Parenting

Meet The Couple Who Enjoy Child-Free Weekends, Every Single Week

by Megan Zander

Model Rachael Finch and her husband spend every single weekend child-free to focus on their relationship

You may know Rachael Finch from her stint on the Australian version of Dancing with the Stars or from her third place runner up finish in the 2009 Miss Universe Pageant. But even if you haven’t heard of this mom and model, you’re bound to think of her every Saturday morning after hearing how she spends her weekends. Finch and her husband have a two-year-old-daughter, but they spend every weekend completely child-free.

Speaking to Sunday Style, Finch said, “Every weekend (Violet) goes to Mish’s mum’s house, and we get our weekend to ourselves. I think that’s incredibly healthy for the relationship. And on Sunday, when we pick her up, we have 100 per cent energy back.”

Just let that sink in for a second. No kids. Every. Single. Weekend.

In case Finch needs a mid-week break from motherhood, she’s got plenty of options. Her husband is home during the day, her mother-in-law comes by to watch her granddaughter each afternoon when he goes off to teach dance classes and great-grandma is right down the road and comes up to take her great-granddaughter for a stroll on a regular basis. It doesn’t take a village to raise this child, just her extended family.

Admittedly there’s a part of me that’s jealous of Finch and her husband for their ability to go to brunch on a Saturday morning without having to secure a sitter or pack a diaper bag and a baggie full of Cheerios, because you know your kid won’t eat at the restaurant, even if there’s a whipped cream smiley face on the pancakes. I’m sure having that much time to focus on your relationship does make it stronger, and it’s wonderful that their daughter will grow up having such a strong connection to her grandmother. But in all honesty, if given the chance to kiss my kids goodbye every Friday night and pick them up every Sunday, I couldn’t do it.

While I can’t compete against Finch in the Miss Universe pageant, if there was a contest to see who the most nervous mother on the planet is, I would be staggering under the weight of my crown and that giant-ass bouquet of roses because I win, hands down. The first time I let my mom watch my then six-month-old twins for an hour so my husband and I could go grab food, it took me twenty minutes to walk out the door, and he may have been dragging me just a little bit. Even now, three years later, I still have to lean my cell phone against the bread basket when we go out for date night, so I won’t miss a,”Shit, there’s blood!” text from the sitter.

As much as I hate when the kids come barreling into my bedroom before dawn on Saturday morning with their cold feet and demands for cartoons and that stupid plastic hot dog bun my son carries everywhere that gets lost in the blankets, I also love it.

I wish I had even a quarter of Finch’s chill when it comes to letting her family take care of her daughter but it’s just not who I am. I’d love a time machine to go back and enjoy a kid-less weekend before they were born, but now that they’re here I like spending my weekends with them, even if they do refuse to eat the eggs they specifically asked me to make for them.