To Bar or Not To Bar? That is the Question

Brooke and I have recently faced that question that torments every new parent: should I take my baby to a bar or not?

Ok, maybe not every parent. But certainly some. The fun ones.

I wanted to watch March Madness a week ago. Brooke had a friend in town. I proposed a sports bar for dinner and basketball before they did their thing. They agreed.

But what to do with Sydney? I’m no prude by any means. But even I had to stop at the thought of taking a 7-month-old to a bar on a Saturday night. What would people think? What stares might we get? What drunken sloppiness might Sydney encounter?

I think the key here was the kind of bar and the time of night. This was a BW-3s, which is known as much for its food as its beer. It also has become very kid-friendly over the years. Visit on a Friday night and you’ll find more 8 year olds there than at the corner day care.

It was also early. We left by 9 p.m. Granted, there have been many, many Saturdays when I and my buddies have been completely plastered and obnoxious by 9 p.m., but the chances of us encountering Courtney Love on a bender are less likely before midnight.

I grew up in bars. My dad, who was not a drinker, liked to play cards or just talk with his buddies at the local tavern. He came from a family of heavy drinkers who spent many a day and night on a barstool. One of his brothers prescribes to the work-8-hours, sleep-8-hours, drink-8-hours lifestyle. Another brother works as a bartender and has owned bars. He was manning the bar the night I saw my first ever knock out. I was about 12 and playing pinball when two guys got into an argument. With one punch, one of the guys dropped to the floor and was out cold. My uncle called an ambulance and yelled at the other guy to get the hell out of there before the cops came. I stared, wide-eyed and mouth agape, innocence lost.

Yes, bar life runs deep on that side of my family. My dad’s sister loves to party and doesn’t pass up the chance to hit a tavern on a Friday or Saturday. His dad died of cirrhosis of the liver. I believe they still have a stool with grandpa’s name engraved on it at his favorite hometown establishment.

And his mom, my grandma, loved her beer. As she got older and retired, my main memories of her revolve around her waking up about 7 a.m., camping at the kitchen table to watch television, a pack of smokes at one side and a can of beer at the other.

She lived in California with my aunt for awhile. I and a buddy drove cross country to the West Coast to see if we could land jobs and live on the beach. We would stay at my aunt’s until we got on our feet. I remember my first night in Burbank. We get into town about 3 p.m. after our long trip and decide to go to dinner and have drinks to celebrate our arrival. This turns in to an adventure that lasts until 2 a.m. in the morning. (Ahh, to be a college student again.)

We are sleeping on the living room floor – it was a small apartment and that was our only option – when my grandma wakes  at 7 a.m. and you hear the unmistakable popping of a beer tab. She no sooner takes her first gulp before she starts in on us. “You boys better get up and go find yourself jobs. You aren’t going to be freeloading here. You need to find jobs and get to work.” This goes on for a couple of hours.

We didn’t last a week with grandma. We were living in our car and washing ourselves in a rest stop bathroom within three days. Try fitting your head under a rest stop sink so you can wash your hair. But anything was better than the wrath of grandma.

So anyway, my dad used to take me to bars when I was a wee lad. He’d throw me some quarters and let me shoot pool or play pinball while he hung with his buddies. I got to be very proficient at pool. When I was 12, he bought me my own custom five-piece pool cue, complete with case and all. I was a FREAKING STUD. I used that cue to win the Boy’s Club pool championship.

Dad loved to challenge his friends to a game against me. He’d bet $20 that they couldn’t beat his 13-year-old son. They always took the bet. Sometimes I won, sometimes I didn’t. If I lost, he made me walk home. No, just kidding.

My mom’s side has some drinkers, too, but not as many colorful stories.

I don’t drink that often anymore. I don’t have beer at the house and can go a couple months without touching one. But I can also get together with my buddies and down a couple of cases in a weekend. Depends on the time and situation.

My point is, I do not necessarily feel it is evil for a child to be in a bar. It did not turn me into an alcoholic or set me on a path to prison. But I am very cognizant of what I want my child to learn and see and how that will affect her. At seven months, there is more of a concern of what people will think of ME than there is of the affect on her, but I’m thinking more about the foundation I am laying.

Ultimately, I guess there is a time and place for everything. I will probably stick to the same thinking I had during March Madness: if the bar is also a restaurant and it is not late, we are good to go. We will not hit up Lenny’s Liquor Palace at midnight.

Isn’t it more about what you teach your kids, anyway? If you teach them right from wrong and how to act, they will get it, right? I sure hope so.

While I was at BW-3, I saw a 13-year-old boy and girl sitting in a booth across from a woman who appeared to be the mother of one of them. Not sure if it was the boy’s mom or the girl’s mom. But the two teens were glued together and sloppily making out while the woman watched the game. It was a pretty disgusting display of teenage lust.

Nevertheless, I was glad to see it. This meant that everyone’s eyes were on this booth and not the one with the 7-month-old rocking in her car seat. I was no longer the worst parent in the bar.