I think it was an excellent idea to bring your 6 month-1 year old to the bar today.
I enjoyed watching the baby put a lighter into her mouth while you were preoccupied.
I’m glad there wasn’t a sober adult around either.
Infants enjoy the smell of cigarettes. It is even better when the child is right at the bar, not in the back by the tables which aren’t quite as smokey.
Several shots will improve your ability to drive the child home safely.
Awesome.
You’ve got to get them started young.
Maybe the baby is the designated driver.
Better than leaving her in the car with the windows rolled up. Though that senario would be self limiting.
The best thing about bringing a baby to a bar is the li’l fucker’s so cute everyone wants to buy ya drinks.
“Lemme have another Bourbon, bartender, and put a head on the kid’s milk.”
I work at a Dog Track. I routinely see strollers/toddlers babies rolling out at midnight.
The other night I saw a kid about 8 years old sitting just outside the room for several hours. I notified security. They said there was nothing they could do since the mother was technically in the same room. A customer heard me talking to security and says it is a very common occurance with this woman and her child.
Drinking, gambling and usually one person hauled off to the pokey a night. A great place to bring your kids.
Eh… a bar bar maybe… but man people have gotten uptight. My dad (and later my grandparents) owned a furniture stripping shop and right next door was what could only be described as a ‘beer joint’ called “The Spot”. Calling The Spot a bar would be far too grand, it didn’t serve hard liquor and it did have a kitchen and you could order lunch or dinner if you wanted but mostly it served beer at the bar. Bud, Miller and Pabst on draft. This is the kind of place with hats nailed to the walls and ceiling with filthy slogans and cartoons, neon signs in the windows, a constant smell of smoke and illegal gaming machines in the back. Now, it wouldn’t be entirely correct to say I was raised there but I certainly spent a great deal of time there as a child and growing up, it was where my dad met my mom. I loved it because everybody from the owner of the place to the drunks who spent every day there knew me and my dad and my grandad… I got free cokes and there was a penny gumball machine that I could always get money for from somebody. I played my first real hand of poker for money there. Now, objectively… perhaps not the best place for a kid BUT I really don’t think it did me any harm and even perhaps some good. I got to learn some things about life there first hand that I think every guy should know. I don’t look down my nose at people who bring kids into places like that right off the bat because I don’t know their situation. I’d hate to think some jerk would have looked down on my dad, mom or grandparents for letting me hang out at The Spot with them.
Some of my best memories of my father are from when we went to a bar to get pizza. He would have one beer, I would have an orange soda, and we would split a cheese pizza. Once I brought in a cap gun and shot it off. A drunk at the bar grabbed his chest, yelled “she finally got me” ans slid off his bar stool. He thought his wife had shot him. My dad was not amused and took away my gun.
In my state, that pretty much describes the situation at home already. So what’s wrong with going to a bar for a change?
The only really bad thing about the situation described here is that the kid’s guardian wasn’t being responsible enough (drinking too much and not keeping an eye on the baby.) I think there are worse places a baby could be than in a bar.
Sure, it’s not the cleanest or best smelling environment, but is it gonna kill the kid?
What aggravates me is when someone brings a baby to a bar, and then requests that nobody smoke around them. Look, bitch, bars are one of the last remaining places where you can smoke, and some states have even taken that away. Find someplace else to sit, or someplace else for the baby; I’m damned if I’m going to give up my smokes for you.
In Texas it’s against the law to let minors sit at the actual bar itself. If they come in, they have to sit at one of the tables.
Your baby belongs in a bar I think it was Hank Williams junior, on Columbia but I cannot recall the name of the album.
Does everywhere have to be child-friendly or can we not have one type of establishment where adults go to have fun (legal fun) that isn’t going to include a bunch of children?
I think babies, toddlers, hell anyone under legal drinking age should not be allowed in a bar, peroid.
This isn’t true.
Laws vary from county to county, but there is no specific TX state law stating that kids can’t walk into a bar, or sit at the bar itself. Otherwise we wouldn’t have the (hotly-debated and contested) law that makes it legal for parents to buy their minor children alcohol. I used to work at a tourist bar downtown, and out of state parents were always trying to get their kids into my bar under this law; what they didn’t understand (and what I had to explain over and over again) is that most bars here don’t “recognize” this law, because it’s too hard to prove actual parentage and it’s too much work to babysit the specific rules of this law. (For instance, if you as a parent buy your kid a Bud Light, you can’t even go piss without taking the kid’s beer with you; you can’t leave him alone with it. And I as the bartender can’t hand the kid the beer; I have to give it to you, the parent, and you hand it to him…it’s a huge headache and not worth the liability for most bars.)
Re: the OP, I don’t understand why people wanna take their kids to bars, but then again, I also don’t get half the behavior I witness on a regular basis as a bartender. I’ve served a pregnant woman several drinks and shots before I realized that she wasn’t just overweight…that the huge bump of her stomach was a kid, not just a beer-gut…and when I cut her off she had the nerve to get pissed off at me.
For the record, I have the right to refuse service to anyone, for any reason I see fit. By state law. As the bartender, I own all the liability, so I also own all the discretion.
But I still had to explain to this bitch why she couldn’t have another shot of tequila.
This was several years ago.
Ever since then, it takes a lot to surprise me.
That mother should be ashamed. She let her baby just sit around putting a lighter in his mouth?
Any self-respecting bar baby belongs at the piano, learning vaudeville bits and sentimental ballads to play for the drunks and whores.
I had occasional experiences that sync up with lokij and DanBlather, and think that said experiences made me the lovable and warm hearted person I am today. I can still go into certain bars (read: dives) and get my first pop on the house because I went into them with my grandmother and mother when I was younger. Of course, most of them serve food, but I still consider them primarily bars.
That said, though, I see no good reason to take your infant to a bar. And that certainly includes a bar bar. If you wanna bring in the little nipper to show off to the regulars, that’s one thing. But to go out and strap in for a transcontinental with your wee bairn in tow is uncalled for. Stay home and get lit. It’ll be cheaper and you won’t have to drive the two of you home.
Where were your manners…? You couldn’t have offered her a light…? 
I totally agree with the rant. I used to have a friend that went to a bar with her 2 WEEK old baby, and was uber pissed when they wouldn’t let her keep the kid there. PISSED ! ! how in the hell could you be upset by this? go figure.
‘snipe out’