The Gate Joins Park Slope Stroller Ban

You sound like a really easy-going, non-judgmental therapist. You must be a joy to work with.

Accidental non-reply. Oh well.

Yes! Yes!! YES!!! As a parent in Park Slope and as a psychotherapist for 30 years who has worked with families and children, I have been staunchly against the narcissistic, vicarious acting out by adults who want to bring their kids into bars and fine-dining restaurants. It's not good for anyone, especially not for the kids. Children need parents who are real grown-ups, not sad excuses for them, parents who actually have lives separate from their kids.

YES!!!!

Peter Loffredo, LCSW

http://fullpermissionliving.blogspot.com/

You sound like a really easy-going, non-judgmental therapist. You must be a joy to work with.

As a side note, having wasted a few minutes of my life (minutes I now wish I could have back) glancing at your blog, you seem to rail constantly against narcissists, but your entire approach to life reeks of someone who has a serious narcissistic personality disorder. Psychotherapist/screenwriter? HAHAHA! Full-permission living basically sounds like a license to be a douche. I also think you should post more photos of yourself looking relaxed, yet busy on exciting new story you have, detailing how much cooler things were in the 70s. You strike quite the wise life-learner, yet easy-going!

If you're also going to go around and post comments on every blog that copies this story, please at least edit your comments to appear slightly tailored to each site.

Oh, and I must have missed it - where did I mention "how much cooler things were in the 70s?"

Your life must be very pressured if you regret whatever amount of minutes you spent checking out my blog. Also, your level of bitterness about the fact that someone has both a vocation and an avocation that he is passionate about suggests that you are struggling with a lack of passion in your life.

I live in Canada now. There are laws against bringing children into bars. If you get drunk while taking care of children (even your own), they get placed into foster care until you smarten up and sober up.

It's funny because sometimes the law has the opposite intended effect. You see unattended kids sitting in pickup trucks parked outside bars for hours on end. Even in freezing cold weather.

Either scenario is pretty sad.

The Gate has a very lovely garden. I like to bring my dog there! In fact, I like to bring him to many of Park Slope's garden bars. I do this because he behaves in a certain way:

We hang out, I have a beer, he sleeps in my lap.

He doesn't make noise.

He doesn't wander over to other tables.

He doesn't interact with people unless they first choose to interact with him.

We leave when it begins to get crowded.

I could leave my dog at home, but I choose not to because I enjoy having him around. So, I try to give parents with quiet, well-behaved children the same courtesy other bar patrons afford me and my dog.

The snarkiness of the 20-35 (white) kidless set is really disgusting. Rude. Banal self-centeredness. Entitlement coming out the wazoo. When you see a person in public with a child falling down drunk, then please do get judgmental. Til then, while some of us are out being grown-ups and trying to relax a little while hanging with our little ones, who the heck are you taking care of? Save your sanctimoniousness and stop blaming other people for messing up your party. So you've decided to devote your life to .. um... you and no one else. The rest of us can't live? I understand that the barowners are just trying to make as much $$ as they can. Sucks, but its not such assholeish behavior. Only in America. Tolerance. If you can't bear to be around people who aren't like you, then go back to the frat house.

Any parent consuming alcohol in public with their child completely deserves the censure they get. What kind of low-rent nonsense is that? If they'll allow that, what will they nod at when the kid is an adolescent?

Unless the apocalypse comes and reduces the population of the planet to something more manageable and sustainable...

Remember the scene from Reese Witherspoon's bigamy comedy, when she went home and discovered her friend in a bar with her baby? She almost puked.

The only people who think your child is adorable are you and your parents. The rest of us would just as soon not bother with having to deal with the baby-miniums you push around.

You are not entitled to immunity from people's annoyance when you inflict your progeny on them. I don't like your baby, and you're not that important because you had one.

You bred. Deal with the responsibility and understand that your hipster days were over the minute you conceived, because otherwise you're just a self-involved DB who didn't need to contribute to the gene pool anyway. The only think you have over the trailer-park is they have more room than your over-priced apartment.

Me? I have dogs. I don't take them to bars, I take them to the dog park.

Artistically-Creative people make for some of the dumbest parents ! So this doesn't surprise me a bit ! Any parent that brings their kid to a bar should have them taken away by child services . Your not fit to be a parent if you don't have the commonsense to know that a bar is not an appropriate place for children . Parents that do this need to accept the fact that they aren't "Free" anymore . They have kids to raise to be as stupid as they are ! You can't be a baby-mama and single . It just doesn't work that way .

Parents' responsibility to act responsibly. Dad used to feel comfortable popping into the local hole for a Rheingold, I assumed my stool, consumed my coke & pretzels from Danny the bartender, never heard anything I didn't hear at home. Please, thank you, talk to the patrons when spoken to. Helluva lot rougher than any of the $6 pint joints in question. I learned my manners, passed them on to my kids. I was a guest in an establishment, and had to behave accordingly, had to uphold the respect folks had for my Dad, would never embarrass him. I was being given a privilege in being with the grownups, and had to earn & maintain it. Parents need to tough up, and make their kids adapt to the real world, rather than expecting the real world to adapt to their kids.

+1

+lots

It's hard to get anyone besides parents with small children into a bar on a weekday afternoon. Any bar owner is glad to see them at that time. Once the after work crowd starts to come in, then it's time for the wee ones to scram.

What really sucks is paying like $60 to a sitter for a night out then having a toddler or two right there at a bar next to you. It enrages me, seriously.

If a restaurant has a kids menu and a liquor license (and many do) then kids are welcome. That's my general rule. I also never take my kids to any restaurant after like 6:30. Then again, I KNOW my kids will be loud.

As a parent who has brought a pre-mobile infant to a bar, I can attest that it is a stress-relieving act of socialization that helps maintain sanity and cope with the isolation that comes with starting a family. If I want to pay $5 for that, what's your problem with it? I agree brats running around is obnoxious and should not be tolerated -- anywhere, but if I'm not interfering with anyone else's good time, who the hell are you to interfere with mine? I feel like Americans are uniquely age-ist in their drinking habits. Maybe it's part of our youth-obsessed culture, but if you go to Irish pubs or Italian cafes, or almost any other country, you find the whole age range co-mingling, but here we self-ghetto-ize by age. What's up with that? Again, I'm not endorsing keeping a child out till last call so I can black out, but for most of the history of humanity alcohol has been a social cohesive that ties generations together and enriches our shared experience. Why can't we chill out and sit back with some beers?

But no one is really making an age-related objection. No one is objecting to middle-aged people going to the bar; they're objecting to those people bringing their child with them.

how about a leash law for toddlers!?

I think the the policy of no strollers on weekends and at night is very reasonable, as do most parents.

But I am getting sick of the bitter "infertiles". I know your life is empty and meaningless, and filling yourself with booze if the only way you can get through the day. But if you are in a bar in the middle of a weekday, than you have bigger problems then a crying baby next to you

I severely doubt there is soul saintly enough on this earth to endow you with a child. Either you raped a man, raped a turkey baster, or you are just plain trollin.

I'm a father, with 2 children and a chip on my shoulder the size of a double wide stroller (which I would never take into an overcrowded bar.)

I'm just sick of the baby-bashing. Statistics say that 50% of the people posting will eventually have babies, and 100% were babies, (and it looks like close to 90% still act and write like babies.)

I am tired of having to put up with other people's lame ass kids.

And the indignation that is shown when someone has the nerve to stand up and say:

I will no longer put up with your child's screaming!

I will no longer put up with your child's smells!

No more will I idly sit while you cream over your pathetic offspring and its latest function.

Take your filthy little mistake home and be a parent.

yeah parents are people and deserve a drink every now and again but leave your baby out of the bars. I've noticed this growing trend of parents bringing kids to bars and I think it's wrong. Most babies are NOT just quietly sitting there. If they are sleeping, they wake up, they cry, they babble loudly or scream. It's not fun. Your baby can be quiet for a while but it's usually not long lived. And then I have to endure seeing the back and forth toss between parents while you struggle to finish your damn drink. same goes for toddlers. I recently saw what appeared to be a well behaved toddler at a bar and within a half hour, they were whining and crying-took the parents at least another half hour to get the hell out of there.

You make the choice to become a parent. Forever your life is changed and you have to put the needs of the child first. So if you are hankering for a drink so badly, get a babysitter or stay at home or go to the park and brown bag it. Stay out of the freaking bars!

"You make the choice to become a parent. Forever your life is changed and you have to put the needs of the child first."

THIS.

I can't believe it has become necessary to tell parents over and over why a bar is not an appropriate place for a child.

I can't stand unruly kids and their strollers when I'm out and about...but then I think back to when I was a kid (though I was older, probably 6 or 7), my dad used to take me to the local pub all the time after my swim lessons. He'd have a drink, I'd play the arcade games, and then we'd go home. It was never an issue.

this isn't about kids. kids are kids, and that's just ducky. this is about individual adults that want to have their cake and eat it too. well, you smear cake all over the world's face in parks and restaurants and movie theaters and bookstores and musuems and sporting venues and everywhere else in the world...

...do you really need to bring your kids to the fucking bar? if the answer is yes, i pray your kids don't suck as much as you.

not directed at you, tower18. meant it for the chain. blech.

yeah, for 7-year-old you. i'm sure there was plenty of grumpy alkies at the bar muttering to themselves about "some kid at the centipede machine..."

While babysitting is exempt from the minimum wage laws, these laws definitely push the hourly rate of babysitters up. Inflation, which raises the price of simple consumer goods, does too.

If the going babysitter rate in NYC is $15/hr, how many families can afford $60 for a four-hour date on top of the $60-100 for the dinner/movie? More importantly, do that on a weekly or bi-weekly basis?

http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/dmg/1826638813.html

If a kid has to pay $25 for a movie ticket and popcorn and soda, or $3 bucks for a Gatorade and pack of M&M's, finding kids who will take $5/hr is harder. The parents say, "Well the kid will just come to The Gate with us."

And what happens? That job is destroyed.

It's an unintended consequence that many politicians don't understand. The supply and demand of labor for cases like this shines through. The best alternative is chosen and we lose a teenager engaging in a job and is instead left to his/her own devices.

The issue not the minimum wage or some hand-waving about inflation.

One data point does not make a "going rate". You also compare apples and oranges. The ad specifically requests a college student or graduate, with references. That's not quite the same as the kid from down the block, who surely would be paid less.

People don't trust other people with their children like they used to, and people also don't know their neighbors like they used to. So instead of someone trusted who will work for cheap, they have to find someone they can trust. Confounding this is that people often incorrectly associate cost with trustworthiness. All of these factors work together to decrease the effective labor market, which increases the price.

Weekly? Biweekly? My parents were lucky if they went out once a month. I suppose inflated expectations are another factor.

Seriously even 15 year old highschool kids are asking between 11-16/hour I placed an ad on Craigslist and all 10 responses were for that range. Forget a social life I can't afford it anymore. When I was a kid I got between 3 and 5/hour Those were the days

YEAH! Finally. ! I will frequent the Gate more often now then I Ever Have before. I am all for stroller free zones. Especially in the Bugaboo infested SLOPE!

Parents are people. Somehow non-parents tend to think they stop being people & become-- I don't know, robots? Or maybe they just think they become THEIR parents? I think that is likely, since a lot of the backlash against parents sounds like displaced mommy/daddy issues. They want to grab a drink, fine by me. We're not talking about people going to crowded meatpacking hellholes & getting wasted, here. Of course, it is pretty easy for people without kids to get up & judge from their high horse. I don't have any kids, but I say screw you, non-parents.

Screaming babies? Smelly babies? Those shouldn't be in bars, sure; then again, neither should non-babies who are screaming or smelly; frankly, I see plenty of those.

What are you talking about? Anybody can have kids. I can go and have 10 kids right now if I wanted. It's nothing special. I just don't want any brat kids running around when I'm drinking a beer.

Who the HELL brings kids to bars anyways? And what high horse? In 99.9% of situations the parents are the ones thinking they are so special because they have a child.

I love the stroller backlash. That's what happens when you turn a parenting convenience like a simple stroller and supersize it into an SUV-worthy shopping cart. I say ban them altogether! Then maybe I can walk down the street again or into a fucking diner without crawling over your kid's mobile home.

'your kid's mobile home'

I laughed so hard I spit on my keyboard. This was hilarious, I'm going to start using this!

Brilliant line! A real New Yorker I bet!

My wife and I have taken our daughter into the gate (she was about 8 months old at the time). We locked the stroller up outside. There was no "diaper smell" and she didn't run around. She sat on our laps as we enjoyed a pint and some conversation on the patio. If she or we were a bother to anyone, I can't imagine how. I get the problems people have with bringing babies to bars at night (do people actually do this?), but in the middle of the day, it seems like a non-issue. That is, assuming the parents adopt normal standards of behavior that would be expected of anyone with or without a child in tow.

Can't you buy a case of beer or wine and drink it at home? You want to see other people? go to the park/bookstore/cafe and drink your alcohol from an opaque bottle.

jesus, lots of backpedalling by the gothamist revelry here. not from me, though.

shawmas, you're an asshole. leave your kid at home, i don't care what time of day it is. a bar is a bar is a bar. for fuck's sake, people. the entitleds are winning by a landslide.

"Entitleds." Cute. I'm "entitled" to spend my money on whatever I want in any establishment where the management will have me. So are you. Act accordingly. You'll note that I never complained about the Gate making a "no strollers" rule. Nor would I complain about them saying "no kids ever." It's their place, they can do what they want.

Also, you used the word "revelry." I do not think it means what you think it means.

rabble. i type faster than i think. clearly.

As long as your kid is acting the same as the other customers, and you don't mind them hearing my sailor talk, I don't see any problem. I don't understand what is in 'poor taste' about it.

Wait, how does a kid act the same as other customers? By throwing down a couple of shots and suggestively leering over at the hot blonde 5 stools down? Come on, man. A bar is not the place for kid.

Wrt 'poor taste'... I just think that the idea of using extremely vulgar language around a child is wrong. That said, if you're in a bar and want to drop the F bomb or talk about your c*nty neighbor/boss/coworker/whatever.. you have every right to let it all fly out of your sailory mouth without having to be aware of the presence of a child.

And parents who don't mind their kids being around really bad language are just straight irresponsible. It really ISN'T cute when little Molly calls her classmate a douchebag.

I, personally, am against seeing any children in bars.. I just think it is in poor taste. That said, an 8 month old and a 2 year old are completely different animals.

Your 8 month old is not going to run over to other tables and try to do cutesy bootsie ish for attention but a two year old definitely is... and especially a 2 yr old in park slope where any parental discipline seems to be non-existent...

Adults go to bars to be adults. They go to bitch about their crappy day at work or to cry into their beers cause of a fight they had w/ their bf/gf, or to just chill the eff out over a cocktail on an otherwise perfect day... the last thing non-parents want to have next to them while they're enjoying their "ME" time is someones annoying toddler acting like an as$hole.

Fair enough, I suppose. But the issue you seem to be identifying is parents letting their children annoy other people, which is a separate issue - that shouldn't go on anywhere. The last thing anyone wants to have next to them while they're enjoying their ME time is anybody acting like an asshole. Also, I don't know what "cutesy bootsie ish" means, so maybe I'm missing something.

sorry, cutesy bootsey sh*t. betteR?

Well-managed, non-mobile kids are fine, as long as the parents don't shush the people around them. Thank you for being considerate!

Yeah, I curse like a sailor at bars. I tell ridiculously obscene jokes. And, you know what. That's the right venue for that.

If you want your kid to be exposed to that sort of environment at that age, well quite simply I have a few words you would do well to heed.

"You are very stupid. Your child will be very stupid as well. Please stop breeding, the rest of us people hate you."

If however you have figured out that bars are not places for children, then congrats you are a normal person. Good job on not being retarded. Enjoy your beer.

Of course dogs are allowed. Dogs help you get laid. Children don't.

If I ever see a toddler toddling about while I'm drinking alcohol in a bar, I'm gonna buy that kid a shot.

+1

This place has been douchebag central for over 10 years now. It was played before it even opened.

Regardless, are kids banned, or just strollers? I mean, can people just carry their kids? I never go to this douche-hole, but if I did take my son, could I carry him in? I almost never use my son's stroller anyway. I mean, he only weighs 20 pounds...

Strollers are just huge shopping carts; get a backpack for your stuff and carry your tyke. It's easier.

More to the point, why would people take their kids to a bar anyway? It's more fun to be in the park.

when will people realize that this planet is near capacity and if they keep having kids, the future those kids are going to inherit is much much worse than things are now. everyone wants kids, but if everyone had kids then we'd all be dead. so what gives you the privilege or right to have them?

[a] gotta love the ability to portray a self-centered life of snarkiness as an act of altruism. the powers of rhetoric run full circle to self-deception.

[b] the carrying capacity of the planet is a matter of debate. the issue is what is the most desirable population of children you want to live with. go join the shakers and find out. (first look up shakers on google, between beers, since the bar is wifi'd.)

Does the park serve alcohol now? I didn't get that memo.

More to the point, why would people take their kids to the park anyway? It's more fun to be at the movies.

You can serve yourself booze at the park if you're that hard up. And, before you reply, if you're afraid of getting harassed by cops, then you must not be white. Your loss.

White trash.

Yes, hipster parents need to chill... not all places are for children.

We need this to happen in Manhattan. I go to the whole foods in tribeca and it sucks cause it's like a goddamn nursery there at noon. I swear to god this was a conversation I overheard between a brat and his mom the other day. Kid: "Mom! I can't believe you were sleeping, I was thirsty this morning and I had nothing to drink so I had to take a cup and drink from the tap. IT WAS DISGUSTING!" Mother: "I'm Sorry son! I won't ever do that again. Forgive me." This is our future. I'd go to the whole foods in Houston street but it's way too dirty and it has a combination of hipsters and poor kids from the poor schools nearby I detest. Union square WF is too busy. Please ban strollers in whole foods.

If you're going to the Whole Foods in Tribeca, you kind of deserve whatever you get.

Feed me a stray toddler.

me first

poor kids from the poor schools nearby I detest?

You're as disgusting as the stroller pushers.

What happened to babysitters?

This is a serious question. My parents would go out from time to time, and higher a babysitter for the evening. It was just part of the cost. For some reason, people don't do this anymore. What is the reason?

This is my question, too. If you can afford a night out, you can afford a babysitter. How do teens make money these days, anyway?

Selling pot. Selling BJs.

Ha! It used to be we earned money babysitting to buy those things.

It's simple: restaurants, yes; bars, no. I have raised 2 kids in BKLYN, with the oldest now 14 and the younger 12. We never brought them into bars. You can bring them into restaurants, but you have to manage them. I am so sick of toddlers running laps around tables while parents look on beamingly at how active they are.

1) bringing toddlers to bars is disgusting

2) bringing dogs to bars is just plain fun

much like new parents, dog owners don't realize their dogs smell bad.

1) bringing toddlers to bars is disgusting

2) bringing dogs to bars is just plain fun annoying

Sorted that out for you.

Though, not, apparently, how to correctly do strikethrough. Fail.

You fail at strikethrough cause you don't like dogs.

It is totally possible! In my defense, though, I like dogs better than children.

Seriously, though, what's going on with the strikethrough? It shows up in the preview but not when posted. What gives?

This!

Any parent bringing their kid to a bar needs to have the douche slapped out of them.