Just curious bagel - where do you go when you go out with your friends? Is it a place that serves food or is it in business just to sell alcohol? Is there loud music and lots of singles trolling around? Do you usually come home sloppy drunk after a night with one of the girls?

I ask because people seem to have very different ideas of what a night out with the girls mean and that spectrum leaves a lot of room for misunderstanding.

SusanM, I think you're right and I remember a similar disconnect about going to bars a while back. We definitely are not at places where it's just a meat-market or hook up scene, because that's not what we're there for. I guess part of the problem is convincing people that there are in fact places that serve alcohol but are not meat markets. :)

As for the other characteristics, it varies. We all like live music, so often we go for music somewhere. Most of the places we go serve some food, but they're more pubs than restaurants. But mostly they're places that have a good atmosphere, where it's not so loud you can't talk, where you can get a good drink (no cheap beer) and a snack, and maybe catch some good music.

Leero,

"Assuming Facts Not In Evidence" much? There's nothing in the letter that says the husband was deceived. Also? As a married person, I have several friends that are single and I still hang out with them (as much as they can stand it lol). Sometimes that includes going to a bar. And yeah--most often my partner stays home with the kid.

The last time this happened was when one of my FAVORITE bands (a European group who doesn't get to the States often) came and did a show at a bar in town. I found out the night of the show. Guess who INSISTED I go, and called a cab for me and everything?

My partner. Because I'm trustworthy, that's why.

mermaid33:

By any chance; have you left your wife and kids for your high school girlfriend and are now fond of 2-hour waterboarding sessions about her past?

*APPLAUSE*

I can't agree enough with the first poster. If mom sounded even half as judgmental as Prudie does in this letter, the daughter was absolutely right to call her on it.

No question, the daughter was being very inconsiderate towards her mom by using her as an impromptu babysitter. But as a 29-year-old in a committed relationship, I take great offense at the assumption that a woman going out drinking with her friend(s) automatically means she's messing around with other guys. Calling her a slut or a tramp--for having a girls' night out? How disgustingly sexist. Trust me, all you men trolling around bars -- you really aren't all that tempting.

Who knows how long it's been since this young mother had a night or two to herself? Every parent needs the chance to blow off some steam. This daughter's error was in treating her mother like a paid babysitter -- NOT in going out and enjoying herself. The assumptions here (drunk driving? sloppy drunk?) are sickeningly retro and, in the case of several posters, misogynistic.

There are no bars in the town where the daughter and friend live? And nobody there (like the hubby, for example) who could watch the kids?

And assuming a girls-only trip is what it was all about, why, did she drag the kids along? (She left without saying goodbye BEFORE mom let her have it, so clearly she's not overly concerned with mom's feelings.) Without the kids the entire trip is just about the girls. Surely that would be preferable...unless the plan was to use them as part of the cover story.

And if everybody else at the bars were such "losers" how'd the girlfriends have so much fun they decided to already schedule a repeat performance? Something just doesn't add up.

I suppose it says something about my loose morals or the trampiness of my friends, but we cooperate to make sure the moms get a chance to blow off steam. The husbands/fathers/SO's get together, plan a "pizza and beer" night they can watch the kids, rent some 3 Stooges or something, and kick the ladies out to go have some fun.

My friends and I enjoy getting dolled up for the bar, getting whistles and promises of "special attention" from our guys, and having some time off. We flip a coin/draw straws/bribe someone to be the DD, go to the pub, flirt with inappropriate people, drink our faces off, dance the night away, and come home safely to sleeping men and children smeared with pizza grease.

See, there is no trampiness or sluttiness going on, because no one is FUCKING anybody. We are trusted. We can smile at good-looking young men, chat with them, let them buy us drinks and even (gasp) dance with them. Then, we go home to our respective significant others, wake 'em up, and burn off some of the sexual energy that comes with looking sexy and dancing with some strange cutie all night. Everybody benefits.

The LW's daughter is an inconsiderate bint. However, that does not mean she shouldn't occasionally go out and have a good time. She just shouldn't take advantage of her prudish. judgemental mother like that.

Trust in relationships. Seriously, jealous folks. If someone can steal your woman...she wasn't yours to begin with.

Freki

Freki, you're pretty much making my point for me. Your actions sound normal. But in the case of the letter...not so much. The LW didn't "coordinate" with anybody. Instead, she drove to a different city and dumped the kids at her mom's house. Then left a couple days later without bothering to say goodbye. Maybe she was just using her mom as a free place to stay. But, again, I wonder why the kids got dragged along. It'd have been an even funner trip for her without them. No other friends wanted to watch them? Hubby refused? Anything's possible, but it's such a convenient excuse to be able to say, "Oh, honey. Don't be silly. How could anything have gone on when I had the kiddos in tow?"

I'm assuming she brought the kids because hubby is working. Chances are he's not going to want to work and do childcare so his wife can play. So in order for her to play, she needed to find someone to watch the kids.

All of these assumptions are just so rediculous. It is absurd to just automatically assume that a woman going out to a bar with a single friend is cheating on her husband.

And brava Freki!! I'll give you a hell yah on that one. That sounds exactly like my nights out with the girls (some of us single, some of us taken). My fiancee would never assume that I would do anything untoward with some strange guy at a bar. In fact the worst i've ever done is give a guy a kiss on the cheek because he was dissapointed I was taken.. When I told my man (yes I tell him everything I do, because I enjoy talking about my night) he said something along the lines of "Oh you slut! How can I ever trust someone as dirty as you." (Insert sarcasm)

Some of us are lucky to have found mutual trust. I feel for those who haven't.

Assumptions about a womans character just because she likes to have a good time need to stop.

Sundown: You're making way too many assumptions in your response. While what the daughter did was very inconsiderate of her mother, there is absolutely no evidence that anything you're supposing is relevant to this letter. Your creating conversations and alterior motives is just as bad as Prudie's response. If the daughter brought a man back to her mother's home than yes she deserves the tramp stamp otherwise it sounds like two women going out and having a nice time while they're out of town. She definitely should have asked her mother ahead of time to babysit the children, she also should have thanked her mother and spent some one on one time with her while she was there other than that the rest of Prudie's response was a bunch of judgemental assumptions.

What I find so interesting about Freki's post is that, by a lot of relationship's standards, she is seriously cheating on her spouse. Now, she has a more open relationship where her spouse is cool with that and obviously they are the only two that get a vote.

But, to say that you have to fuck somebody to be trampy is instilling the values of her relationship on to everybody's relationship. In my book, leading guys to think you are single (come on, you don't tell them you are married and they buy you a drink!) and then flirting like crazy until you are sexually wound up crosses some boundaries. I'd actually be more comfortable with my SO doing that with strippers who understand the game than with random people who are actually believing they are going to get laid that night.

But let's be careful when we that people should trust to acknowledge that not all behaviors fall into the trusting category by everybody out there.

Guaranteed she ended up in a motel room full of Marines after the bar.

Well, by a lot of relationships' standards, smiling at a guy would be cheating on my spouse. Or thinking dirty thoughts about Johnny Depp. To each their own, I guess, but I think basing a relationship on honesty and self-control rather than the illusion of "never looking at another person" is healthier.

I am actually pretty sure that the common understanding of "tramp" is a sexually promiscuous girl. It can be used as an adjective meaning "slutty looking" but generally, if you describe someone as a tramp, it implies a person who is not faithful to a strictly monagamous relationship.

And, actually, I am straightforward about being married. I am very careful not to lead people on because I think being a cock-tease is shallow and obnoxious. I have found that a lot of men, even if they know they aren't getting any from me, often have a good time chatting and dancing with a bunch of thirtyish women in low-cut shirts and tight pants. Some of those men may tell themselves we are on the prowl no matter what we say, but they are quickly disabused of that notion. Or, alternately, they are introduced to the single members of my friends group.

This part of it is really not that important to me; I just like to dance. I have no kids and don't intend to. However, I know how important it is to my friends with kids to occasionally have the chance to feel hot-to-trot and carefree. By travelling in packs, we stay safer.

My point about trust was this: you can't stop someone from cheating, if they decide they want to. There is a decision to be made, at the beginning of the relationship, about whether to trust your partner or to assume they will stray if you don't keep an eagle eye on them. Either way, if they betray you, you will be hurt, but I would rather spend the relationship in confidence that I am loved and trusted, and so would my spouse.

Freki