Letters to the Editor
-
Come on Salon, you're trolling for page views now
So the babies in cafes and restaurants generated 52 pages of blog comments. What's the point in bringing this up again?
Clearly, Broadsheet is trolling to page views, so you can artificially inflate your December stats for advertisers...
Come on Salon -- NO RERUNS!
-
This parent says, "Bravo!"
As a mother of 10-month-old twins, I think the owner is right on. Cafes, maybe, but bars? Not the place for kids.
-
Where I Live it's against the law
I am astounded by the idea of bringing children
to a bar. Where I live it is against the law to bring anyone under 19 into a bar. It is strictly enforced, and it doesn't matter if the bar serves food. I has assumed that this was the basic las all over North America. Guess I was wrong.
Restaurants are another matter. There shouldn't
be, and aren't, restrictions on children in them.
-
The answer in Two Words...
God NO!
Have Parents no common sense? A bar is not somewhere to take a child. Nor is a $200 a Plate Resturant, nor a movie rated higher than 'G' past 8pm, nor a boardroom meeting.
I know its really hard to believe in an age where the "Village" is put upon to raise the Village Idiot's child, but the vast majority of us Urban Single Types are not amused by your crying, snot covered Vagina Fruit. In fact, I dare say most of us are rather quite annoyed by It by the second beer of the night.
Bars are one of the last refuge from the Cult of the Child. A place where Adults can Act like and Do Adult Things without having to glance over both shoulders for Kiddie Ears before comparing President Bush to a Genital Abnormality.
-
I'm beginning to get it
The logic goes like this:
Families are good, because they produce children. Children are innocent and good. Places where children are not welcome are not innocent and good.
All those adult things people want to do in bars: dirty jokes, smoking cigars, making unseemly conversation, flirting inappropriately--all the fun things that are fun to do in bars, are not appropriate in the presence of children. Therefore, these things are bad, and people who want to do them are bad.
Welcome to the New Puritanism!!
-
I'm missing something, I guess, but...
... aren't most bars 21+?
They should card the babies.
-
Where's Dr. B??
We're at 10 pages of comments already; aren't we overdue for BitchPhD's essay on why "it's NOT a 'choice'?"
-
That's odd.
Several people have pointed out the objection that if people bring their children to bars, the children will hear rude language, and since children should not hear rude language, the people in the bars will not be able to cuss and swear and describe the plot of the latest episode of "South Park."
Say what?
If a person brings their child into a bar, it is reasonable to assume that they don't care if their child hears all sorts of bad language. And, in fact, why should they? Bad language is a fact of life; keeping children ignorant of it just sets them up to be made fun of by more savvy peers. (Why, yes, that *did* happen to me.) My kids have been hearing bad language their whole lives, *but* we have explained to them why it is inappropriate for them to use it, and my daughter finds it so embarrassing to say "bad words" that she has trouble saying things like "arsenal" because it has "arse" in it.
Now, if a person has brought a child into a bar, and then they protest at hearing rude language on the grounds that they have children there, the appropriate response is probably "Fuck, you must be joking, right? I mean, this is a fucking bar!" Or at the very least a disbelieving stare. If someone brings a child to a location not typically appropriate for children, the adults who are there should have *no* obligation to moderate their behavior on behalf of the children... parents who want to take their kids to adult places have to recognize that adults will act like adults, just as adults who go to child-friendly places must recognize that kids will be kids. Neither the parent nor the non-parent has the right to dictate that the other change their behavior to cater to their sensibilities, so long as neither party is being directly offensive (letting your kid scream endlessly in a restaurant is directly offensive, as is making lewd comments *to* a child.)
So no, parents who bring kids to bars have no right to ask that other adults act differently because of it, and other adults should not feel obligated. That said, though, I still don't think kids belong in actual full-blown bars. If there's nothing to eat, what the hell has the kid got to do with his or her time? And if the kid is a sleeping baby, sleeping babies take up a lot of room in strollers or car carriers, and bars are not exactly spacious places. Go somewhere where there's actually room to put your stroller.
-
more signs, please
If certain parents were more responsible about their children, no one would be so fed up as to post signs about strollers or behavior.
The fact that explicit signs are now needed for what used to be unwritten but widely known 'rules' of polite society is appalling.
The hilarious part is that people now become 'offended' by others asking for/expecting basic decent manners.
Personally, I find it 'offensive' that we have to put up signs asking parents to ACT LIKE parents.
-
Save the Children!
What, alarajrogers? You're suggesting that children not be obsessively protected from anything that might interfere with the bizarrely sanitized Disney cocoons that many people apparently think is the only appropriate environment for them? Expose them to people busily engaging in foul language and various vices?
Clearly, you are a bad, bad parent and a bad, bad person. Haven't you read the recent statistics that prove that kids whose parents failed to protect them from the merest exposure to naughty words, small or sharp objects, verbal innuendo and controlled substances invariably join gangs, get addicted to drugs and grow up to be musicians?
-
No kids in bars, please...
...or in liquor stores.
Yep, I went to the liquor store the other day, and there was a clueless mom lingering over the chardonnay, while her two preschoolers ran up and down the aisles playing hide-and-seek or tag or something. And I do mean, *ran*. Amongst all those shelves of glass bottles full of liquids, hanging on to the endcaps and swinging around the ends, while Mom paid them no attention at all. When one of the store managers asked the kids to stop running, mom gave him this huge "drop dead" look, and went off in a huff. I didn't notice whether she'd actually sprung for the $5 chardonnay or not.
How much do you want to bet that, if one of those kids had knocked a bottle off its shelf and gotten hurt, Mom would have been suing the store's ass off? And she would probably not be willing to pay for whatever the kids had broken.
Places like liquor stores and bars have got to be mostly boring for kids. Ditto fabric stores--I am always amazed at the people who bring toddlers to a fabric store, then wonder why they're bawling their little heads off after about 10 minutes. There's nothing for them to do there, nothing to interest them, and there's nothing they (as children) can do about it but fuss. Why would you do that to your child? And then get upset at people who are looking at you crosseyed because you've subjected them to the predictable results of your child's boredom?
Beer and liquor can be bought and consumed at home. If it's the adult companionship of friends you are missing, invite your friends over to your house for a beer or drinks. Many times my friends and I played in the yard while my folks and their friends sipped beers on the porch. Many a winter night was spent with my folks and their friends playing pinochle and having drinks while we kids watched TV or played our own games. What's wrong with that?