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