Kids do NOT belong in bars, for the umpteenth time!
What the HELL has happened to Brooklyn since Christine the Curmudgeon was a child there? Once a working-class borough, it seems to have turned into a place for snobby, entitlement-minded yuppies. Especially this Park Slope neighborhood, which seems to always be the focus of these stories.
Brooklyn brewhaha: Babies in bars, part #4,563,445,357,654
When I was little, there existed these mysterious places that were the realm of adults. These included bars and fine restaurants. I never went to such places until I was almost grown up. I went to my first “nice” restaurant when I was 16, with my high school French Club (it was a nice French restaurant in Philadelphia).
Bars? Well, I used to drink beer illegally at the bar at Harbor Lanes, the local bowling alley in the dump town we moved to after leaving Brooklyn. The first time I ever got carded was on my 18th birthday (the drinking age was 18 back then).
As I said in my last post, there is way too much child worship in this world. The little buggers are now allowed to go pretty much everywhere, and woe to those who dare to complain about it. Woe to those who ignore little Sasha (the cranky-looking baby in the article) when she’s trying to “flirt”, while they are trying to carry on an adult conversation, or watch the ball game on TV. And woe to those who dare to yell, “SHIT!” when their team screws up…we cannot have little Sasha’s virgin ears hearing such foul language now, can we?
This is the way I see it – there are PLENTY of family-friendly establishments out there where parents can get together with their kids. I would have no problem with one of these “Babies & Brews” groups meeting up at my favorite local TGI Friday’s…as long as they stay OUT of the bar room and sit at a table in the regular dining room. This particular location has a completely separate bar area, and we always sit in it to avoid the screaming kids, plus we enjoy the sports bar atmosphere. I always get annoyed when I see a bunch of women having “mommy’s night out” there, in the bar, with toddlers in tow. Fortunately, it’s rare…I suspect that kids are not allowed on the bar side at all in this place, but maybe they didn’t enforce it on these particular nights.
I hate how these parents expect us to change our behavior to suit their “needs”. Sorry, but if you don’t want your kids to hear people swearing, maybe a bar is not a good place to visit…especially a sports bar. I also should not have to risk breaking my neck climbing over a bunch of ginormous strollers just to get to the restroom. I’m telling you, places that allow these strollers to block everything risk getting much higher insurance quotes when it’s time to renew, due to the safety hazard that these things are. In the case of this particular Friday’s, the bar area really has no safe place to stash the strollers, there is much more room on the other side; they can more easily set aside a space in which to stash them.
I do not exist to be entertainment for your child. Shouldn’t you be teaching your kid not to talk to strangers, anyway? You never know who might turn out to be Chester the Molester.
I would never dream of going into Chuck E. Cheese to use the free WiFi (do they even have free WiFi?), and then complain because the kids are running around and screaming and I can’t get anything done. I wouldn’t sit in the dining area of ANY family-friendly restaurant and complain about kids smearing food all over themselves (something I find to be extremely gross and vomit-inducing). So the least these parents can do is stay the hell out of our bars, or, at the very least, don’t try to change the bar culture by trying to control what we say, be is cussing or some other adult subject matter.
I am sometimes afraid that the day will come when the only way to get an adults-only night out will be at a strip club. Even then the next thing you know, parents will want to start bringing kids into those places, too.


