Bring Kids Into Bars? Article.

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BunnyWife
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Bring Kids Into Bars? Article.

From last weeks NY Times. Thoughts?:

Bars and Babies Bars and Babies

As a 5-foot-4, dark-haired Jewish girl in her early 20s, I was never a minority in New York City until I moved to Park Slope, Brooklyn, where I seem to be one of the few childless residents.

While it might be enjoyable for outsiders to read books like “Prospect Park West,” which details the mommy culture run amok, it is a whole other sensation to be stuck with your latte next to a mother suckling her infant. Though I have grown adept at dodging double strollers and turning a blind eye to the toddlers who frequent my favorite cafes, I refuse to share my bar space — the last refuge for single Slopers — with infants.

No matter what breeders might think, bars are not family-friendly. If I am out drinking and sobbing about a bad breakup, I don’t want my cries to compete with those of an infant sitting next to me. If I go to the bathroom to correct my wayward mascara at the end of a long weekend night, I don’t want to watch a baby being wiped down on the soggy sink counter.

Nor do I want to be scolded by parents like the ones at the Gate, a favorite bar, where friends have witnessed a few mothers with toddlers actually wagging their fingers when young people cursed too loudly or got a little sloppy, while conveniently overlooking the fact that alcohol, blaring punk rock and drunken partiers are not pediatrician-approved.

I encountered my first pint-size patron last summer. My friend Mimi and I were at the Brooklyn Beer Experiment, a contest that required every entrant to cook or bake with beer or bring a home brew. I gladly waited in the long entry line at the club, a Gowanus spot known for its great drafts, ribald comedy nights and support of up-and-coming bands. After my ID was scrutinized and scanned, I entered the contest hall, where fellow 20-somethings were sampling the boozy treats.

An hour in, Mimi and I tipsily went to sit and discuss our favorites. As we walked to the quieter front area, I spotted a group of young parents standing in front of $500 baby carriages, shouldering their offspring. I watched, appalled, as a mother began to line up a set of bottles on the bar, right beside the taps.

We sat down and a baby toddled over to us. We pulled our drinks out of his grasping reach. As I looked over at the gabbing parents, I thought that this is what denial looks like. Rather than work day care, we drained our pints and left.

Though I’ve since tried to restrict my watering holes to places that publicly ban the too-young-to-jet set, like nearby Union Hall, I still have the occasional bar-baby encounter, the most recent one far from the fertile grounds of Brooklyn. At the Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden in Astoria, Queens, my friends and I watched in shock as a father changed his child’s diaper on a vacant table, pitying the person who would sit there next with a pilsner and kielbasa.

On the way back home, I pictured myself 10, maybe 15 years in the future, happily sipping my suds with friends at a neighborhood bar. We would be pretty much the same then as we are now — loud, maybe a little raucous, thankful for the escape from reality and happy in the knowledge that our children and their sitters were safe at home, where they belonged.

Risa Chubinsky lives in Park Slope and works as a subsidiary rights coordinator at Penguin Group (U.S.A.) in the West Village.

Posted 1/23/10 6:42 PM