The gang at The Week have rounded up a debate on the topic “Should babies be allowed in bars?”
Put me down in the affirmative camp.
The tenor of the debate is amusing.
The Con side consists mostly of such insights as The day I “crack open a bottle of Jack Daniel’s at Gymboree is the day you should feel free to start bringing your screaming, drooling spawn to the bar” and Nobody who’s “drinking and sobbing about a bad breakup” want to compete against a sobbing baby.
The Pro side is a mixed bag, consisting of arguments like “parents tip very well” and “sitters are expensive” to more nuanced entries like this one:
I have a pretty simple formula: “kids + bar=no,” says Vivian Manning-Schaffel in Mom Logic. But “kids + bar/restaurants = yes, at least until 7 or 8 PM.” Rule of thumb: If at least half an establishment’s business comes from food, let the “breeders in.”
Which is pretty much where I am. When we take Katie out with us to eat, regardless of whether it’s a bar-and-grill or a more traditional restaurant setting, we tend to do so in off hours. And we’re of course conscious of others in the establishment and tend to her when she’s being fussy. And she’s usually in bed by 8, so it’s not like we’re out with the bar crowd. But the mere fact that the place serves alcohol isn’t a deterrent.
The most amusing response:
I get why “twentysomething, hipster bar dwellers” want to ban babies, says Tom Henderson in AOL’s ParentDish. Who wants to drink around “a bunch of crying, whining, sniveling, tantrum-throwing brats?” That’s why I say throw out the hipsters. “Babies are probably the least objectionable characters you’re going to encounter in a bar.”
Indeed.
