded knowingly as we walked in the door and served a whiskey sour and a dry martini without being asked.
The evening began like a shift change in the emergency ward: Which disasters could be prevented? Which ones were imminent? But with every minute (and every sip), the children and our parenthood, our mistakes and our despair receded into the background and were replaced by an irrepressible lust for life.
I would do a lot of things differently in parenting today. Not the Wednesday date. It is the only parenting principle that I can recommend to all parents-to-be.
