Kids and Bars

I have been really enjoying reading a blog I discovered recently whose author discusses issues relating to running and Zen practice. Check it out. Jack and I have been recovering from some sort of a nasty virus that was causing us to manifest illness this past week. It kept me from the starting line of the NYC ½ marathon and made life challenging for a few days. It is interesting, and somewhat frustrating sitting up with a sick child in the middle of the night when you also have a fever. Fortunately we’re both on the mend and I have decided to run the Bronx ½ marathon on February 10th.

I was reading Gothamist yesterday and stumbled across an apparently contentions debate about whether children should be allowed to accompany their parents into upscale bars in New York City. The particular bar in question was the Union Hall bar located in Park Slope Brooklyn, whose owners recently raised the ire of besotted parents everywhere when they instituted a stroller ban at the bar. This is an issue that could only arise in a place like Park Slope, where over privileged children and their yuppie parents often run head on into over privileged single yuppies with no children. The parents are put out because not everyone thinks their beautiful intelligent children are beautiful or intelligent; and the singles are put out because being surrounded by children reminds them that they are getting older and should probably be doing something other than sitting on a bar stool in Park Slope in the middle of the day drinking over-priced beer.

Presumably the parents of these children are meeting other parents to knock back a few pints while their kids frolic around amidst the mid-day drinkers and soggy beer napkins. I was pretty surprised by the venom expressed by the childless tipplers who seemed to see the presence of children in a bar as somehow representative of the decline of western civilization. I wonder if this seeming hatred for children, out of all proportion to the wee ones impact on their immediate surroundings, is a narcissistic trait particular to New Yorkers. I lived in Philadelphia for a while and most bar/restaurants in the better neighborhoods always had a stroller or two parked in front and no one seemed unduly upset by a parent reading the paper and having a pint on a Saturday afternoon. I suppose the air of entitlement that pervades neighborhoods like Park Slope is to blame. I mean, paying $1,000,000 for a one bedroom apartment would sure put me in a bad mood. Really, it’s not the kids at fault here, it’s the self-centered childless adults who apparently never learned to play well with others.