Posted 02 April 2018 - 10:18 AM
I have a 5 year old daughter and a 7 year old son. I lived in New York City until my son was 4, and my golf was pretty limited. Playing public golf while living in Manhattan isn't a quick or easy affair, and it meant leaving my wife with the kids for the best part of a day every time I played. I played maybe one weekend a month (if that) when we were home for the weekend.
When visiting my in-laws a couple of hours away, my wife and I usually could get out for a round together while her parents watched the children for us. That was also about once per month. I also had maybe another once or twice per month during the summer where I could either take a vacation day or leave work early to play, or have a work related event I could play in. On top of those things, there were usually 2 or 3 rounds of golf if we were on vacation somewhere that made it practical to play, and I usually got to the range one night per week.
So all in, I probably averaged a round per week and a range session per week during the golf season, although it wasn't the traditional play-with-the-same-foursome-every-week way to do it.
When my son was 4, we moved out of the city to the burbs (about 20 miles north of Manhattan). Things got much, much easier. We joined a private club less than 10 minutes form the house. I could get out early and be done around the time my wife and kids were arriving at the club to hang out at the pool. I generally swim and hang out with the kids, and give my wife some time to herself, we have lunch together, and then swim some more. My wife might go out and play 9 holes with her friends, or I might take my son or daughter out to play a few holes. I also play after work a couple of times per week during the summer - sometimes alone, sometimes with my wife while we have a sitter for the kids, and sometimes with my son and / or daughter. It has been a huge positive in terms of access to golf, and also socially given that we didn't know a lot of people in the area before we moved there.
As the kids are getting a little older, their weekend sports schedules are getting more demanding, and that is somewhat limiting my flexibility as to exactly when I play (I'm at all of both kids' games as much as I possibly can be). It's just making things slightly less convenient - I'm still getting to play, just not necessarily when I'd ideally like to.
The other thing I do to make things easier for my golf and skiing habits (you think golf takes a lot of time - try skiing when you live 2 hours from any decent vertical, 4 hours from any mountain you really like to ski, and a plane ride from any mountain you really love to ski) is to encourage my wife in her own independent activities, and to try to never say no if she needs me to take care of the kids while she goes to a fitness class, or dinner with her friends, or goes away for a weekend with the girls etc. Selfishly, it's helpful to me in that it makes her more likely to reciprocate when I ask her to do the same for me, but way more important than that, it is giving us both time to ourselves to continue to be our own people with our own interests and personalities. We're lucky in that we (and our kids) have largely similar interests, but everyone needs some "me" time every now and then.