Full disclosure: Our daughter had been in more than 100 breweries before she was two years old. Not that she remembers any of them. Not everybody thought this was a good idea, but we sure learned some interesting facts about strange state laws, such as in Washington.
So stories such as yesterday’s in the New York Times about a Brooklyn bar posting a sign that reads “Please, No Strollers” get our attention, particularly with a catchy headline like, “Look Who’s Getting Rolled Out of the Bar.”
The story also makes reference to Wetherspoons in the UK implementing a limit on how many beers parents could drink in a pub. Which gives me an excuse to point to this quotable commentary from Stonch:
Presumably this is aimed at reducing the number of ankle-biters in your local ‘Spoons. Lots of people would prefer to ban children from pubs altogether, so perhaps the policy will have its supporters. However, there’s something annoying and petty about it. Back in September, we had a discussion about daft rules in pubs. I’d like to add this one to them.
The Times story explores pub culture, but considerably more, including the Gen X lifestyle (attention, Alan).
Which is probably why it kicked off an incredible long conversation. There should be more than 300 posts by the time you get there, and they are all over the map.
Worth reading, although I must admit my favorite doesn’t necessarily advance the discussion. I don’t care. Read it and smile.
“This is outrageous. Divisive issues such as this threaten to tear the Democratic party apart. We need to show a united front to the GOP, yet our very babies and being used as would be badminton birds. Anyway, why strollers? In my day, we lashed our babies to our bodies with rawhide strips. Babies could gnaw on the strips when teething time came around. When the strips rotted away, the baby fell to the ground and toddling time began. The toddler was given a crust of bread and sent out to make his way in the world, coming home for snack time and story time. Having a baby lashed to you means your body gets toned like no pilates workout would. As the baby gets bigger and bigger, you get stronger and stronger from the increasing resistance. The great world champion Bulgarian powerlifters of the 1970s pushed this technique to the limit in their training and kept their children bound to them well into their teenage years. We should not argue with their success. If these mothers would use these traditional methods, combined with a serape to conceal the baby, this would be a non-issue. For the sake of Democratic unity, I implore the mothers of Brooklyn to use the time honored method of rawhide strips and serapes, and let the healing begin. A ravaged nation awaits your decision and salutes your sacrifice.”
Surely “Contemplator, Kansas City” is a beer drinker.
A lot of the hub-bub about the strollers is a reaction to the ongoing gentrification of Brooklyn. With middle class and even upper middle class families being priced out of Manhattan, Brooklyn has seen an invasion of people in their ‘family planning years.’ But honestly some members of my generation are so anti-child it is hilarious. If you brought the most well behaved baby into a bar in the middle of the day, they would give you dirty looks the whole time. I do not know the source of this hostility, but find it totally ridiculous. Time, behavior(the child’s and the patrons’) and place are the factors one must always consider when determining if bringing junior into a bar is appropriate.
That is odd. SPending the weekend in Central NY we went to two places that were versions of what to a Canadian were hybrids of diners and taverns: http://www.genx40.com/archives/2008/february/threedaysand
Both places were over 50 years old and definitely family friendly. I suspect that these places are all over and are exactly the sort of place to rid oneself of the curse of Gen Y.
Alan – Who do you like less, us Baby Boomers or the Gen Ys?