Comments on Baby on Board

Heh. Try going into a bar (or a restraunt that doesn't have the little wall thing and so gets classified as a bar) with an infant in Seattle and watch the staff freak the fuck out - ssleeping, crying, stroller, backback, or whatever.

Babies are diseased-ridden sponges and should be treated one step below dogs. Which is to say, tied up out front.

I have the same question -- why do people have to have strollers all over the place? Just strap the kiddo on and you're good to go.

The only way I will travel with an infant however, is first class. Not as crammed-in, closer to bathrooms, closer to exit. Sorry, Dan.

now we need to work on dogs being booted.

Wow, they'd really shit a brick in the states where minors are banned from bars entirely.

I still think one should have to get a permit to have children. Really, how many unfit parents are there? Half the time I see people with children, they are complete assholes. Sorry for the negativity, I know plenty of awesome parents, but they're a dime a dozen these days.

Babies are fine in restaurants until they start screaming and the parents do nothing. Why not get up and take your child outside or into the restroom until the little tyke calms down? That's about the only complaint I have. . .

I prefer a baby backpack to a stroller myself, but continued use can wreak havoc on my back. And, sometimes it's just easier to bring the stroller and use it to carry stuff (lunch, groceries, diaper bag etc.).

I will share that I stopped carrying my older son in the backpack once he learned (around age 3) how much fun my reaction was with his well-placed kicks to my kidneys. Ugh.

Bars? Feh, we stick to baby-friendly places like Madrona and Montlake Pubs.

I'm not down on babies, but I am down on over-protective parents who've never heard of babysitters. Geez, people. Can't you all stop videotaping your child's every move for three hours? Go have a drink already and let your friends have an actual conversation with you without feeling obligated to stare at your child and smile tolerantly. Leave them home. With the dog. Haven't you ever read Good Dog Carl?

So you're flying first class with the miles you racked up flying in first class? Good to know all those ECB haters are paving Dan's travels in gold.

Please do not turn into Andy Rooney.

Ya know I'm not one of your haters but... Maybe they're flying first class because they have the money to fly first class. And maybe they're wondering why your gay ass is sitting up front and bitching about it when you didn't pay for it.

I've been to the bar in question several times and it's out of control. There are a lot of bars (not bar restaurants) in that neighborhood that are full of children. Park Slope breeds a sort of entitled, semi-affluent, former hipster who thinks they don't need to make any changes to their lifestyle now that they've got kids.

Baby's don't belong in bars. End of story.

Or maybe babies don't belong in bars.

Sorry. Thinking about Brooklyn mommies got me upset and made me lose my grammar.

A) Children can't ride in backpacks until they can hold their heads up reliably/safely, which varies from baby to baby but generally isn't until 4-5 months.

B) Parents with back problems or certain tendon problems can't use backpacks. Back when people had kids in their 20s, this was a nonissue, but nowadays with first-time parents in their late 30s and well into their 40s, these issues become prevalent. Many, many parents in Seattle are of this aged variety.

C) Some children can't doze off in a backpack; most babies have to nap every 2 hours or so until they are 12 months old. A stroller better allows napping on the go. Parents would be permanently housebound for over a year if they couldn't leave the house because of children's napping needs. (Strollers offer plenty of extra exercise for their pushers, incidentally, too.)

D) Children up to a certain age are prone to spitting up; backpack + spitting up = bad idea.

E) A famous person once said that you shouldn't leave your child with a baby-sitter until your child is old enough to report back to you on what the baby-sitter did themselves. Until you have a child, it's a notion I don't think you can get your head around fully.

F) Why does it have to be all or nothing with this crowd? "Ban all strollers from all bars," "ban all dogs ever," etc. Sure, one bar some placed banned strollers. There are oodles of others elsewhere that welcome families. Sure, some dogs eat babies for lunch, but oodles of dogs (perhaps even the majority) are great companions and well-mannered. I see no problem when certain establishments ban children; lots of establishments want baby-business instead. (Similarly, ttat's why I've never understood why we can't leave it up to business owners to allow dogs in, a la Ken Jacobsen's initiative last year, instead of prohibiting it. Most owners would continue to ban dogs, but it'd be great to have a spot or two like the Lucky Lab in Portland.)

As long as babes still belong im bars, I'm OK. Babies? Fuhgetaboutit.

Babies don't belong in bars. Get a babysitter or drink at home, but for God's sake, don't let your inability to get over your 20s ruin a night out for everyone else.

Hmmm. Well, speaking as a brooklyn mom who occasionally hits a happy hour with baby in tow, I can say that strapping the baby to you is a better system, in general, until the baby gets to an age where they move around alot and weigh a lot (basically after 7 months). I hate the stroller and I can't wait for the day I can burn ours, but until then it is our best mode of transportation.
We always go to bars when they are just opening and empty, so as not to step on single, hipsters toes...and also to get a quick drink in before the whole dinner/bathtime/story routine. Everyone has always been really nice and even accomodating with us.

part of the problem with babies in bars is everyone else looks at them and thinks:

A. why don't I have a kid, or for that matter, a girlfriend?

B. What are my kids doing right now?

C. How the hell am I supposed to tell dead baby jokes to my friends if there's a fucking baby next to me?

I'm in agreement with #18, as both a resident of this Brooklyn neighborhood as well as a first-time expectant parent. I've never had a problem with parents bringing their small children into the bar that I frequent most often (not Union Hall, but close to there), especially when it's early, uncrowded and the children are well-behaved or asleep in their strollers/carriers. I love a good microbrew, and so many of them are unavailable unless you buy a glass on-tap. I see no problem with zipping in for one quick beer while the baby's napping.

The FAA should pass a law to put all the babies up front where there's plenty of room and free drinks.

It bears repeating: who the fuck brings a baby to a bar?

I'm also an expectant first-time mom and wish that parents would leave their rambunctious toddlers/kids at home (or take them to family restuarants) and let grown-ups go to the bar-type places for a nice night out.

We're trying to enjoy some nice dinners out before we still have that freedom. I recently wanted to go out for Mexican food, and my husband said, "OK, but anywhere except a family place." Amen.

So we went to Mission in West Seattle, which, last time I checked, had a dimly lit and very bar-like atmosphere. I guess I'm naive to think there would be no kids there. But somehow we got stuck between two tables of little shits -- the ones to our left kept running around the restaurant, and the one to our right broke a glass on the floor to amuse himself. Jesus Christ.

I guess we need to start paying closer attention to which bars have the rails and which don't. Because I am going to feel cheated to death if we hire a babysitter a year from now to have a nice dinner out just the two of us, and we end up crammed in between sets of brats whose parents couldn't care less that they're chasing each other around the tables.

Haters- My kids are well behaved. When they're grumpy, they don't go to grownup establishments. Fuck your generalizations.

The problem is not just any strollers, but gigantic strollers. When did they go from being the size of a small carry-on to being the size of a Costco cart?

@19 wins.

But those twin strollers for singletons on strollers that don't fold up is why people talk about banning them.

If your baby stroller is that big - WTF are you doing in a BAR?

Keep your kid at home until he or she is old enough to go out and behave. Your kid is not cute nor interesting to anyone else but yourself. You are not entitled to special treatment because you have a kid. Everyone at work is bored with your constant chatter about your kid; you have no life and your husband basically has a pussy now, too. We're tired of covering for you because Schnookums has the sniffles and you put in half an hour worth of work.

Check back in in 16 years when Schnookums gets dusted and bakes your Chihuahua.

Which Brooklyn is this?

i've talked to god-knows-how-many people about kids on planes and the general consensus (first class or not) tends to be that children under a certain age should be banned from all commercial flights EXCEPT for certain designated ones for families traveling with children.

there are very few people who travel by air regularly who can't name one or more nightmare flight that featured one or more shrieking children for the entire duration of the flight (and parents who seem to be oblivious to the whole thing). traveling by air with kids is tough and can be necessary but it's not to say that there isn't a significant untapped market for people who would gladly pay more for a *guarantee* that no shrieking child will be on the plane.

Kids don't belong in bars anyway, but whatever you do please don't ever expect me and my grownup friends to change our bar-appropriate behavior because "there are children present". You know, when we show up some Friday at 5 or 6 after work to have a few and everyone is feeling good and getting loud and swapping stories... if Junior is old enough to talk he's old enough to repeat what he hears so don't come crying to me: you are the one who decided to socialize your kid - the article mentions kids as old as 7 - in a bar.

MrEdCT: It's the one in New York.

@11: I didn't even think of that, but I would agree with that sentiment.

I agree with @2. Tie the damn things up out front with a bowl of water. They'll be alright. They can bark if they need help.

Why would you be defense about flying first class? I do it all the time. In fact it's the only way I'll fly.

I'm with big Sven. (post 24) If someone wants to decide who sits next to them on a plane, they better buy that seat. When you go to a public establishment you should expect the other clientele to be courteous, but if you want to choose the other clientele then you are the one who should be eating/drinking at home. If I bring my kid into a restaurant or a bar then I should exercise control of the situation, and if I don't the manager should. But my kids shouldn't be banned from an establishment because some patrons don't want to eat in the same room with kids, any more than fat people should be banned because I don't want to eat in the same room with fat people. My kids are well-behaved too BECAUSE I've been taking them out in the world and teaching them how to behave in restaurants, theatres, and airplanes since they were infants. By the way, backpacks and Bjorns rock.

It is an exceptionally rare parent who will admit that their child misbehaved in public since the worst behaved children always belong to parents who have no clue whatsoever about what constitutes bad behaviour. Simply, the whole "my kids are well behaved" theory is flawed from the outset due to partiality on the part of the parent.

I choose a middle seat for flights of less than 3 hours. No airline is going to separate Mommy or Daddy from little Schnookums by putting a total stranger between them. I made that decision after being cornered in a window seat next to a two year old with a sippy cup full of juice inches away from my laptop whose mother left him unattended for a good fifteen minutes while she went back to talk to her husband three rows back. OK, Sven and Mary, your kids may be well behaved in public but the reality is that many kids are not. And not even Dr Spock himself could keep a two year old or younger from going completely ballistic now and then.

Dan, did you offer to buy a drink for the parents of the screaming baby on the plane? Did you offer to buy a drink for the baby?

If you have the baby in the backpack, your cigarette smoke gets in its eyes.

It's true about the cigarette smoke, but if you carry them in a front sling it's harder to reach your motorcycle controls.

Drunk douchebags and sluts are more annoying than almost all babies.

Baby backpacks rule! The babies love it and guys look manly with a backpack on. Push a stroller around and you look like a freakin' pansy! Plus, when you finally get away with your friends for that 1-2 week backpacking trip, you'll be in awesome shape and kick their collective hiking asses.

#29: i've talked to god-knows-how-many people about kids on planes and the general consensus (first class or not) tends to be that children under a certain age should be banned from all commercial flights EXCEPT for certain designated ones for families traveling with children.

Because families never experience emergency and have to fly on short notice, "family flight" or not. Airlines will never acquiesce to this - money's money, after all.

Screaming babies belong in coach, with the rest of the Little People.

@23: Bwah-ha-ha-haaaaa. Just wait: you'll see the other side of the looking-glass world sooooooon! (Not to scare you: it's actually pretty okay over here!)

#23- now's a really good time to watch the karma so you don't get a colicky sociopath kind of a baby. Have you read "we need to talk about kevin?"

If you fly without earplugs you get what you deserve.

Ear plugs people! I also have the headphones that sort of go into your ear but I'd rather just hear as little as possible. And you know what, the stupid U pillow? It looks stupid, it's dorky, get one anyway. And get a nice cushy set of eye dealios. I look like a dork but I love my portable sensory deprivation kit.

First of all, congratulations #23. Having a baby is the best. I have to agree with the others, though, that, if you think you WON'T, at some point, have a child that screams, cries, breaks things, picks his/her nose and eats it regardless of where you are and how quiet and well-behaved they NORMALLY are, you are in for a surprise. Honestly, all parents face this surprise in one way or another, and I think that is the point here....

Parents are people too, damn it. Having a child (or two or three) involves making huge, no, massive changes to your lifestyle. You'll never sleep soundly ever again. I'm not kidding. Your grocery bill costs quadruple (and that is just with one baby). You will see your friends twice a year. Maybe. You will leave the house (if you are lucky) every now and then unconciously (and some times conciously) covered in spit up and/or pee and/or poo. You will rush to the emergency room in the middle of the night because baby is coughing up globs of mucous/vomiting non-stop/screaming bloody murder for no apparent reason. And, of course, you won't mind in the end, because you will love your child more than life itself, but...

You WILL need a drink every now and then and though you think you will snap into "family" mode as soon as you push that little bean out, trust me, Chuck E. Cheese is just down-right freaky.

Here in NYC there are enough bars to keep everyone happy, you just have to find the one that fits you. If a bar/restaurant makes a fuss about my stroller, they don't get my business.

Oh, and, having been a bartender in NYC I can say that I have seen single white hipster boys vomit, cry and throw tantrums a lot more in bars than my baby ever has.

Cheers