Based on the title of this post, I'm sure you have no idea where this is going! I promise you there is a point!

On Mother’s Day a few years ago at about 8:00 pm, after an interesting morning and afternoon of serving at a soup kitchen (a subject for another post!), then recuperating from serving at the soup kitchen, I realized that I had not gone grocery shopping for the week. So I propositioned my dear husband to join me on a non-erotic rendezvous to our local HEB supermarket. He graciously accepted the invitation, and off we ventured, kid-less and free!

I wish I could tell you that we roamed arm in arm through the aisles whispering sweet nothings in each other’s ears, but we did not. We were too tired. At the end of another hectic weekend, we were just glad to get some mindless down time together. As we were about to turn the corner to the tomato juice aisle, I spotted my amazingly talented and beautiful friend, Carly coming towards us.  “I see you’re doing the same thing we are!” she exclaimed. “Mark’s waiting in the car. I came back in because we forgot to get water.” We chatted for about a minute and off she went. Just as she was heading out, she came over to us and teased, “You know you have kids when your idea of a date night is going to the grocery store! Hey, that’s a blog post for you!”

“Blog post for you.”

“Blog post for you.”

“Blog post for you.”

I could hear her words echoing in my brain that night and the next day. So, in honor of my amazing and beautiful friend, here goes!

As you know if you've toured my website, one of my great passions is promoting healthy marriages and helping struggling couples transform their challenging relationships. A regular date night can be one of the steps on the path to a good marriage, and a huge benefit of a good marriage is the positive impact it has on the children. And here’s why -

When the home environment is loving and stable, children feel a sense of inner calm and safety which greatly enhances their wellbeing. Children from homes where there are on-going arguments and constant turmoil sometimes feel responsible for their parent’s misery, experience psychological distress, depression, anxiety, or act out in inappropriate ways. The responsibility is therefore on us as parents to ensure that we are taking the time to work on our marriages, not just for ourselves but for our children’s sakes.

I have some other thoughts on this topic that I would love to share with you. So please join me again later this week as I continue the dialogue “Why Grocery Store Date Night Can Lead to Emotionally Healthy Kids – Part 2.”