Kids in Bars

158 thoughts on Kids in Bars

1. Shorter version of this post almost every post: Use common sense. Don’t be a jerk.

   QFT.

2. It is definitely asking too much.

   Although I will say that the ‘kids shouldn’t be in public ever’ crowd irritates the ever living fuck out of me. Kids are people too and we have to share space with them just the same as with everybody else. I was in Paris a few years ago (without my kids, even) and I was amazed at the way everybody just seemed to accept that kids will be out and about with their parents doing stuff. It was like kids are a part of life that happens and everything was family friendly in the sense that nobody made a fuss and public spaces were for everybody. Pretty much the complete opposite of here in the US, where there are spaces for kids and parents and spaces for everybody else and apparently there should be no mixing of those spaces, ever.

   Or shorter, what Jill said.

3. Pardon me, this might be terribly Californian of me, but how the fuck is this legal? Kids in a bar??

4. And, echoing the complaints of many a Park Slope barfly, he said he had gotten dirty looks from parents who considered the other patrons’ language too, well, bar-like for children’s ears.

   Time and place, folks, just cause they let your kids into a bar doesn’t mean bar patrons need to cater to your kids. Giving me shit because you’ve decided that my normal behavior offends your children’s delicate sensibilities isn’t only unlikely to cause my behavior to change, its likely to be seen as a challenge which can only be met by the rapid escalation of the exact words you’ve objected to. I won’t go out of my way to offend you, but once you’ve decided to order me around I’m going to treat you like someone whose decided they have authority over me that they’ve not earned.

5. Pardon me, this might be terribly Californian of me, but how the fuck is this legal? Kids in a bar??

   “Bar” maybe just refers to establishments that are licensed to serve liquor.

   1. Pardon me, this might be terribly Californian of me, but how the fuck is this legal? Kids in a bar??

      In NYC and in NY State, minors are allowed in bars. Minors under the age of 16 are allowed in bars must be accompanied by an adult. And obviously it’s illegal to serve alcohol to a minor. Many bars bar minors altogether, which is their prerogative.

6. I grew up in and around bars (father was a successful musician, no decent childcare, divorce, yada yada yada) and take the baby to pubs pretty frequently. Don’t see the difficulty, there.

   I will say, if I’m not supposed to get offended by other people generally acting like drunken louts*, maybe they shouldn’t get offended if the baby starts crying or a kid smacks someone, eh? Civilized behavior shouldn’t only apply to children. Let me tell you, the people employed there don’t find the obnoxious drunk people charming, and I didn’t find it charming before I had kids. It’s fucking annoying to think that being drunk absolves you of the obligation to be a mensch.

   *Like, stumbling around screaming obscenities/groping people kind of lout, not “bad” language and dirty jokes.

   1. I will say, if I’m not supposed to get offended by other people generally acting like drunken louts*, maybe they shouldn’t get offended if the baby starts crying or a kid smacks someone, eh? Civilized behavior shouldn’t only apply to children. Let me tell you, the people employed there don’t find the obnoxious drunk people charming, and I didn’t find it charming before I had kids. It’s fucking annoying to think that being drunk absolves you of the obligation to be a mensch.

      *Like, stumbling around screaming obscenities/groping people kind of lout, not “bad” language and dirty jokes.

      If someone is stumbling and screaming obscenities / groping people, that’s usually grounds for kicking them out of the bar. So yes, it’s fair game for anyone to get annoyed at that, because it’s anti-social bad behavior and they should be removed from the premises. Ditto anyone, child or otherwise, screaming or crying or hitting another patron.

      What isn’t fair game is getting annoyed at standard tipsy bar behavior — talking a little too loudly, cursing, etc.

7. Can I also add “use common sense about the situation.” Sure a tyke might’ve just slammed his/her tri-wheel into your legs, but is the family leaving? Are you walking three wide with your friends and didn’t give the family enough room on the sidewalk?

   Is the kid making noises? Are they happy or sad sounds? I once sat next to a table where a women made passive agressive comments her entire dinner about a toddler a few tables away. The kid was making happy noises, and flirting with me. (Love love love the flirty tots. They make me feel like a million bucks). From her comments it sounded like she didn’t think the kid should make any sound at all. Which is completely unreasonable for a kid that young.

   1. Can I also add “use common sense about the situation.” Sure a tyke might’ve just slammed his/her tri-wheel into your legs, but is the family leaving? Are you walking three wide with your friends and didn’t give the family enough room on the sidewalk?

      The tricycle slammed into the leg of an adult who was in the bar backyard. This wasn’t on the sidewalk. Why in the world are you bringing a tricycle into a bar? Again, common sense.

8. “Bar” maybe just refers to establishments that are licensed to serve liquor

   But the Yelp comments suggest that they’re carding people at the door. Did they card those babies?

   Not saying that spaces that allow kids shouldn’t allow kids, or that I agree that kids should never be in bars, but this is a foreign concept to me.

9. Pardon me, this might be terribly Californian of me, but how the fuck is this legal? Kids in a bar??

   Maybe because the presence of alcohol doesn’t suddenly and automatically Destroy Innocence?

10. But the Yelp comments suggest that they’re carding people at the door. Did they card those babies?

    Some places may card at the door and give people wrist bands who are able to drink. This avoids them having to be carded them everytime they go to the bar for a drink.

    My local bar used to have all ages night and this was how they differentiated the teens from the legal-aged. Also you had to keep your drinks in the upper portion of the bar.

11. The tricycle slammed into the leg of an adult who was in the bar backyard. This wasn’t on the sidewalk. Why in the world are you bringing a tricycle into a bar? Again, common sense.

    Sets a bad precedent around drunk driving, if nothing else.

12. Pardon me, this might be terribly Californian of me, but how the fuck is this legal? Kids in a bar??

    I spent a lot of my early years in bars and other places that are considered “grown-up”. It actually upsets me that there are laws against kids being at a bar or in a bar, because part of raising a kid who will react well in different situations is putting your kid in different situations. Seeing my parents engage in moderate alcohol consumption didn’t scar me. Plus, I got to drink Shirley Temples, which were the most exciting thing ever from the age of about 5 – 12.

    There are people who do this badly – as Jill pointed out – because not all parents are good parents. And non-parents do need to be able to say things to parents of children when the kids are doing things like running tricycles into our legs or jumping on our tables; but separating parents and children from non-parents (or separating parents from their children for those situations) when it comes time to have fun is a problem for me.

    That being said, William is right – part of bringing your kid into an establishment where kids are not the primary focus is understanding that kids are not the primary focus. And that others’ behavior may not be what you want your kid to see/hear, and that isn’t on those people (unless they’re doing something illegal…). It’s on you. And it’s on you to take your kid and leave that environment, not to glare disapprovingly at the environment as a whole and expect it to cater to your personal parenting philosophy.

13. Maybe because the presence of alcohol doesn’t suddenly and automatically Destroy Innocence?

    Didn’t mean to suggest that there was anything wrong with the concept, but rather was just confused as this is completely illegal in California. You can have kids in restaurants that serve alcohol, or music venues, but if your establishment’s main function is as a bar, then no persons under the age of 21 are allowed admittance.

14. If someone is stumbling and screaming obscenities / groping people, that’s usually grounds for kicking them out of the bar. So yes, it’s fair game for anyone to get annoyed at that, because it’s anti-social bad behavior and they should be removed from the premises. Ditto anyone, child or otherwise, screaming or crying or hitting another patron.

    What isn’t fair game is getting annoyed at standard tipsy bar behavior — talking a little too loudly, cursing, etc.

    Yeah, totally. I just get annoyed at the idea that somehow the obligation towards any kind of decent social behavior evaporates in bars (unless, of course, you’re a child). Tl;dr–don’t be an ass, in or out of a bar.

15. Plus, I got to drink Shirley Temples, which were the most exciting thing ever from the age of about 5 – 12.

    I occasionally take my kids to the local open mike night and my older daughter loves the Shirley Temples.

16. Yeah, totally. I just get annoyed at the idea that somehow the obligation towards any kind of decent social behavior evaporates in bars (unless, of course, you’re a child). Tl;dr–don’t be an ass, in or out of a bar.

    No one’s suggesting that the obligation to decent social behavior evaporates in a bar; I would say, however, that it’s accurate to say the obligation to kid-friendly-behavior evaporates.

17. This is why the idea that it is perfectly okay to be childless and childless people can be happy and fulfilled and you’re not a failure if you’re childless and seriously it’s a real option needs to be more widespread. So many people have children because it’s what you’re supposed to do and then the actual work of raising them turns out to be a total nightmare they didn’t feel they signed up for. So they go to the bar to hang out with friends and let their kids run around throwing bocce balls at each other or let their kids run around, say, yanking on tablecloths in a restaurant because frankly—and hey, it’s true—disciplining them is hard work that takes away from your fun. They probably feel put-upon by how hard all this is and want a break and feel other adults who aren’t raising their children should just have to suffer instead.

    I suspect a lot of these people, if they’d really thought about it before they went in and really understood that the decision to have kids means no more uninterrupted movies, no quiet evenings with friends without paying a babysitter, etc., for about a decade and a half per child, they would reconsider. It’s not like the world needs more babies. If we could whittle this down to people who are truly committed, that would be a win for everyone.

18. I suspect a lot of these people, if they’d really thought about it before they went in and really understood that the decision to have kids means no more uninterrupted movies, no quiet evenings with friends without paying a babysitter, etc., for about a decade and a half per child, they would reconsider. It’s not like the world needs more babies. If we could whittle this down to people who are truly committed, that would be a win for everyone.

    I’m sure you’re right about a subsection of parents (and it may be a large subsection), but I think this type of analysis misses the parents who truly think they’re doing a good job and who also labor under the impression that their child’s behavior is acceptable.

    I have family members who think their children are little angels and the behavior I find abhorrent turns into charming anecdotes of their kid’s whimsy in their understanding of the situation.

    I have a healthy amount of respect for the ‘let kids be kids’ perspective – it is what keeps me from flipping out on public transit when I am getting irritated with a child’s behavior but can acknowledge that it is perfectly in line with normal (and polite-ish) child behavior. But some parents – bad ones – seem to think that almost all of their kid’s behavior is normal and should therefore go uncorrected, because one day the kid will grow out of hopping on other people’s tables. And those parents are ridiculously prevalent as well.

19. My family was pretty well integrated with children–I never even heard of a children’s table or a no-child wedding or holiday.

    I say, follow the environment of the establishment. If it’s a place that caters to women in heels and men in suits, don’t bring your kids, this is an upscale bar meant for quiet talk. If people are in their jeans throwing back shot after shot of whiskey, that’s a drinkin’ bar and your kids shouldn’t be there.

    If, however, there’s a few friends having a few beers, a TV is on, and there’s food being served, bring your kids! I love kids in public. I view the world as pretty much kid-accessible until around 6pm, then from 6-10 it needs to slowly scale to older kids and teens. Movies should have kids, stores should have kids, restaurants and theme parks and yes, even some pubs should have kids.

    But at the movie “The Grey”, where people get eaten by wolves? Leave your kids at home. At my fine dining restaurant and your kid is fussy? Go home. Wet T-shirt contest at the bar? Please, please go home.

20. If, however, there’s a few friends having a few beers, a TV is on, and there’s food being served, bring your kids! I love kids in public. I view the world as pretty much kid-accessible until around 6pm, then from 6-10 it needs to slowly scale to older kids and teens. Movies should have kids, stores should have kids, restaurants and theme parks and yes, even some pubs should have kids.

    Pretty much this. There are some places that are not appropriate for children, but really, most places are fine. Although I’d probably put it around 8 or 9 pm for most kids past toddler age before scaling back.

21. imo kids in a pub is alright especially if it’s like part of an inn or like a place where they serve sandwiches and stuff

    kids in a bar nah

22. New York City and my state and many other jurisdictions have banned smoking in bars, but in cases where people can still smoke in bars and there are people in one doing it, nobody should take their kids in there. The outdoor bar, maybe. But where they still allow it, there can be a lot of smoke in bars and it is just plain bad, especially for kids. No minors in those bars.

23. No one’s suggesting that the obligation to decent social behavior evaporates in a bar; I would say, however, that it’s accurate to say the obligation to kid-friendly-behavior evaporates.

    See, I equate “decent social behavior” pretty much with “kid-friendly behavior,” or at least think that we create this artificial divide between the two that doesn’t need to exist as much as it does. Sort of like the idea that being misogynistic arses is totes OK if there are no women in the group, but an obligation to be “appropriate” suddenly appears when a vagina is on the scene.

    NB: I’m making the point from both sides here. This idea that kids are special snowflakes who will break if exposed to strong language or the occasional off color joke needs to go.

24. the decision to have kids means no more uninterrupted movies, no quiet evenings with friends without paying a babysitter, etc., for about a decade and a half per child, they would reconsider. It’s not like the world needs more babies. If we could whittle this down to people who are truly committed, that would be a win for everyone.

    Yes, that’s right. We’re just not *committed* enough! For heaven’s sakes, are you trying to sound like a jerk? Aside from which, I still manage plenty of uninterrupted movies and quiet time with friends. No, everything is not totally The Same, but life does not end.

    I do agree that the childless/free-ness needs to be a (much) more accepted position, though.

25. Amanda, I’ve known since I was a young child that I wanted kids; the reason I didn’t do it until my 30’s was the perception I had that having children destroys your life, that you have to give up on everything that makes life worth living in order to have kids.

    This should not be true. And nowadays it isn’t true.

    The fact that parents can continue to hang out with non-parent friends and do fun things that are not 100% centered around their kid, while still having their kid there, is a good thing. It’s a counter to the whole meme that mothers, in particular, must sacrifice every part of their personal life; it’s a counter to the idea that no establishment can have mixed ages, that either it’s entirely for kids or they’re not permitted at all, which counters the notion kids get that the universe revolves around them (obviously all kids believe this, but some continue to believe it as they get older); it promotes the continuing friendship and social life between parents and non-parents, which helps the childfree because older childfree people are a minority and when you’re 40, you’d prefer that the people who used to be your friends when you’re 20 didn’t cut you out of their lives because you don’t have kids, and because it helps short-circuit the Mommy Wars conflict between mothers and women without kids.

    It is true that in all places where children go, the parents should enforce that they behave themselves. Children are just as damn obnoxious to *other children* as they are to adults, and I don’t want your 5-year-old knocking over my 2-year-old because he has no sense that careening around a mixed-use, mixed-age space at his top speed could be hazardous. A bar with adults in it isn’t special; the tricycle doesn’t belong in the middle of the field where other kids are trying to play frisbee, or on the basketball court where kids are shooting hoops, either. There’s nothing about “adults are in this space” that makes common courtesy between kids and other humans *more* necessary, and while shrieking is ok behavior on a playground, it’s not in a library or school, and both are very much kid-friendly.

    So kids need to learn courtesy to others, whether they are in a child-specific place or an adult-friendly place; parents need to learn that their special snowflake needs manners and needs to behave appropriately for an environment; and people without kids need to remember that kids are humans too, and have every right to be anyplace their parents are unless the environment is demonstrably harmful to them or would be ruined by the presence of normal child behavior. (Quiet, elegant restaurant: ok to say you should not to bring your baby to. Sports bar where people loudly cheer for their team: your baby is no worse than any of the other patrons.)

26. But at the movie “The Grey”, where people get eaten by wolves? Leave your kids at home. At my fine dining restaurant and your kid is fussy? Go home. Wet T-shirt contest at the bar? Please, please go home.

    Do you own your own restaurant? Otherwise that phrasing is kind of…weird. Also, wet t-shirt contests are gross, period, and no one should go to them. Odd position to have to clarify on Feministe, but whatevs.

    RE: The Grey…depends on the kid, their age, etc.

27. I’m sure you’re right about a subsection of parents (and it may be a large subsection), but I think this type of analysis misses the parents who truly think they’re doing a good job and who also labor under the impression that their child’s behavior is acceptable.

    Dunning-Kruger parenting.

28. I think some of the responsibility is down to the bar owner who seems to want to have it both ways. The owner wants to make money off families with children, so “put out the word to local families: strollers welcome.” Yet clearly the patrons are showing up disappointed. Plus, if you are going to have a ‘strollers welcome’ policy, then maybe you should police bad language, because people have an expectation of what a kid friendly place should be like.True saying the f-word in front of someone’s kid never killed anyone, but neither did a dirty look. As far as the Yelp comment goes, that review is doing what the owner isn’t by painting an accurate picture of what it’s like to attend that bar for a group of friends without children.

29. See, I equate “decent social behavior” pretty much with “kid-friendly behavior,” or at least think that we create this artificial divide between the two that doesn’t need to exist as much as it does. Sort of like the idea that being misogynistic arses is totes OK if there are no women in the group, but an obligation to be “appropriate” suddenly appears when a vagina is on the scene.

    eh.. those two things are not even close to the same. when adults get together they dont spend there time bad mouthing kids. they talk about things that kids simply wouldnt understand or arent old enough to know about. this isnt like men getting together and making sexist jokes.

30. @21: True, I left those people out, but I don’t know if there’s any cure for that stripe of asshole. And those people will always have kids, because they’re the ones entranced by the belief that the world must have their genes in it.

31. I’m not familiar with liquor laws in NYC, but around here there are many, many bars that aren’t just drinking establishments, but also serve food. And many of these places are pretty kid-friendly before 9:00 pm. Mom and dad have a beer; kid has some French fries—as long as the children are well-behaved, I really don’t see the problem.

    (One local pub has a weekly Babies & Beer Happy Hour, which I think is kind of brilliant. They put up baby gates and have a selection of toddler toys laid out. The bar makes more money than it would otherwise at 4:00 on a Thursday, and parents can hang out an environment that they know welcomes kids.)

32. It seems weird and willfully jerky to go to a bar whose owner has specifically invited families with kids to attend, and then bitch about the fact that families with kids are there.

    I hate sports bars. So I don’t go to them. I definitely don’t go to them and then complain about all the sports on the TV.

33. But some parents – bad ones – seem to think that almost all of their kid’s behavior is normal and should therefore go uncorrected, because one day the kid will grow out of hopping on other people’s tables. And those parents are ridiculously prevalent as well.

    This definitely happens sometimes, but that tends to fall firmly in the “being a jerk” category, doesn’t it? Sort of like the loud jackass at the bar who’s had too much to drink and can’t talk at a volume below 11 or stop himself from bumping into everyone around him. Shitty behavior is shitty behavior now matter how old the person is.

    So many people have children because it’s what you’re supposed to do and then the actual work of raising them turns out to be a total nightmare they didn’t feel they signed up for. So they go to the bar to hang out with friends and let their kids run around throwing bocce balls at each other or let their kids run around, say, yanking on tablecloths in a restaurant because frankly—and hey, it’s true—disciplining them is hard work that takes away from your fun. They probably feel put-upon by how hard all this is and want a break and feel other adults who aren’t raising their children should just have to suffer instead.

    I’m sure that probably happens, too, but I’ve noticed that there are also times where adults who are childless have a very low threshhold for what constitutes “acceptable behavior” from a child. I work in a library, and patrons will happily ignore adults speaking loudly or listening to music, but will gripe about children laughing or reading books to each other.

    I don’t know… maybe a bunch of the parents at this bar wish they weren’t parents, but I don’t like to assume that’s the case based on some Yelp complaints.

34. Steve,

    I think the problem here is that the owner is basically in the position of having to choose between his patrons. The child-free patrons (at least, some of them) are not happy with the bar. However, the article isn’t very clear. It seems like some of them are unhappy with children misbehaving in the bar, while others dislike their presence entirely. Frankly, the child who was riding a tricycle inside needed to be ejected, along with the parents. But that’s not because its a bar, its because he was indoors. The owner’s failure seems to be less making the establishment child-friendly and more a failure to police behavior that results from it. I take my own son to restaurants on occassion, and I would expect a badly bahving child to be removed. Its not mutually exclusive. The owner does have an affirmative duty to police patrons’ bad behavior – like any business owner. If that happened, I wonder how much of this would be solved. But the parent-friendly thing was probably just a (potentially) sound business decision. The Yelp reviewer sounds very upset thathe went to a particular bar with an expectation and that expectation was not met. Well, next time he can patronize an establishment that may more closely meet those expectations. I think the issue with the review is that it does have a sort of disdain about it, like it implies that he is angry that his expectations were foiled by the children. Its not a bad review, it just sounds slightly pompous.

35. I’m pretty much in the “Yeah, just don’t be a jerk” camp. I work in retail and when kids come in, no problem! When the parents are facing the wall browsing the clearance section and the kid is running around entertaining themselves, then we have a problem. Kids aren’t born magically knowing that you don’t drag white shirts around on the floor, or pull all the belts off the rack and put them in a pile on the floor, or rub your hands all over the mirror, or play tag in a public place where people are trying to work and shop, or pull on that rack of pants until it falls on you (yep, that was fun). Kids have to be taught not to do these things. I have no problem with parents that actually PARENT when they bring their kids with them, because that’s sort of how it’s supposed to work. It’s just the parents who pay no attention as their kid runs freely around the place that I have a problem with, and the same idea should apply to places like bars and restaurants. It doesn’t have to be so complicated.

36. Dunning-Kruger parenting.

    Exactly!

37. Man, I actually expected parents to agree with me that theirs is hard work and not for everyone. Sounds flattering to good parents to me!

    Instead, the usual, “Oh it’s not that bad, really it’s not that much harder than having a small dog” thing comes out. Which does happen most of the time when an adult expresses disinterest in parenting, and frankly is such a load that I feel like I’m being bamboozled.

    People who downplay the work of parenting to encourage others to do it? Just stop. What do you think you’re accomplishing? Those of us who see through the sales pitch wonder why you’re selling it so hard, and wonder if it’s a misery-loves-company thing. People who buy the story often end up having kids while underestimating how much work it is and we’re back to square one, with brats throwing bocce balls and overpopulation continuing to be a problem.

    Seriously, it’s okay to look at how much work kids are and say, “Nah, I have other priorities.” It’s OKAY. When people say that, trying to downplay how much work it is has no value. Why not embrace it? “Yeah, as a parent I can say kids are a lot of work and no one who isn’t ready for major sacrifices should undertake it.” See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?

38. @31: I’ve been to the bar in question, and I think the bar owner has reached an okay compromise. Kids are allowed in until 8 and then they have to go. That seems reasonable to me.

39. See, I equate “decent social behavior” pretty much with “kid-friendly behavior,” or at least think that we create this artificial divide between the two that doesn’t need to exist as much as it does.

    I disagree. Most of the times when I hear about “kid friendly behavior” it becomes a toss up between PG or PG-13, depending on the relative thinness of skin and entitlement of the parents in question (because its never the kid who complains about, or even notices, when you say “fuck” in public). If I’m in a bar I’m not going to be groping anyone except for close friends who find it hilarious or romantic partners, but groping is a pretty different animal from the kinds of pure language that are usually objected to by shocked parents demanding “kid friendly” behavior. When I’ve been confronted in public for behavior that isn’t “kid friendly” enough its never been for actual behavior but for language, for saying “fuck” or telling an off color story or using the word “sodomy” or talking about gender.

    Honestly, I don’t have a lot of time for people who want to police my mouth. I never have and the fact that someone is doing it to protect their little precious from words doesn’t move me. I’ve got an R rated mouth, but if someone decides that its their prerogative to order me to tone it down I’ll make it my prerogative to round the corner into NC-17.

40. What? Jesus Christ, Amanda’s comment is so anti-feminist, it’s unbelievable. If you have children, you’re not allowed to have a goddamned life beyond that child? For the child alone, that would be an incredibly unhealthy dynamic. I really don’t want a generation of children to be encouraged to be utterly self-involved.

    Ever hear of the book “It takes a Village to Raise A Child?” Are people so brainwashed by USian norms that they don’t know that people all over the world think don’t raise children in isolation? You can love lots of things in life- your partner, your job- w/o wanting to live in isolation with them. It’s just plain toxic to be all-consumed by any one aspect of your life. It strikes me that Amanda’s much more concerned with norms than the imaginary women to whom she imputes motives.

    And, of course, it’s anti-feminist in of itself to show so little respect for women’s choices. If a woman hasn’t told you what she felt and why she did it, don’t play fucking mind reader. Is it news for self-identified feminists that it’s fucked up to tell strange women what they really want? Is this what we’ve reverted to now?

41. Yeah, it’s a total sales pitch. Parents are only pretending that it’s possible to watch movies uninterrupted and have quiet evenings with friends in order to lure unsuspecting people who would rather not have children into a wretched existence because, um, “misery loves company.”

    That sounds totally rational, for sure.

42. William–

    I actually agree with you; I’m advocating for a shift in what we deem “kid friendly.” Honestly, I really do not think hearing the word “fuck” damages children.

43. I’d like to say I’m socially conscious and motivated enough to want to change the definition of “kid friendly” but if I’m being honest I just kinda like being a dick to people who’ve been a dick to me.

44. The child-free patrons (at least, some of them) are not happy with the bar. However, the article isn’t very clear. It seems like some of them are unhappy with children misbehaving in the bar, while others dislike their presence entirely.

    It’s a mistake to assume that the only people who complain about kids in bars (or restaurants, or late-night loud scary movies) are the childfree. Plenty of parents who took the trouble to make arrangements for someone else to watch the kids so they could have a kid-free night out are also upset when kids are ill-behaved in traditionally adult spaces, or when clueless/entitled parents don’t see a reason for keeping an eye on their offspring.

    Instead, the usual, “Oh it’s not that bad, really it’s not that much harder than having a small dog” thing comes out. Which does happen most of the time when an adult expresses disinterest in parenting, and frankly is such a load that I feel like I’m being bamboozled.

    These are probably the people who don’t pick up after their dogs, either.

45. Look, I’m not saying parents—much less just mothers—have to never, ever have fun again. I’m just saying if people really truly understood that everything changes, then yes, more people would say no to it. If you really understood that going out with your friends will now be a rare treat instead of a 3-times-a-week event, that babysitters are required for what used to be simple outings like romantic dinners or movies, and that bringing your kids to social occasions means having to interrupt yourself every few minutes to deal with them, then a lot of people would say no. Instead, people are lied to and the amount of time that you get to yourself or uninterrupted time with friends is wildly exaggerated.

    Seriously, why is this a bad thing to point out? The only effect of people really, truly accepting that kids are hard work that dramatically alters your social life is that fewer kids are raised by parents who regret having kids.

    Nothing is more feminist than “every child a wanted child”. I just am really committed to this belief that children should be not only wanted, but wanted by people who are fully informed about the ramifications.

    The only thing we have to lose is bad parents and overpopulation.

46. @44: I didn’t say that’s the reason why the sales pitch is offered. I’m just saying for those of us who see through it—perhaps because we’ve spent a lot of time around kids or have had a lot of friends who are stressed out by parenting—we have to wonder why. When the only effect of letting people know what they’re buying before they buy is fewer bad parents and less global warming, why on earth is there so much resistance?

    You’re free to offer a counter-argument for why it’s a good thing to downplay the amount of work parenting really is to people who are considering the option but could go either way.

47. A new bar was opening on the edge of the neighborhood and its owner had put out the word to local families: strollers welcome.

    I’m kind of left scratching my head here. If the owners of this establishment specifically opened it with the intention of welcoming the family and stroller crowd then I can’t see where other patrons get off complaining about the very presence of those families and their strollers. It’s not as though Park Slope and its adjacent neighborhoods aren’t awash in bars and eating establishments where one can imbibe if kid-friendly isn’t what you’re looking for.

48. Instead, the usual, “Oh it’s not that bad, really it’s not that much harder than having a small dog” thing comes out. Which does happen most of the time when an adult expresses disinterest in parenting, and frankly is such a load that I feel like I’m being bamboozled.

    How is saying, ‘your life does not have to End’ the same as equating a baby to a particularly needy beagle?

    I think the degree to which we expect mothers and nuclear families to parent alone often creates horrid conditions for the adults involved, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Of course, there are always factors beyond one’s control that can add to the suck (colic, illness, etc)

49. Amanda, parenting is hard work. But even though it’s hard work, it doesn’t mean that you can never have any fun or enjoy “adult” activities again–I think that’s the idea that some posters are pushing back against. I think that Alara Rogers puts it beautifully:

    The fact that parents can continue to hang out with non-parent friends and do fun things that are not 100% centered around their kid, while still having their kid there, is a good thing. It’s a counter to the whole meme that mothers, in particular, must sacrifice every part of their personal life;

    .

    And as a parent, part of my job entails teaching my kid how to behave in a public space. That happens in the library, the park, and the grocery store. And it happens on a Friday evening when we all walk down to the pub and my partner and I enjoy a beer while we all eat dinner. (And, yes, I do come down like a ton of bricks on bad behavior in restaurants or anywhere else, for that matter.) Does that teaching have to happen in a place where alcohol is served? Of course not. But I’m also not going to limit myself or my kid to nothing but McDonald’s for the next 18 years.

50. I have kids and I’ll be the first to admit that being ‘the mom’ sucks ass most of the time, and not in any kind of fun way. That doesn’t mean that my life has to end just because I have kids and it doesn’t mean I can’t or shouldn’t take them places with me just because those places aren’t explicitly for kids.

    Also, when I do make arrangements to have a ‘kid free’ evening with the husband or with friends, it is specifically *my* kids that I’m want to be free from. I don’t care about other people having their kids in those spaces, because I am not the person who has to be responsible for those kids and their mere presence, even with annoying or bad behavior, doesn’t really affect me all that much. And so I don’t worry about it so long as the kid who isn’t mine isn’t being actively endangered.

51. I don’t have children, but I have to suspect that it’s less the attitude that “raising children can be hard, and it will have an impact on your social life” and more the “raising children is a nightmare, and you won’t have a social life for 15 years.”

    The way you’re phrasing things and jumping between extremes–raising children is a total nightmare! You don’t think so? Well, bring out the “Oh it’s not that bad, really it’s not that much harder than having a small dog”–bothers me, and I don’t even have children.

    I just think that there’s a lot of middle ground between “not much harder than having a small dog” and “total nightmare .”

52. I didn’t say that’s the reason why the sales pitch is offered. I’m just saying for those of us who see through it—perhaps because we’ve spent a lot of time around kids or have had a lot of friends who are stressed out by parenting—we have to wonder why. When the only effect of letting people know what they’re buying before they buy is fewer bad parents and less global warming, why on earth is there so much resistance?

    You’re free to offer a counter-argument for why it’s a good thing to downplay the amount of work parenting really is to people who are considering the option but could go either way.

    Gee, am I really? That’s mighty nice of you!

    Because not everybody has the same experience of parenting. For instance you have “seen through the sales pitch” because you have spent a lot of time around children, whereas spending a lot of time caring for children has only made me want them more. See how that works? Some people think Life Has To End when you have children, and some people think Nothing Will Change when you have children, and both are wrong. Similarly, some parents feel that can Never Do Fun Things, and others have found perfectly workable ways to do fun things. So the conversations–oh, excuse me, “sales pitches”–differ depending on who’s having them.

53. As a non-parent (and likely to stay that way), I suspect that a part of child-free folks’ lack of tolerance for kids in the public sphere is based on the fact that parenthood is, by many, so enshrined; parents are told they have the most important job in the world (I know there’s not enough actual support to back this up, but the words are still out there), and you’re made to feel like you’re not as much of a person for not having kids. You don’t feel as valued as parents are, and that makes you want to see those parents SACRIFICE, and leave you to your kid-free zone- why should they be able to have all the fun you are, when they already have the fun of being told they’re more important than you? Definitely, the way society esteems parenthood as a pinnacle of achievement pushes the anti-kid feelings.

54. Also, small dogs are a royal pain in the ass. I’d rather have a toddler any day.

55. I think the degree to which we expect mothers and nuclear families to parent alone often creates horrid conditions for the adults involved, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Of course, there are always factors beyond one’s control that can add to the suck (colic, illness, etc)

    I think this is the critical point where both camps often talk past each other. Yes, having kids does change your life in pretty monumental ways. Yes, it’s a good idea to really understand what is going to come along with becoming a parent before doing so. On the other hand, becoming a parent doesn’t mean that you automatically cash in your intellect, your personal ambition or your need for friendly company. It doesn’t automatically compute that becoming a parent will make you a boring windbag obessed with all things baby and parenting, and yet if one’s friends are going to chafe at any mention of the baby or parenting once you get a kid then it isn’t necessarily the parent’s fault when that friendship falls by the wayside.

    Good grief, there doesn’t even need to be two separate camps at all, and yet that seems to be where we are here in the U.S. these days. Parents v Non-parents Wars times eleventy billion.

56. If you really understood that going out with your friends will now be a rare treat instead of a 3-times-a-week event, that babysitters are required for what used to be simple outings like romantic dinners or movies, and that bringing your kids to social occasions means having to interrupt yourself every few minutes to deal with them, then a lot of people would say no. Instead, people are lied to and the amount of time that you get to yourself or uninterrupted time with friends is wildly exaggerated.

    I can quite honestly say that I have never been lied to like that. Ever. I’m sure that it happens somewhere, but it has never happened to me.

    I had the opposite experience. Starting from the time I was 12, the message I got from my mother and others was “Once you have kids, your life is over.” Which is simply not true.

    If other people don’t want kids, that’s awesome. Takes all kinds to make a world. But just as people need to know that having kids is not all happiness and rainbows, they also need to know that it’s not all unending drudgery and Dora cartoons.

57. But just as people need to know that having kids is not all happiness and rainbows, they also need to know that it’s not all unending drudgery and Dora cartoons.

    But however else will we get to all be Mommy martyrs?

    /sarcasm

58. Whether I observe that having kids completely changes your life doesn’t make it true. It is true. If I agree to not speak of how hard it is, it remains hard. Having kids is hard work, whether I point it out or not. It’s not me saying it that makes it true. It simply is true.

    I’m not saying you can never have fun again. Some parents manage to make it work so they have up to 30% as much fun, though in my experience they’re the exceptions. And of course, when your kids grow up, you can return to having fun out with other adults without attending to child responsibilities.

    I’m just pointing out that it’s hard work. It means giving up the majority of your social life, if you have an active social life. If you don’t, I guess no big deal, but those aren’t the people who are bringing badly behaved kids in bars and ignoring them because they’re trying to recreate the life they had before kids.

    But saying it out loud can prevent people who aren’t really up for having kids from doing so. That is a win/win, unless of course you need more people to make the choices you do to validate your life.

    It’s *fascinating* to me how important it is for so many parents to try to convince the childless that it’s not as much work as it clearly is. Why does it matter to you if people say, “Nope, too much work, I like my life how it is.” Why do you care?

59. Interestingly, one reason I write and push on issues of better policies for family life is I’m not fooled: Raising kids is time-sucking, hard work. That’s why we need better family and sick leave and hard limits on how many hours people have to put in at the office.

    But hey, if it’s barely a thing, then maybe not.

    Kidding, I’m not going to let a few defensive people on the internet stop me from pushing for more humane policies that acknowledge that people with children have to completely rearrange their life to accommodate them, unless they’re like Romney rich or something.

60. Amanda, the only comment I see addressing your point is from Alara Rogers.

    Amanda, I’ve known since I was a young child that I wanted kids; the reason I didn’t do it until my 30′s was the perception I had that having children destroys your life, that you have to give up on everything that makes life worth living in order to have kids.

    This should not be true. And nowadays it isn’t true.

    Your reply:

    Instead, the usual, “Oh it’s not that bad, really it’s not that much harder than having a small dog” thing comes out. […] People who downplay the work of parenting to encourage others to do it? Just stop. What do you think you’re accomplishing? Those of us who see through the sales pitch wonder why you’re selling it so hard, and wonder if it’s a misery-loves-company thing.

    Which comment here says anything like that? Who are you replying to? Which comments did you read which warrant this reply?

61. It’s *fascinating* to me how important it is for so many parents to try to convince the childless that it’s not as much work as it clearly is. Why does it matter to you if people say, “Nope, too much work, I like my life how it is.” Why do you care?

    You’re totally missing the mark with this.

    The point is that we disagree and take issue with the portrayal of the life of parents as one of near friendlessness, social alienation and constant drudgery. Also, it’s not about trying you or other CFBC to come over to the dark side and become parents. Feel free to speak for yourself, and leave the rest of us to draw our own conclusions about our lives, tyvm.

62. See, I equate “decent social behavior” pretty much with “kid-friendly behavior,” or at least think that we create this artificial divide between the two that doesn’t need to exist as much as it does. Sort of like the idea that being misogynistic arses is totes OK if there are no women in the group, but an obligation to be “appropriate” suddenly appears when a vagina is on the scene.

    NB: I’m making the point from both sides here. This idea that kids are special snowflakes who will break if exposed to strong language or the occasional off color joke needs to go.

    I’m sorry, but now ‘acting like an adult in a bar’ is == being misogynistic arse?

    No – disagree. You wouldn’t typically swear a blue streak in front of kids, tell stories about that one time you blacked out in Phuket or dirty jokes, do too many tequila shots…lots of things. You’re drawing a false equivalence, IMO.

63. I’m not saying you can never have fun again. Some parents manage to make it work so they have up to 30% as much fun, though in my experience they’re the exceptions. And of course, when your kids grow up, you can return to having fun out with other adults without attending to child responsibilities.

    I’m just pointing out that it’s hard work. It means giving up the majority of your social life, if you have an active social life. If you don’t, I guess no big deal, but those aren’t the people who are bringing badly behaved kids in bars and ignoring them because they’re trying to recreate the life they had before kids.

    No one is saying it isn’t hard work. And YES, we need better family policies. But part of a more family-friendly society is better cultural ideas of what “fun” and “social life” can be. Our single friends are all still our friends, we still all hang out several times a week. We just do it at our house/their house and usually eat in and order a DVD off Amazon. They chip in with childcare, because they aren’t assholes and they want to see us, and holy jesus, they actually like the baby. Do I miss going out at midnight and getting completely pissed? Yeah, sometimes. But the absence of a particular KIND of social life doesn’t mean something equally enjoyable can’t replace it.

    Also, babies can be fun/fulfilling. You can hold the idea that parenting is often enjoyable at the SAME TIME as you believe serious changes to how the U.S. views family/parenting are necessary. Trust me, your head won’t implode.

64. I don’t think anybody is saying that it isn’t all that much work or that parenting isn’t hard or that you can have exactly the same life after kids as you did before. Really. The consensus among the parents here, in this thread at least, seems to be that parenting shouldn’t have to be quite so hard or that your social life doesn’t have to end or even be curtailed quite so much. And that the attitude that a lot of people have that parents, especially mothers, should have to give up everything fun or do have to give up everything fun is exactly the attitude that needs to be fought against because you can, or at least should be able to, take your kids to a lot of places. Sure, you’ll still have to watch them and parent them while there and you’re not exactly as free to do whatever as people without kids are, but that doesn’t mean that no adult fun can be had in public while children are present or that parents have to be cloistered away with kids for 10-15 years before they can be let out of their cages or something.

    And when I say this, it has nothing to do with convincing more people to have kids, because I don’t think people should have kids unless they really want them. And I do think that people who are considering reproducing should think really hard about exactly how their lives will change as a result. I don’t care if they then decide they don’t want to deal with it, because being a parent isn’t all sunshine and rainbows and fun happy times, and the first few years can be especially awful. But, this notion that being a parent necessarily means that life ends is toxic and it needs to pushed back against.

65. I’m kind of left scratching my head here. If the owners of this establishment specifically opened it with the intention of welcoming the family and stroller crowd then I can’t see where other patrons get off complaining about the very presence of those families and their strollers. It’s not as though Park Slope and its adjacent neighborhoods aren’t awash in bars and eating establishments where one can imbibe if kid-friendly isn’t what you’re looking for.

    Yeah. That’s what I find weird as well.

66. Exactly, Lolagirl. I don’t really care if people choose not to have children–it’s none of my business. When I speak about the joy that I get from my kid and the fun that I have as a parent (both with and without my kid around), I’m not trying to sell anyone anything. I’m just describing my life.

67. Hey, former California barmaid (and the daughter of a bartender, meaning I basically grew up in bars) here, and for those who were still wondering: In California, if a bar serves food, minors are allowed inside during the hours food is being served (which generally ends around 11pm). Minors are not allowed to sit at a bar under any circumstances.

    There was this great all-ages nightclub in my town when I was a teenager, and it kept its liquor license by having a quota for pizza slices sold per night of operation…if they didn’t sell enough, minors wouldn’t be allowed. SO MANY SLICES of lousy pizza choked down in my teens to keep that place open. Memories!

    But this is annoying me:

    Why does it matter to you if people say, “Nope, too much work, I like my life how it is.” Why do you care?

    I’d like to propose the converse to you: why isn’t it equally important for parents to push back against the equally erroneous notion that parenting must completely and irrevocably change one’s life forever? This idea is harmful too and worthy of some criticism.

68. I’m sorry, but now ‘acting like an adult in a bar’ is == being misogynistic arse?

    No – disagree. You wouldn’t typically swear a blue streak in front of kids, tell stories about that one time you blacked out in Phuket or dirty jokes, do too many tequila shots…lots of things. You’re drawing a false equivalence, IMO.

    I don’t think they’re exactly the same (vs. men telling sexist jokes). I do think that decent behavior is decent behavior, and we use alcohol as excuse for people to act like shits–particularly towards women and/or kids– far too often.

    I don’t think someone at the next table telling a story about blacking out, or dirty jokes, or tequila shots, is necessarily bad for children. What’s bad for children is violence/abuse/meanness towards the child. Now, I’ll be honest–I am stretching the point a bit here, because no, seedy bars at 3AM aren’t great for kids. But how often have you ever seen a kid in a seedy bar at 3AM? I call strawbaby.
    My dad used to bring me to his gigs and such, but I was usually asleep in a booth/ behind the bar/in the kitchen by that time of night. And miracle of miracles, I didn’t grow up to be deeply disturbed, and rarely if ever disturbed patrons.

69. I’m just pointing out that it’s hard work. It means giving up the majority of your social life, if you have an active social life. If you don’t, I guess no big deal, but those aren’t the people who are bringing badly behaved kids in bars and ignoring them because they’re trying to recreate the life they had before kids.

    It doesn’t, though. I was raised being brought to bars. I was raised understanding that my parents had a social life, and that they were going to continue to have a fulfilling social life. I was raised around a lot of adults – tons of adults – because my parents refused to fade away from their non-child-having friends and because those friends refused to not continue being active friends to them just because they had me. I had numerous “aunts” and “uncles” (only a fraction of whom were really related to me) who were frequently around and who also took responsibility for my childcare.

    I was parented thoroughly, and because I was parented by a large group of people, no single non-parent had to take up the slack and my parents were able to have fun and not have to take care of me every few seconds. What it takes is for the non-parent friends to recognize that they don’t get to have a completely child-free existence, and that in order to have a fun night for everyone, everyone who has the capacity to should put in a bit of kid-face-time. And it means that parents have to recognize that their non-parent friends get to disipline their child when that child is doing something wrong (which can be difficult).

    Having a social life and integrating your child into your social life well is perhaps one of the best ways I can think of to raise a well-rounded kid who understands that parents are people and that people with needs and that those needs have to be respected. You won’t necessarily have the same social life you had pre-child. You won’t even necessarily have the social life you want sometimes when you have a child. But you’re not confined to being “parent” most of the time and then “social life person” occasionally. Those categories can and should (and I think must) be combined. For your own good and for the good of your child.

70. Regarding the few comments about no kids after 8 or 9…

    Sometimes parents and kids have different sleeping schedules. If your child is the type to wake up at 2 am every night and fuss until 3 or 4, and you happen to know your friends are out drinking at that time, and hell, you’re going to be up with your kid anyway, then why not? As long as the child is behaving politely, as other people have said, I don’t see how the time they engage in that behavior really makes a difference.

71. Some parents manage to make it work so they have up to 30% as much fun, though in my experience they’re the exceptions.

    Um.. you do know that KIDS can be shitloads of fun, right? Along with the hard work?

72. Why does it matter to you if people say, “Nope, too much work, I like my life how it is.” Why do you care?

    Non one cares if you say it’s too much work FOR YOU and that it would require YOU to radically change your lifestyle and that you like YOUR LIFE the way it is. But none of your posts have been about that, they’ve been blanket statements about how parenting is IN GENERAL and for ALL PARENTS. Like this:

    Whether I observe that having kids completely changes your life doesn’t make it true. It is true.

    And this:

    Some parents manage to make it work so they have up to 30% as much fun, though in my experience they’re the exceptions.

    And this:

    It means giving up the majority of your social life, if you have an active social life.

    There are actual parents on this thread telling you that this is not what their experience of parenting has been like. You can continue to insist that they are all lying to you as some devious plot to convince themselves they are not miserable and to sucker other people into signing up for 15 years of joyless drudgery, but I think the more reasonable explanation is probably that not every parent’s experience falls into the narrow idea of what you think is true of all parents.

73. I agree that the belief/expectation that parenthood is always overwhelmingly miserable and draining is one that needs to die. Also believe in the village- it shouldn’t have to be so hard, and on only a couple of people. We’ve created this mythology of parenthood as the ultimate job, and one you should suffer ultimately in doing.

74. I turned in a short story to workshop once, and one scene involved a child’s birthday party where wine and beer were being served to the adults. Since it was summertime, there were children and adults in the pool, and there was a cookout going on as well.

    When the story was critiqued, several students freaked out. “Alcohol being served at a child’s birthday party! Are you nuts?”

    As long as the adults drink responsibly, children don’t partake, and there’s at least one person per vehicle who’s totally sober and can drive home, then what’s the trouble?

75. Echoing what others have said…There’s a wildly popular beer bar which also serves food on the main strip of my neighborhood. They have signs posted on their doors/windows informing the public that they do not allow anyone under the age of 21 in the establishment, not even in the restaurant portion. People love that. People with kids love it, people without kids love it. We had our work Holiday party in the upstairs bar last year and one of the stylists got irrationally upset that she couldn’t bring her daughter. I thought that was annoying – and I love children. I offer free babysitting to all my friends with children, because I LOVE BEING AROUND KIDS. I just really hate people acting like they’re entitled to break the rules. She got to bring her daughter, who is adorable, but c’mon get a babysitter for ONE NIGHT.

    There’s another great craft beer bar/restaurant a block away that welcomes kids, adults, whatev. Make your choice. If you hate being around kids when you’re drinking, go to one of the many, many bars that don’t allow children. Simple, but don’t bitch because you chose to go to an all-inclusive place and some baby’s coo-ing or fussing bothers you. Get over yourself. If you see a sign in the window of a bar proclaiming that strollers are welcome, try not to be surprised at the presence of wee-ones.

    My father is a career musician, so I grew up in bars. I don’t see any problem with having children in bars – hell, even loud music is not a problem to me, but that’s just because I’ve spent my life around it. And, yes, Shirley Temples are so delightful as a young lady!

76. I am in complete agreement with Jill and Alara Rogers… and I sympathize with Amanda’s taking issue with society convincing people to have kids and questioning those who choose not to do so. But I am not comfortable with such a hard line between those with and those without children…

    I am the only child of a scientist. I am raising an only child. I travelled a lot as a kid (why I mention that my mom was a scientist) and went almost everywhere with my mother. My daughter now goes nearly everywhere with me and has since she was born. In the Europe of my childhood at least, kids were much more a part of all aspects of social interactions than is currently the case in the US. Fancy restaurants, art shows, and bars and pubs were fine places for kids who were behaving like decent kids. And kids were expected to behave accordingly. My daughter goes places with me like bars and movies where there aren’t other kids and she has learned how to behave (and from some adults how not to behave) as a result. Having kids certainly changes your life, but I knew that going in, and I knew how much to expect with one chld. It isn’t like kids should make it impossible to do many things that one did before. Now you are just doing those things with this new friend. The friend may have some different needs than other friends, but to me that is what children are. They are new friends who get to join in with the activities I did with old friends. There is of course a learning curve.

    One child is very different from many children for sure, and our decision to have one child was informed by my experiences. I find it interesting that the informed choice to have one child can generate similar responses as choosing to have no children. That is, some people feel it is their business to question why only one, and why not more, and isn’t that selfish?

    So my point is that children really should be able to go most places, but if their parents can’t/don’t make that possible for them by way of parenting and good judgment, then they lose out because no one should have to tolerate bad behavior (from child or adult). And while parenting is hard, it just isn’t this thing that should separate parents from non-parents. Certainly our social circle includes a wide array of families and individuals, and I think it would be a shame to limit it to only those with the same family make up, the same age kids, the presence or non-presence of kids, the presence or non-presence of a partner, pre or post menopause, or whatever.

    And I hate strollers. But I know they are handy.

    1. Sometimes parents and kids have different sleeping schedules. If your child is the type to wake up at 2 am every night and fuss until 3 or 4, and you happen to know your friends are out drinking at that time, and hell, you’re going to be up with your kid anyway, then why not? As long as the child is behaving politely, as other people have said, I don’t see how the time they engage in that behavior really makes a difference.

       Yeah, weird, I wonder why in the world that kid would have a messed-up sleep schedule?

77. Well, Esti, don’t forget that everyone who disagrees with Amanda Marcotte is suffering from delusion or false consciousness, or we’re just big meanies out to get her. Same song from 2008, we’ve heard it before.

78. There are actual parents on this thread telling you that this is not what their experience of parenting has been like. You can continue to insist that they are all lying to you as some devious plot to convince themselves they are not miserable and to sucker other people into signing up for 15 years of joyless drudgery, but I think the more reasonable explanation is probably that not every parent’s experience falls into the narrow idea of what you think is true of all parents.

    Nah. Don’t be silly. Amanda knows far more about the experience of parenting than any mere parent could. You are not having fun, no matter what you think.

79. Yeah, weird, I wonder why in the world that kid would have a messed-up sleep schedule?

    You…have no idea what you’re talking about.

80. Nah. Don’t be silly. Amanda knows far more about the experience of parenting than any mere parent could. You are not having fun, no matter what you think.

    Well, I might be having 30% of my daily fun. Maybe. If I’m special.

81. this notion that being a parent necessarily means that life ends is toxic and it needs to pushed back against.

    Quoted for truthiness.

    Um.. you do know that KIDS can be s***loads of fun, right? Along with the hard work?

    No, no, no, saying that your kids is fun is treasonous, I tell you. They must be a miserable burden you bear begrudgingly at all times, or u r doing it rong!

    And I hate strollers. But I know they are handy.

    Oh goody, can we have a whole side tangent about overentitled parents and their preposterously expensive baby conveyances while we’re at it? ‘Cause I own a Bugaboo (or two) and can’t wait for others to insist I must be severely chastened for such a horrendous sin.

82. And I hate strollers

    Most parents probably do too. They’re either way too big and unwieldy or they’re flimsy as hell and break too easily.

    I was so glad when my kids were old enough to walk most places and I could get rid of the damn stroller. Mine were close in age so I had one of those double-strollers.. that lasted about a month. Tried getting through doorways a couple times and then gave up and said to my oldest “Sorry, kid, you’re walking.”

83. @Amanda,

    Wow. Just wow.
    You come across as a kid hater. Like to the level of SNL parody.
    Anyone else notice this?

    Children aren’t fun?? Really?

84. Some parents manage to make it work so they have up to 30% as much fun, though in my experience they’re the exceptions.

    I’m having at least 100% as much fun, being a parent.

    We may have different definitions of “fun”.

85. Also, you know who else hates strollers? Believers in attachment parenting. I’m just saying.

86. I don’t think someone at the next table telling a story about blacking out, or dirty jokes, or tequila shots, is necessarily bad for children. What’s bad for children is violence/abuse/meanness towards the child. Now, I’ll be honest–I am stretching the point a bit here, because no, seedy bars at 3AM aren’t great for kids. But how often have you ever seen a kid in a seedy bar at 3AM? I call strawbaby.

    I mean, these things happen at bars around me at happy hour. And I agree…the kid is not a fragile snowflake and will survive.

    I’m more annoyed/concerned about judgey, whiny, concern-trolly yuppie parents who go around shooting deathglares and lectures at anyone who violates their precious snowflake’s cone of innocence and purity.

    And you know these people exist, particularly in the kind of places described in the article.

    I guess my solution will just be to never, ever, ever got Park Slope, because it sounds awful for everyone.

87. I live one block away from this bar. The first time I went, I went with my neighbor and her nine-month-old baby. We had a nice time. The second (and last time) I went and had a terrible time, because I was parenting everyone else’s kids. It’s fine to bring your kids to this place, but you have to watch them and tell them to stop running. It’s not a playground, it’s a beer garden. It’s not safe to run around. Even less safe to throw rocks at patrons (this happens).

    But really I just wish the article would mention their ridiculous policy of preventing people from bringing in bottles of water. Even reusable ones that are empty. I don’t plan on returning as long as that is in effect.

88. Well, I might be having 30% of my daily fun. Maybe. If I’m special.

    It’s true, why, just yesterday my best friend was saying to me “You know, ever since late November I’ve had less than a third of the fun I used to have every day,” so I suggested she remove the hair shirt, and her mood brightened considerably.

89. Most parents probably do too. They’re either way too big and unwieldy or they’re flimsy as hell and break too easily.

    Not me, I’ve loved my strollers almost as much as I love my kids. They make my life easier in so many ways I can hardly begin to count. From child containment to place to put all the crap and everything in between. Much of my parenting career would have been severely hampered without a stroller or two to make life a whole lot easier.

90. @ Marksman2010, I’m laughing because at our kids’ parties, my husband usually has a few beers available to the adults who prefer to stay. Not nearly enough for anyone to get drunk on, but it’s available for those who want it. Just one more way for the parents to relax as the kids have fun together. We don’t require parents to stay once the kids are a reasonable age, but there’s a lot of good socializing to be had if they stick around.

    The whole thing has never been a problem.

91. Dude, I have drunk beer

    whist breastfeeding

    . Without a cover. At a bar. At night. THINK OF THE CHILDREN, OH GOD, MY EYEEEES!

    Ahem.

92. oops, that was supposes to be italics, not blockquote. fail!

93. Dude, I have drunk beer whist breastfeeding. Without a cover. At a bar. At night. THINK OF THE CHILDREN, OH GOD, MY EYEEEES!

    Ahem.

    Me too, except it was a wine tasting tour when my nursling was 4 weeks old or so. He slept in his carseat most of the time, but I did kind of get a kick out of the look on the waitress’ face when I insisted on getting a sample while in flagrante lactation.

    I left the stroller at home that time though, I was too lazy to schlep that thing in and out of the car.

94. Sort of like the idea that being misogynistic arses is totes OK if there are no women in the group, but an obligation to be “appropriate” suddenly appears when a vagina is on the scene.

    I must admit If I was in a bar and a disembodied vagina appeared on the scene from nowhere, I’d probably be rendered speechless.

95. That was fun.

    I hate strollers. We had one. We rarely used it because of the ice and overall lack of pavement where we live. And, you know, four years of nursing one child and pretty constant child contact makes attachment parenting, just minus the religion of some in that community. (No, this is not a nursing or number of children or attachment parenting or anything else derail…)

    So who can’t take a stroller joke? Maybe I should have pointed out both stroller and non-stroller parents as equally valuable people too. And those who nurse and don’t nurse and …

96. So who can’t take a stroller joke?

    Whatever. It’s become the in thing to do, mocking parents and their strollers. Who do those women think they are, taking up all the space with their baby chariots. It’s not like we don’t all know that they’re just status symbols anyway. Real women have actual hobbies, and don’t feel compelled to remind all the rest of us that they have kids in such a conspicuous way, etc.

97. Oh, I just hated my stroller and couldn’t deal with it where we are. Ooops.

98. Strollering parents have no concern for their kids’ bone density at that crucial developmental stage. Pushing them around in a stroller is just a lazy mother’s way of not having to help her baby walk, and she should have her children taken away from her. Stroller-babies also develop an entitlement complex and go on to demand sedan chairs later in life. Strollers and baby wraps are tantamount to child abuse.

99. You laugh, but I’ve been told off by more crunchy types for the “unfeeling plastic baby buckets” that impede childhood development!

    (like bouncer seats, and jumpers, and strollers)

    Behold this awesome hot mess from the mouth of Dr Sears:

    “Wind-up swings for winding down babies are a boon to parents who have neither the time, energy or creativity to muster up rituals of their own. Tired parents will pay anything for a good night’s sleep. Once in a while a moving plastic seat may be more sleep inducing than a familiar pair of arms. Sometimes high-need babies associate a parent’s body with play and stimulation and will not drift off to sleep in a human swing. For them the mechanical one is less stimulating, if not downright boring, and therefore can be a useful part of a sleep-ritual repertoire. Yet remember, high-need babies are notoriously resistant to mechanical mother substitutes and will usually protest anything less than the real mom. Before you actually spend money on a swing, you might want to borrow one for a week or two to see if the spell of the swing will last. You may discover that you are uncomfortable with mechanical mothering and decide to get more creative. Still, swings have their moments.”

    Emphasis mine, sorry for the derail 😉

100. It’s fine to bring your kids to this place, but you have to watch them and tell them to stop running.

     My solution to that is to be nice, drop down to a knee, and in the friendliest voice I can muster tell the kid to ask their parent about something that will go over their head but piss off the errant parent. Theres nothing quite like seeing a fuming father deflate after an exchange like “HOW DARE YOU TELL MY SON TO ASK ME WHAT FELCHING IS?!” “He seemed to be neglected, what with the running into people unsupervised, so I figured I’d see if I could get you to pay some attention before I called DCFS. I’m a helper!”

101. My solution to that is to be nice, drop down to a knee, and in the friendliest voice I can muster tell the kid to ask their parent about something that will go over their head but piss off the errant parent. Theres nothing quite like seeing a fuming father deflate after an exchange like “HOW DARE YOU TELL MY SON TO ASK ME WHAT FELCHING IS?!” “He seemed to be neglected, what with the running into people unsupervised, so I figured I’d see if I could get you to pay some attention before I called DCFS. I’m a helper!”

     William, you and I have had our difference, but a bit of friendly advice: if you’re going to do that, please don’t make it a sexual act such as felching. Perhaps something like ‘ask your father why his parenting skills are so shitty,’ would cause the intended offence without getting you locked up.

102. I’ve always thought the obvious policy for any bar, or any public place, to have, is that no patrons can make noises that disturb other patrons, or can otherwise engage in disturbing behaviour (such as fighting or horseplay), or these patrons and their guardians will be escorted off the premisses.

     This would not single out children, as it would obviously apply to any adults who get obstreperous and start fights, or what not. But it would clearly obligate parents to not inconvenience other patrons by forcing them to take their noisy, screaming, crying, whining, screeching children out the door. When I was young, and a baby acted up in church or in the library, the parent would immediately take the child out of the public space in question if she/he could not hush the child. Parents today no longer even try to do this in many (if not all) cases. Goodwill and common sense go in both directions. I am much more accepting of children who fuss when I see the parent really making an effort to deal with the behaviour.

103. I find it interesting that the informed choice to have one child can generate similar responses as choosing to have no children. That is, some people feel it is their business to question why only one, and why not more, and isn’t that selfish?

     Ugh, word. I only have one and we have decided that one is all that will we will be having, for a myriad of reasons. I get someone badgering me about having another one at least every day, especially now that’s she’s turning three. The attempts at guilt are the most agitating:

     “But she’ll be lonely! But when you and your husband get old, she’ll have to take care of you all by herself! But I love my little brother and why would you want to deprive her of that love? Butbutbut!!”

     It especially sucks because in an ideal world, I would absolutely have another one (or two or three). I WANT to have more children. But we have very good reasons for choosing not to, and the busybodies have no respect for that.

104. Some parents manage to make it work so they have up to 30% as much fun

     Wow, you have this down to a fucking science! That totally seems like a legit statement and not like something you pulled out of your ass.

105. Ms Rogers – Would it really make a difference? In my experience, parents drop their non-parent friends (regardless of those friends’ attitudes about children and their presence during socializing) as automatically as Joanna Southwood told Linnet Doyle she dropped any friend who lost her fortune.

     Of course, I’m a huge pessimist.

106. WRT certain people’s pontification on this thread, I have certain observations to make:

     1) I have a stepkid; this was how I adequately resolved my inner tension between “do not wish to reproduce” and “would like a kid”.
     2) The Kid is work. The Kid is a fuckton of work. The physical work is less stressful than the emotional work, but both are less stressful than, oh, the shit job my wife has to work to support us right now.
     3) Most of my friends are single and/or childless.
     4) We manage to hang out and do the friends thing anyway, and even do the non-monogamous playing-with-thirds thing, even though we can’t afford babysitters, for reasons that include the following:
     a: The Kid has a social life of its own, and is often away with a friend of an evening.
     b: I can have the same one glass of wine at home with my friends, as with the same friends at a bar. Ditto movies, games.
     c: surprisingly few activities are actually exclusive of kids; The Kid has joined in on games of Trivial Pursuit, bad movie marathons, anime showings and (with a bit of translation) even a couple of viewings of Midsummer Night’s Dream and other lighter Shakespearean stuff.
     d: Parents whose kids are old enough to do the sleepover thing often switch off; we have four kids in here sometimes, and then don’t see our own for the next couple of nights as they move from place to place like piranha with a chip-eating evolutionary specialisation. Time enough to socialise.
     e: Instead of seeing The Kid as a death-sentence on our intellectual pursuits, we involve it in them instead. Thus, museums, art shows, plays, foreign cinema, Japanese gardens, foreign cuisine, my Indian-Hindu food/rituals/music, etc, etc. We do it all, for realz.

     Seriously, I am NOT about to argue that child-rearing isn’t work, but it isn’t the “Like the workhouse, but with fewer days off” rhetoric I was fed all through my childhood/teenage either.

107. In my experience, parents drop their non-parent friends (regardless of those friends’ attitudes about children and their presence during socializing) as automatically as Joanna Southwood told Linnet Doyle she dropped any friend who lost her fortune.

     o_O We’re one couple, and only one other in our extended group of friends has kids… it doesn’t cause as many hiccups in our social life as my wife’s erratic work schedule and my schooling do, though.

108. I really wish non-parents like Amanda would stop speaking for us parents.

     I’ve maintained my social life AND manage to have serious fun times with my kids. I am also massively privileged in that my kids are VERY easy to raise because they are good natured and easy going.

     I actually have a couple of nights a week where I get to see my adult friends without them and since I can be a giant kid myself, I get to enjoy things like ball pits, face painting, and trick-or-treating (though I’m sure some adults enjoy these without shame, more power to you because it’s awesome). I’d say that I’m operating on a stable 85% fun level in life, so it would be nice if you didn’t tell me what my experience is. I’m not doing it to you, don’t do it to me. We simply have different ideas of hard work and fun.

     There are days where I would rather be around my 6 and a half year old than having to be around pretentious adults telling me what’s what about my life and how miserable it must be.

     Just stop.

109. In my experience, parents drop their non-parent friends (regardless of those friends’ attitudes about children and their presence during socializing) as automatically as Joanna Southwood told Linnet Doyle she dropped any friend who lost her fortune.

     Funny, they’ve never dropped me.

110. Yeah, weird, I wonder why in the world that kid would have a messed-up sleep schedule?

     Actually, I was thinking of that post maia did a couple of years ago when I wrote that: I may have misunderstood what she meant, but she talks about being at a bar, waiting for the sun to come up, so I assume she was out with her child in the wee hours of the morning.

     Also, I don’t have a child and really don’t plan to, but I do have a messed-up sleep schedule and…your comment kind of hurts because I feel it implies I would be a bad mother. I tend to wake up for an hour in the middle of my sleeping, feeling restless before going back to bed. I’m not saying I would also wake up the child, but if the child was already awake and I’m restless as well… Whenever my mom makes fun of my sleeping schedule, she says I was a colicy baby and that I’ve never been able to sleep right, so I do think there are children out there like that.

111. *head desk*

     Fucking html fail.

112. Funny, they’ve never dropped me.

     Is it because you don’t splash yourself liberally with Eau De Thinly Veiled Resentment every time the parents you know mention their kids?

113. 13 year olds do a good job taking bar inventory after school. Their tiny fingers are perfect for placing marks on scotch bottles, though make sure to give them a step ladder for the wine cellar racks.

     Dr. Sears’s book shall be used to start fires this winter. I never burn books, but I’m exercising my right to change that policy. Anti-swing? I triple dog dare him to tell children he is taking their swings away. His own children must be plotting his untimely death daily.

     People have been having children for eons, only a few commit suicide over it every year. Most parents properly discipline thier children and are just as annoyed with parents of uncontrolled children as non-parent adults. We get hit by tricycles too.

     Many almost all babies are wide awake at odd night hours demanding food & diaper changes. Their stomachs are tiny, they are on a rapidly absorbed liquid diet and they know their lungs can bring near instant if sleepy food purveyors. Some of those purveyors might want to take them outside now and again.

     If you want to know what having kids is like you can buy a pile of books and read instead of listening to some alleged cultural pro-child message, which if it exists seems to be failing miserably in the West given our population decline. Just because some dipshit tells you you should do your “duty” and have kids does not equal oppression. It means you are talking to a dipshit. Realize this and walk away without feeling oppressed.

114. Henry, I think I love you.

     I had a child at 27, and my social life is just as pleasantly batshit as it was before. I’m a writer, I mostly hang out with other writers, and we’re all messed up together, in harmony.

     Some of our friends have kids, others don’t. Now that he’s over a year old, Lev is a frequent fixture at barbecues and pool time on the weekends. We won’t be taking him camping, but that was a tough decision, in the end.

     The first time we took him traveling, he was three weeks old. He slept in his basket on a nude beach, under the stars, while we smoked hookah and drunk Russian paratroopers frolicked nearby. It’s not something he will remember, but I hope to tell him about it.

     Kids are tiring, but they don’t just take, they give as well. Watching them develop is pretty cool.

     I dunno about kid-friendly bars – small children go through developmental leaps that can leave them pretty cranky, annoyed, and annoying, and when I want to have a drink, I want to have it sans Lev for the time being. But a lot of the places I go to nowadays, pre-adolescents are welcome and most are very well-behaved. I think the Russians have gotten a few things right: by including their children in a variety of activities from early on, they teach them how to hang out with adults.

     Back in the USSR, my parents couldn’t afford babysitters/were always at odds with busybody-grandmas, so they just took me everywhere starting at around four or so. They look back on that time fondly – I was a little nerd at four and mostly spent my time at parties with them reading.

115. Is it because you don’t splash yourself liberally with Eau De Thinly Veiled Resentment every time the parents you know mention their kids?

     Well, it does make quite a stench when overlaid with Musk de Smug Superiority.

116. I grew up in a South European culture where the demarcation line between “all adult” and “all children” spaces was much less pronounced, including in people’s head. I fondly recall going out to restaurants with my parents, their friends and their friends’ kids (those who had them). These were ordinary restaurants – there were patrons without kids there as well enjoying their food or just getting drunk. Kids played outside and came into the restaurant to eat or to relax, or we played inside if the weather was bad. We sometimes ran around the restaurant ,or more quietly, we made “Soup for Hitler” – a broth comprising from leftovers in order to see who could make the most disgusting yet edible soup. I also vacationed with my parents and their friends. About a dozen of us would cram into several cars and head to the coast. Once there, everybody was free to do whatever they wanted which was really much like the restaurant from the scene with the exception that we had the beach as well.

     Of course, this requires a far more relaxed attitude towards kids by society – both by parents and non-parents. The former would have to be relaxed about people making out, smoking, cursing and letting their children run around (including out of their sight). The non-parent would have to tolerate noise or curious young children occasionally coming over to their tables. I never experienced, or now that I am of age where some of my friends have children, witnessed, this being a problem.

     But parents certainly had their lone time together or individually. That’s what grandparents or less frequently uncles, aunts and babysitters were for.

     So for a kid, it’s better to be integrated into adult life like this. It helps them socialize while they can have freedom to pursue their own fun. As for parents, it’s harder for me to say because I don’t have children yet. But among my friends who do have children, I’ve noticed those who buy into contemporary fear-mongering about kids’ safety and plethora of advise on how to raise kids and whose highlight of the month is to go to Chuky Cheese and highlight of the year is to go on a secluded beach resort are generally more miserable than those who follow a more relaxed attitude towards child rearing.

117. It’s encouraging that people don’t get dropped. I suppose I know mainly a lot of M/M couples who feel pressured to become uberassimilated and make themselves into “99%-identical-to-straight” parents. I’m sure the dynamics are vastly different for F/M or F/F couples or single parents.

     Now I’ll wonder all day about comparing the parent-nonparent divide to the couple-single divide.

118. It’s encouraging that people don’t get dropped.

     In all seriousness, it’s the insistence on drawing lines between parents/non-parents or married/non-marrieds that’s getting you into trouble. Yes, it’s a point upon which you may differ from your friends, but why elevate those differences above others, such as what neighborhood you may reside in, or careers, or even differing hobbies? Do you dump friends because they’re really into running and you prefer to only use your bipedal skills for walking into the kitchen and getting a snack?

     I’ve personally tried to go out of my way to hold onto my already small group of friends post-babies. Most of us do. But if you are going to put us in the position of feeling like we may never, ever discuss parenting or baby or risk your boredom and annoyance, you can hardly be surprised when we decide that we would prefer to keep company with less dissapproving folk.

119. My initial response was not published, so I am re-posting this with some minor revisions. Sorry if it comes out twice.

     I grew up in a South European culture where the demarcation line between “all adult” and “all children” spaces was much less pronounced, including in people’s head. I fondly recall going out to restaurants with my parents, their friends and their friends’ kids (those who had them). These were ordinary restaurants – there were patrons without kids there as well enjoying their food or just getting drunk. Kids played outside and came into the restaurant to eat or to relax, or we played inside if the weather was bad. We sometimes ran around the restaurant ,or more quietly, we made “Soup for Hitler” – a broth which comprised from leftovers in order to see who could make the most disgusting yet edible soup. I also vacationed with my parents and their friends. About a dozen of us would cram into several cars and head to the coast. Once there, everybody was free to do whatever they wanted which was really much like the restaurant from the scene with the exception that we had the beach nearby as well.

     Of course, this requires a far more relaxed attitude towards kids by society – both by parents and non-parents. The former would have to be relaxed about people making out, smoking, cursing and letting their children run around (including out of their sight). The non-parent would have to tolerate noise or curious young children occasionally coming over to their tables. I never experienced, or now that I am of age where some of my friends have children, witnessed, this being a problem.

     But my parents certainly had their lone time together or individually. That’s what grandparents or less frequently uncles, aunts and babysitters were for.

     So for a kid, it’s better to be integrated into the adult life like this. It helps them socialize while they can have freedom to pursue their own fun. As for the parents, it’s harder for me to say because I don’t have children yet. But among my friends who do have children, I’ve noticed those who buy into contemporary fear-mongering about kids’ safety and plethora of advise on how to raise kids and whose highlight of the month is to go to Chuky Cheese are generally more miserable than those who follow a more relaxed attitude towards child rearing, ie. not allowing children to turn them into people without a social life.

120. Well, it does make quite a stench when overlaid with Musk de Smug Superiority.

     I don’t even use body wash that’s scented with Extract of I Know Better Than You.

     But yes, in all seriousness, the other thing I do that I think helps my friends with kids know I want us to stay in each other’s lives? Just as I do when other friends have Big Things going on…I offer to help (wild, I know). I’ve done laundry for new parents. Gone to the grocery store. Because life is hard, and they’ve done things like that for me when I’ve needed it. And I get that mobility is harder when you have kids, and it’s significantly easier for me…all that crap that my friends get about me when I’m in a situation where I need some extra consideration.

121. But yes, in all seriousness, the other thing I do that I think helps my friends with kids know I want us to stay in each other’s lives? Just as I do when other friends have Big Things going on…I offer to help (wild, I know).

     That’s pretty awesome, EG, I say that sincerely.

     ^__^

122. In all seriousness, it’s the insistence on drawing lines between parents/non-parents or married/non-marrieds that’s getting you into trouble. Yes, it’s a point upon which you may differ from your friends, but why elevate those differences above others, such as what neighborhood you may reside in, or careers, or even differing hobbies? Do you dump friends because they’re really into running and you prefer to only use your bipedal skills for walking into the kitchen and getting a snack?

     I’ve personally tried to go out of my way to hold onto my already small group of friends post-babies. Most of us do. But if you are going to put us in the position of feeling like we may never, ever discuss parenting or baby or risk your boredom and annoyance, you can hardly be surprised when we decide that we would prefer to keep company with less dissapproving folk.

     There is a difference between dumping your friends and focusing on your child. My best friend and his wife just had their first child, and, sure it is one of the things that prevents us from hanging out more- or much at all really, but we’re still best friends. Once you’re out of college, you can’t really expect your friends to be as devoted to ‘hanging’ anyway. I myself am a bit of a workaholic, (bar minor fits of procrastination such as visiting this blog,) so I understand what it’s like to have your focus elsewhere. Just this week I’ve turned down offers from friends to finish writing my Edinburgh show for next August, even though I’ve got a year to complete it.

123. Just as I do when other friends have Big Things going on…I offer to help (wild, I know). I’ve done laundry for new parents. Gone to the grocery store. Because life is hard, and they’ve done things like that for me when I’ve needed it.

     EG wins the “Getting It” award. For serious.

     Friendship is a give and take. If you like the company of other people, this is a pretty elementary thing one needs to grasp and embrace in order to maintain your friendships with others. So, I pack up the kids and go cheer on my friend when she runs marathons and she brings over wine and hangs out at our house with us (even, gasp, while the kids are still awake!) when we can’t get a sitter. I live vicariously through her fun, single adventures trekking the globe and she laughs at my hair-raising and sometimes hilarious anecdotes of child-related shenanigans. We may even debate chick-lit and politics in their too, the whole point is that it’s about enjoying the company, not about insisting that we be clones of one another in order to remain friends.

124. Ways to insure your baby-having friends will love you forever:

     –do laundry
     –hold the baby
     –offer to babysit if there is an emergency
     –LIKE the baby. Seriously. We can tell, when you don’t. It’s off-putting.
     –act interested in a certain ratio of baby-related talk (as much as you would with any other boring-to-you hobby or life passion)

     People who take advantage of your offers and help with parenting have not been changed by TEH BABIEZ. They were always crappy friends, and something was going to bring that out in them sooner or later.

     Anyway, my rule is that I’m not friend with people who don’t like either animals or children. One or the other, I can generally excuse. But both? You’re secretly a sociopath, sorry.

125. Blarg, shitty language choice. I’m sorry if “sociopath” offended anyone. Douchenozzle? Emotional vacuum?

126. @Natalia, that was my experience as well. My parents would drop me at grandma’s when they knew the party was likely to go on forever and get intense, but when they went to quieter gatherings, they always took me with them. I think Russians get this exactly right – kids are (or were, not sure how things changed since the USSR days) welcome everywhere. If you never take kids out in public, how are they supposed to learn the norms of behavior in any given public space?

     I’m pretty adamantly not interested in having kids, and none of my friends with kids dropped me. I guess I should a) inform them that they are only allowed 30% of their typical allocation of “fun” and b) initiate friendship break-ups!

127. There is a difference between dumping your friends and focusing on your child.

     Darn it Steve, stop being the voice of reason!

128. I recall seeing lots of families at (gasp!) what was most definitely a BAR on New Year in St Petersburg. There was certainly enough vodka floating around….

     The children sat upstairs in the eating area with their families, but they were just as welcome as anyone.

129. “Like the workhouse, but with fewer days off” (snort)

     @Henry, talking back to someone spewing bullshit does not mean one feels oppressed. It means one is talking back to someone.

     Boring anecdote ahead:

     I had kids later because I was afraid of the work and the permanence and the loss of individuality. I was right about all my fears, as it turns out.

     But what I was also counting on was that I would enjoy having kids, because I love kids and love being around them.

     That also turned out to be true.

     What I didn’t know, and what has turned out to be true FOR ME (this is not an endorsement for parenting, nor a condemnation of child free people, nor a claim that my truth applies to anyone else):

     I freaking LOVE my kids. They are smart, funny, clever, sensitive, talented, interesting, fun, good-natured, kind, happy, hilarious, normal, well-adjusted, wise, aware, and even feminist. We have so much fun in our little family of four. It is NOTHING like the family I grew up in, and it is AWESOME.

     The one thing my husband and I decided as parents was that our children are not reflections of us. They are people in their own right. That has gone a long way toward helping us keep our perspective, especially when they were small and we would start to take their behavior personally.

     There’s my personal contribution for the day.

130. Nothing against strollers per se–I assume I enjoyed riding in one when I was little–but they have gotten larger and larger and larger over the last few decades to the point where many of them are the size of monstrous wheelbarrows, and get in the way of everything everywhere.

131. I guess I should a) inform them that they are only allowed 30% of their typical allocation of “fun” and b) initiate friendship break-ups!

     The real question is, who gets their no-longer-being-used 70% of daily fun? Is it divided evenly among the friends of theirs who do not have children, or is it given in one lump sum to their next of kin without children?

132. a ‘stroller’ is the same thing as a buggy right?

     cant believe people have something against buggies. when i was a baby i was always chillin’ in my buggy. you can take the kid around town get some fresh air. It’s healthy. the more I hear about these atachment parentars it sounds like some creepy cult

133. If you never take kids out in public, how are they supposed to learn the norms of behavior in any given public space?

     YES! Sometimes I think the “no-kids-in-public” crowd thinks the opposite: how will mothers ever learn how much society hates them, if people don’t glare at/comment rudely on child behavior in public? The random strangers commenting on parenting certainly seem to be under the mistaken impression they’re performing a public service.

     I mentioned upthread that I’m the daughter of a bartender. He worked at upscale places and more divey joints during my childhood and I never remember being unwelcome in any of them.
     So in college, I was the one enforcing good behavior on all my friends when we started going out to bars; I already knew how to behave in them!

     That’s what I’ve never understood. The kid who never socializes in adult spaces and learns appropriate bounds of behavior in them (for whatever reason) is just going to grow up to be that obnoxious asshole at the bar, why would we want that?

134. Amanda, I’ve been reading your work for a long time and I think you’re smart as hell and I could read you dissect Mad Men and Breaking Bad forever. And I agree that parenting is very challenging (but as others have pointed out, no one has said otherwise), and I couldn’t agree more that people who don’t have and/or want kids shouldn’t be judged as a failure.

     And I really, really can’t understand why your comments here are so sexist. Why does it matter what you say? Maybe because, like it or not, many women are also mothers, and when you talk about them – us- as if we only had kids because we were brainwashed into thinking it wouldn’t be hard or are too stupid to know better. You know, some people have other criteria for what they want out of life than how many times they go out a week. That they’re out that one night at a bar doesn’t mean they were too stupid to know they wouldn’t be doing that every night. It just means they’re doing it, you know, that one night.

     Seriously, insulting people and then saying, why so sensitive is like anti-feminism 101. As is assuming that women are too stupid to make choices for themselves.

     Oh, and you’ll fight for better parental leave because parenting is just so terrible and you can’t possibly see why anyone would want to do it? Wow, that will really help build a movement. Look, sentimental Ann Romney talk about motherhood makes me want to puke too, but that doesn’t make shitting on parents the right response.

135. And just to clarify, yes, feminism is also about interrogating the circumstances in which we make choices, so I’m not saying we shouldn’t challenge the sentimental view of motherhood. But we have to do it in a way that acknowledges the complexity of people’s experiences, not just by saying, no, it’s all drudgery and people who describe their experience as more complex are just kidding themselves.

136. The real question is, who gets their no-longer-being-used 70% of daily fun? Is it divided evenly among the friends of theirs who do not have children, or is it given in one lump sum to their next of kin without children?

     Clearly, only the most militant of child-free people, those with the clearest understanding of just how miserable the life of a parent is, those who are best prepared to resist the lies that the be-childed perpetuate to drag the less vigilant child-free people into their sinister child-having cult, could be trusted with this precious commodity! I propose an essay contest, after which surplus fun will be re-allocated in manner of wartime food rations!

137. “The Fun Games” – only the child-free can compete!

138. [In all seriousness, it’s the insistence on drawing lines between parents/non-parents or married/non-marrieds that’s getting you into trouble. Yes, it’s a point upon which you may differ from your friends, but why elevate those differences above others, such as what neighborhood you may reside in, or careers, or even differing hobbies? Do you dump friends because they’re really into running and you prefer to only use your bipedal skills for walking into the kitchen and getting a snack?

     I’ve personally tried to go out of my way to hold onto my already small group of friends post-babies. Most of us do. But if you are going to put us in the position of feeling like we may never, ever discuss parenting or baby or risk your boredom and annoyance, you can hardly be surprised when we decide that we would prefer to keep company with less dissapproving folk.]

     I don’t get out much anymore, but genuinely thought that, particularly in the straight (or bi-leaning-straight) world, married couples tended to socialize pretty tightly with married couples. Single friends just stopped getting invitations to small gatherings because numbers would be odd. If that’s changed, all to the good.

     As someone who once got into a qualifying tournament for the U.S. Open, I sincerely hope I don’t give a genuine impression of being someone who only walks into the kitchen to get a snack.

     Your general “us” and my general “you” are in different sets. My general you would be addressed to male couples. Actually I get on extremely well with children and would just as soon have them around as not. (I don’t dislike babies, but I’ve seen enough people who really “get” them they way I “get” cats to know that I don’t particularly.) I appreciate that your general “you” includes people who resent what they perceive to be an incursion. But the specific to which I referred was how many male couples (female couples probably have enough experience to Know Better), on becoming parents, buy into heterocentrism enough to treat their gay friends poorly. It’s as if they think that their being Parents puts them into the Good box, but only tenuously, so that they start to present as 99%-Just-Like-You to the group they want to join. I’m sure all the serious people here don’t need telling about Conditional Approval.

139. @chava: An eight-year-old sat behind me at The Grey. It veered between annoying and queasily abusive. “Daddy, what’s happening? Why is he bleeding and screaming? Is that doggy eating him? Why’s the doggy eating him? What happened? Daddy, what’s that mean? Daddy? Daddy?” I wanted to feed Daddy to the wolves.

     If I spend several hundred dollars going to a restaurant, I don’t want anyone there to speak above a quietly murmured conversation. I get to do something like this once a year, and if anyone, ANYONE, even remotely ruins my nice night out, I will kill you. And I don’t know many toddlers that speak quietly for over two hours. I don’t know many children that would even enjoy it, and I know the likelihood they’re going to make me miserable is fairly high. This isn’t a necessary public space, like a grocery store, theme park, or even theatre, this is a carefully cultivated exclusive space that is not meant for children.

     Sometimes parents and kids have different sleeping schedules. If your child is the type to wake up at 2 am every night and fuss until 3 or 4, and you happen to know your friends are out drinking at that time, and hell, you’re going to be up with your kid anyway, then why not? As long as the child is behaving politely, as other people have said, I don’t see how the time they engage in that behavior really makes a difference.

     The grocery store didn’t sell me beer at 6am because I worked on third shift. Most places, especially places with alcohol after 10pm, are for people looking to escape all responsibility and sense of reality. The fact you have a shitty schedule sucks, it really does. I KNOW what it feels like to be lonely and at odds to the world. But that’s how life goes, adults deserve some places that they get to be adults without even knowing such things as responsibility exists, and bars are one place we’ve carved out for ourselves.

     I don’t think someone at the next table telling a story about blacking out, or dirty jokes, or tequila shots, is necessarily bad for children.

     I think it’s abusive, especially if it’s consistently repeated. Once in a blue moon, it happens, but consistently watching adults get shitfaced drunk and telling filthy sex jokes is not something a child needs to be around. And, if someone did have a child, I couldn’t get shitfaced and talk about my sex life and discuss which Olympian I’d sleep with in what gymnastic position. Kids inhibit me, and I’d be resentful as fuck someone brought their job to rain on my party. If I wanted to have share my adult time with kids, I would have gone to a place that’s meant to cater to families and children, not a place with a strobe light.

     I mean, when I talk about bars, I imagine two places: a long, smoky bar where alcoholics are committing a slow, very visible form of suicide via addiction, and a party place for young people where girls wear skirts short enough to show their underwear and mile high heels (that girl would be me, btw). Neither is a place where you should EVER have children.

     Now, a place that serves food, serves drinks, maybe has some karaoke or Rockband contest, people of all ages wearing jeans and casual clothes, hell yeah, bring your kids. I loved singing karaoke at bars when I was 16 and the bar made it very clear underage folks were welcome.

140. @chava: An eight-year-old sat behind me at The Grey. It veered between annoying and queasily abusive. “Daddy, what’s happening? Why is he bleeding and screaming? Is that doggy eating him? Why’s the doggy eating him? What happened? Daddy, what’s that mean? Daddy? Daddy?” I wanted to feed Daddy to the wolves.

     If I spend several hundred dollars going to a restaurant, I don’t want anyone there to speak above a quietly murmured conversation. I get to do something like this once a year, and if anyone, ANYONE, even remotely ruins my nice night out, I will kill you. And I don’t know many toddlers that speak quietly for over two hours. I don’t know many children that would even enjoy it, and I know the likelihood they’re going to make me miserable is fairly high. This isn’t a necessary public space, like a grocery store, theme park, or even theatre, this is a carefully cultivated exclusive space that is not meant for children.

     Sometimes parents and kids have different sleeping schedules. If your child is the type to wake up at 2 am every night and fuss until 3 or 4, and you happen to know your friends are out drinking at that time, and hell, you’re going to be up with your kid anyway, then why not? As long as the child is behaving politely, as other people have said, I don’t see how the time they engage in that behavior really makes a difference.

     The grocery store didn’t sell me beer at 6am because I worked on third shift. Most places, especially places with alcohol after 10pm, are for people looking to escape all responsibility and sense of reality. The fact you have a shitty schedule sucks, it really does. I KNOW what it feels like to be lonely and at odds to the world. But that’s how life goes, adults deserve some places that they get to be adults without even knowing such things as responsibility exists, and bars are one place we’ve carved out for ourselves.

     I don’t think someone at the next table telling a story about blacking out, or dirty jokes, or tequila shots, is necessarily bad for children.

     I think it’s abusive, especially if it’s consistently repeated. Once in a blue moon, it happens, but consistently watching adults get shitfaced drunk and telling filthy sex jokes is not something a child needs to be around. And, if someone did have a child, I couldn’t get shitfaced and talk about my sex life and discuss which Olympian I’d sleep with in what gymnastic position. Kids inhibit me, and I’d be resentful as fuck someone brought their job to rain on my party. If I wanted to have share my adult time with kids, I would have gone to a place that’s meant to cater to families and children, not a place with a strobe light.

     I mean, when I talk about bars, I imagine two places: a long, smoky bar where alcoholics are committing a slow, very visible form of suicide via addiction, and a party place for young people where girls wear skirts short enough to show their underwear and mile high heels (that girl would be me, btw). Neither is a place where you should EVER have children.

     Now, a place that serves food, serves drinks, maybe has some karaoke or Rockband contest, people of all ages wearing jeans and casual clothes, hell yeah, bring your kids. I loved singing karaoke at bars when I was 16 and the bar made it very clear underage folks were welcome.

141. Actually, now that I think of it, I apologize to the entire thread for using a twisted analogy and can only plead that it came after a week of preparing to be exterminated (someone on my floor had bedbugs and they exterminated almost all of us). Obviously I should have used nonparents as the dumpers, only my experience happens to be generally the other way around. Perhaps those of you who have ever had to empty all your closets in a week and move breakfronts that have sat undisturbed in corners for fifteen years will forgive me.

142. But the specific to which I referred was how many male couples (female couples probably have enough experience to Know Better), on becoming parents, buy into heterocentrism enough to treat their gay friends poorly. It’s as if they think that their being Parents puts them into the Good box, but only tenuously, so that they start to present as 99%-Just-Like-You to the group they want to join.

     I will readily admit to knowing nothing about your social circle or the related phenomenon of gay couples jettisoning non-child having friends once they become parents. At the risk of sounding like a stereotype, so far all my gay friends/relations are CFBC, yet all of them have been wonderfully welcoming to my kids as they have come along.

     And I can definitely understand being angry if my friends were pushing me away for no other reason but that they had kids and I didn’t. In general, I have a hard time understanding people wanting their company to be just like them in order to get the friendship nod.

143. Ugh, I am SO SORRY, Douglas. Bedbugs are one of all-time NIGHTMARES.

     Anyway, as a chronically single person whose friends are almost never single, I have not been dumped. Sometimes this creates the opposite shitty feeling, where I’ve been to dinner parties or whatever and been the only single person there and spent the whole evening thinking some version of “woe, woe is me, the single freak who will DIE ALONE,” but my friends have definitely not dropped me or excluded me.

144. Sometimes this creates the opposite shitty feeling, where I’ve been to dinner parties or whatever and been the only single person there and spent the whole evening thinking some version of “woe, woe is me, the single freak who will DIE ALONE,”

     Ughh, I remember that feeling as well. It sucked. Maybe that’s where some of tension comes from, those of us who remember and want to hold onto our single friends because we recall what it was like, and others never wanting to be back there and treated their still single friends like crap.

145. where I’ve been to dinner parties or whatever and been the only single person there

     That didn’t bother me so much when I was younger, but at this point in my life I will do almost anything to avoid a situation in which I’m the third wheel or fifth wheel or any version thereof, no matter how much I like the people involved. It’s simply too painful. Because 30 years ago I actually sort of believed that my single status might change someday, whereas now I don’t.

     In my small circle of friends when I was in my 20’s, I was the first one to get married and have a child. All of those friendships eventually faded away, not because I “dropped” them, consciously or otherwise, but because I moved to New Jersey after I got married and all my friends were in New York City. I think they all visited at least once, but for most New Yorkers it seemed that visiting New Jersey was the equivalent of walking 10 miles in the snow, uphill both ways. And even though I continued to work in the City and had lunch with people sometimes, I always wanted to get home as soon as possible after work so I could be with and care for my son every possible minute. (Something that was always rewarding for me, and even “fun” a lot of the time, go figure.) The same was true on weekends, when I gladly took over almost 100% of the child care responsibilities. Plus I had a spouse who would make faces at me and give me dirty looks if I was ever on the phone for more than five minutes with a friend, which had a gradual isolating effect. And I wasn’t really able to do much to restore those friendships (or make new ones) after my ex and I separated when our son was 10, because I stayed in New Jersey the next 9 years in order to remain no more than a 5-minute drive away from him. And of course there was my transition in the middle of that time-period, which created its own issues.

     So, sometimes these things happen, and it’s really nobody’s fault.

146. I’ve been to dinner parties or whatever and been the only single person there and spent the whole evening thinking some version of “woe, woe is me, the single freak who will DIE ALONE,”

     The key is to cultivate friendships with couples who are miserable together. A few evenings out with them will cheer you right up.

147. Plus I had a spouse who would make faces at me and give me dirty looks if I was ever on the phone for more than five minutes with a friend, which had a gradual isolating effect.

     That’s…unsettling.

148. “The Fun Games” – only the child-free can compete!

     We’re all arguing on a blog… don’t we all automatically lose? 😀

149. That didn’t bother me so much when I was younger, but at this point in my life I will do almost anything to avoid a situation in which I’m the third wheel or fifth wheel or any version thereof, no matter how much I like the people involved. It’s simply too painful.

     Looking at this comment and EG’s above, I realize that I’ve been in the opposite situation and unfortunately havent considered that it would be hugely painful for the ‘third wheel.’ I can tell you from a married person’s perspective, well this one married person, me, that we don’t invite a person out unless we really want to go out with them and the only time we’re ever in a ‘third wheel’ situation it’s usually with a family member we can’t ditch.

150. Plus I had a spouse who would make faces at me and give me dirty looks if I was ever on the phone for more than five minutes with a friend, which had a gradual isolating effect. And I wasn’t really able to do much to restore those friendships (or make new ones) after my ex and I separated when our son was 10…

     Kind of sounds like cause and effect there. That “gradual isolating effect” isn’t accidental, nor is it always temporary with regard to those particular friends. It’s hard to pick up where you left off.

151. The bars in DC that allow children during the day are typically family friendly all day and sorta Chuck E Chees-y during the day so adults without kids tend to not even go there unless they are there with or for a child.

     But you run the risk of brining your child to a bar and seeing and hearing things you really wouldn’t want your child to see and hear. I expect as much consensual groping in a bar as I would a club because it’s an adult space.

     One woman made the mistake of bringing her child to a bar during the day when the baby was half sleep and…..a football game was on..on a Sunday. That poor kids screamed in terror at all of the sudden noise (which is to be expected at a sports bar) and she was upset that people were so loud while her baby was trying to sleep. Lack of common sense.

152. I’ve been reading through the posts here. What is fun for one person, is not necessarily fun for another. Thought there was a pretty basic knowledge of this.

     I also guess I was wrong in saying bars would be a good place to escape from kids. Soon we’ll be seeing raves welcome strollers, and babies accidentally being passed E, because they’re mistaken for wanting the drug because they have a pacifier.

     I’m exaggerating, but yes not every can handle being around the noise of children. I have sound sensitivity, when a child screams it sends me into fight or flight mode. I cannot wear earplugs 24/7, my ENT said it’d make things worse, nor should I have to because parents have forgotten what pacifiers are and how to use them.

     I am childfree. I am tired of being bullied and terrorized by parents, for my reaction due to my sound sensitivity, I cannot change about myself. I’m tired of being stared at by parents, who only will make the situation worse, who make me feel like a freak. Who treat me in a manner they would hate for someone else to treat their child.

     Now we can’t even have bars. Yes children are people, but they are younger people, they are people who don’t know how to behave. Their parents are not teaching them how to behave, and frankly, if you are bringing a child with a tricycle into a bar and the kid hits someone in the leg, you should be thankful that the person wasn’t so inebriated as to take it out on your kid.

     Oh, but let’s all remember now it’s the village’s job to raise kids now. That if you want to be a participating member of society, you better be nice to children, or else face bullying from parents who should know better. So either now I guess you drink at home, or you have to watch yourself while drunk, and make sure you don’t step on any eggshells that might send a parent into a tantrum.

     Life is hell for people who can’t tolerate children, they are treated as if they are intentionally looking to hurt and upset children, while their parents turn almost any interaction with a non-parent into a confrontational one, despite the risk that it might upset their child.

     If you can’t tolerate children for any reason, you are treated as an undesirable by society. It is absolutely repugnant, and it only reinforces the message to childfree people, that parents are aggressive bullies and should try to be avoided at all costs. These are people who might want to help your children, who might help your children someday. Instead, you’ve upset and traumatized them to a point, where they feel the risk in being attacked by a parent of a child, makes trying to be helpful seem an effort that will only be rewarded with hate.

     I know all parents don’t behave like this, but I do remember the last time a baby screamed, the parents stared at me like I was a monster. This is emotional abuse. People will only wonder, if this is how they treat their children at home, emotionally abuse them if they do wrong. Stare them down like they’re horrible beings. Apparently even the thought that the person you’ve interacted with, thinking you might be a terror at home to your own children, isn’t enough motivation to be kind and decent.

     I’m sorry for ranting, but you know as I said before, I’m tired of this. Parents are acting like entitled spoilt brats, insisting they can drag their kids anywhere and everywhere. Soon, bringing your baby to the washroom for a like of Coke is going to be the norm.

153. @Jackie

     If you’re hyper-sensitive to noises how come you can go to bars? They’re extremely noisy places. You’re acting like an entitled spoilt brat, tbh, you’re the one insulting everyone (not all children misbehave, not all children scream and cry constantly) and then expecting everyone else to make accommodations for you.

154. So many people have children because it’s what you’re supposed to do and then the actual work of raising them turns out to be a total nightmare they didn’t feel they signed up for. So they go to the bar to hang out with friends and let their kids run around throwing bocce balls at each other or let their kids run around, say, yanking on tablecloths in a restaurant because frankly—and hey, it’s true—disciplining them is hard work that takes away from your fun. They probably feel put-upon by how hard all this is and want a break and feel other adults who aren’t raising their children should just have to suffer instead.

     Amanda, for God’s sake. Do people really come up to you on the street and give you shit about not having kids, or liking music, or not being married? Seriously?

     I miss your eloquent social critiques. They used to have some genuine compassion and real insight in them.

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