You have a baby....in a bar?!

Ah the immortal words of Reese Witherspoon in Sweet Home Alabama. Such a good movie and not just because of the completely unrealistic plotlines including but not limited to having a successful fashion design business based out of a sweet SoHo loft before the age of 30, being engaged to the Mayor's son while being able to keep your secret Southern identity under wraps, and having a gay friend in the deep South who is outed and then completely accepted with no issues or comments whatsoever. The words of her character immediately came to my mind recently when a bunch of articles popped up over a controversy brewing (bad pun) in Brooklyn over the battle of taking your baby to the bar. Apparently it is the thing to do and childless folks are having none of it as they are pushing for bars to effectively ban all things baby.

Is it surprising that New Yorkers attempt to continue on with their pre-baby life and still hang out with friends? Not really. New York is a drinking city and since living space is so small, most people primarily meet up with friends at bars. My book club has consistantly met at a bar in the past 5 years of existence - never once have we gone to anyone's apartment. Happy hour is something that happens every day of the week and brunch is a weekend institution that is rarely dry. Plus, actively encouraging a healthy drinking habit is the fact that you never, ever have to drive home. No one has to be the DD, you can stay as long as you want at a bar (always open til 4 in the morning) and never have to worry about safe travels. So why would people who have lived this way for years completely change their thinking once they have children? The article below on CNN attempts to clarify the attitudes of both the parents, and the single/childless couples cohabitating in the same city:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/03/02/brooklyn.babies.in.bars/index.html?hpt=Sbin

In my opinion, neither side of the argument particularly makes a strong case in the article. With the parents, thinking that you can go to a bar and then ask other patrons to "watch their language" around your kid is stupid at best and completely unAmerican at worst. You have no right to take your child into an adult establishment and think that other patrons will cater to you. On the other hand, if a parent takes a child into a bar to grab a drink and food at a reasonable hour of the day (in my opinion, pre-Happy Hour) and the kid is quiet and well-behaved, then really who is it bothering? And using the term "breeders" is particularly annoying to me and ridiculously prevalent in this city. If your parents hadn't bothered to breed, you wouldn't be here loser. I'm not sure how this debate will end. Perhaps Brooklyn will ban all kids from bars and new bars that cater to the parent set will emerge. Maybe Mayor (King) Bloomberg in his eighth term of office will officially ban babies from bars just like he banned smoking, trans fats, dancing without a permit, term limits....etc. More than likely parents will still feel entitled to take their children wherever and whenever it suits them and people without children will still find it annoying and make snide comments. Such is the human condition.

As for me, do I plan on taking Cash to happy hour...no. He won't be going to the bar. I've already started seeking out the "baby-friendly" restaurants around us, i.e. restaurants with high chairs available and I actually do tend to hang out with friends in their apartments quite a bit so I don't feel I'm going to be missing out on social time too much. Do I think that I'll miss the occasional times when Ross and I would go to happy hour or brunch and end up making a long night of it...sure. I'm officially, according to Carrie Bradshaw's definition of residency qualifications, a New Yorker. But there will be too many other rewards coming our way to care.