6 days Ago
In the fall of 2018, my husband and I decided to take a trip to Europe with our 1-year-old in tow. The flight was predictably exhausting. But when we arrived in Rome, we were delighted to discover that our Airbnb was on the third floor of a building on a narrow, pedestrianized backstreet tightly packed with restaurants.
After the long journey, we had no particular desire to dine out with our baby. So that night, instead of schlepping our little one to dinner or ordering in, as we had elsewhere, we fed our daughter early, put her down at 7 p.m.
, and brought our baby monitor with us to eat at the pasta place two floors down. It worked perfectly. We kept it up.
We ate out every night that week, even trying the places next door and across the street, which also fell within monitor distance. We popped up periodically to check on our daughter, and each time, the monitor had done its job. All was well.
We've since done versions of this elsewhere, where circumstances have allowed. It's become a matter of routine that when we stay in hotels as a family, my husband and I will head to the lobby, bar, or restaurant with a phone or laptop set up as a makeshift monitor after our children—we now have two—go down for the night. At the time, it never occurred to me that this might be controversial.
I certainly didn't think it was something people would consider reckless, neglectful, or warranting the attention of the authorities. That is, until I read about Matt and Abby Howard. The Howards, a parenting influencer couple, probably just needed a relaxing hour away from their two sons, who were 1 and 2 at the time, while on a cruise.
On the ship in September, they quickly found that dropping their kids at the cruise day care while they ate dinner proved stressful for everyone, kids included. "It became apparent that they weren't enjoying it and therefore we weren't either," Abby wrote on social media, where she and Matt make a living documenting their experience as high school..
. Stephanie H. Murray.
