Bless your heart Sis. Maia. I like children as much as the next person, but do I want them hanging out in a bar with me? I do not, even if they’re shorter, cuter, and more honest than I am. Maybe particularly if they’re shorter, cuter, more honest than I am.
And maybe it’s just me, but when children are present, I tend to try to keep the conversation at a level they can understand and enjoy. And then there are times when I just really wanna cuss.
I understand that motherhood shouldn’t mean the end of a social life. Absolutely, it shouldn’t. And friends who are friends will be friends regardless of whether you come bearing children. But sometimes adults want to be adults, and we want to be adults outside the presence of the little ones.
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I get her point, but honestly, if I’m paying $30 a plate for dinner, I do expect some peace and quiet to come along with it. If the child or children can behave, bring them along. If it’s way past their bedtime, have some regard for the children and for your friends and leave them home.
I’ve been to events that I thought were going to be adults-only, where people bring young children and let them loose, expecting all the other people there to keep an eye on them, and I don’t think that’s fair to anyone, including the children.
Same here, and I don’t feel too bad about not-loving that, either.
Sorry, but we place too much importance on children being “special.” They are not. Put away the bubble-wrap, leave your spoiled little video game playing brats at home with a sitter. Just because you think that your kids are special, doesn’t mean that we all do.
And wipe your freekin’ nose, kid! You’re a disgusting mess…
Come sit by me, Bro. Mario.
What Mario said!
And sometimes it’s not even wanting to be able to cuss — it’s wanting to be able to finish a thought.
Right, and I think kids need a particular kind of attention that I’m not always willing or able to give.
Definitely. I frequently spend time with the two little kids next door and mostly love that, but when Mom or Dad and I try to have a brief conversation and it’s not happening, it’s frustrating. For everybody.
And that’s what kids do, but it doesn’t make for an interesting visit, does it?
I love taking my daughter with me as much as I can, but I definitely don’t take her everywhere.
She’s seen me play music in public only a few times in seven years. What I do isn’t necessarily offensive or anything, but it is for the most part “for adults.” I get asked a lot “Is your family coming?” and I’m always kind of suprised. Do I really need my almost seven-year old thinking to herself, “wow Dad really spends a lot of time ruminating on the ups and downs of the human condition, spiritual redemption and eternal damnation”?
And I would never in my life think of taking her to a bar.
And what’s with all this drinking in front of the kids anyway?
“And what’s with all this drinking in front of the kids anyway?”
Oh well it’s OKAY, it’s just DRINKING, right, it’s not DRUGGING, right? It’s culturally encouraged, right? An alcoholic isn’t as bad as a REAL addict, right? Yeah. Right.
Yeah I mean I don’t want to be all uptight about it or anything. I’m cool with people enjoying a glass of wine or a micro-brewed lager or whatever. But I’m not so sure we should be so casual about it in front of the kids.
Where I grew up, drinking cheap domestic beer all day, every day was every bit as normal as lets say breathing! No joke as a child I assumed that adult males basically replaced water and soft drinks with beer and (maybe) coffee as those were the only two things I ever saw my dad drink.
I actually don’t drink at all anymore with one of the reasons being that I thought it would be cool (and life affirming) for my little one to be the first child on either side of my family to not open the refrigerator and see an entire shelf reserved for beer; and the first child to not think it was totally normal to crack open a beer every single time someone arrived home from work (and pretty much all day on the weekends).
When I first really stopped drinking I had a whole bunch of friends (some of whom are recovering alcoholics) say to me “just take it one day at a time” and stuff like that. And at first it was really uncomfortable as I tried to explain that it wasn’t like that. And later realized it kind of was, it’s just that I wasn’t quitting for me, but for a long line of people who never seemed to bother to look at the consequences of what they were doing in front of their kids.
I’m not saying I’ll never have a drink again, but to be honest, I don’t really miss it as much as you’d think. I still go to bars on occassion where I’ll order a coke or a seltzer, or whatever.
I’m not trying to make a value judgement on what anyone else does, this is just one guy’s story.
And I could go on and on the spiritual/metaphysical aspects of all this, but I’m already annoying enough.
Well, this gal’s story isn’t so different, except for the kid. At about the same time that I was laid up for quite a while because a drunk driver totaled my car, my mother and her siblings were deep in the throes of the effects of their alcoholism. I just decided I didn’t need it and haven’t used it since. Again, no judgement, I do keep a little beer in the fridge for guests, but I’m grateful that I don’t want it. Occasionally I’ll take a whiff of somebody’s wine or beer and just think “ah, nice,” but I don’t want it.
Not annoying. I feel the same way. I have alcoholism in my family and thought — just this once — we’d skip that for my own kids. Or at least, we’d skip the drinking. We might still be obnoxious turds, but we would be so sober.
Ditto. There never was anything attractive about drinking for me.
I think that’s one thing that stopped me with this essay. It’s find to be all proud of your child — even to the point of smarminess, up to a point — but what is gained by letting her see Mommy sip Manhattans?
“And what’s with all this drinking in front of the kids anyway?”
I drink in front of my kids. I don’t get drunk in front of them but they know that mommy likes to drink beer and wine.
I have to be careful as there is a lot of substance abuse in my family but I don’t think it’s a big deal for kids to see grownups have a drink. Responsibly, that is.
I went the other way and now I wonder if some healthy and responsible drinking might have set a more realistic example, as opposed to my picking up the hatchet from where Carrie Nation set it down.
Welllllll — but really, despite all the high-minded writing and talk shows and posturing and panels and gatherings about wine and beer and whiskeys, isn’t the real point of alcohol to alter your consciousness? Otherwise, why not spend all that time and money and advertising and development into making beverages that aren’t potentially dangerous?
Alter your consciousness seems strong to me. Not being a drinker of any talent, the times I did drink was just to fit in with the crowd, and even then, I didn’t drink much. Or I wanted to taste something I hadn’t tasted before (fancy wine, weird beer, that kind of thing).
Same here. My few efforts at altering consciousness with substances were not successful, and I gave up fairly young. When Bill Clinton said he did not inhale, I’m probably the only person in America who understood what he was saying.
“Alter your consciousness seems strong to me. ”
So why not make all these fabulous drinks with no alcohol?
And again, there’s a beer here for you if you want it, so I’m not screaming for The New Prohibition. But people have used alcohol through the ages for some sort of altering: to relax, to obliterate, whatever.
Put the hatchet down, Carrie!
I’m kidding. I shouldn’t view other’s imbibing by my own, probably.
“But people have used alcohol through the ages for some sort of altering: to relax, to obliterate, whatever”
But what’s wrong with that? We smoke things, we drink caffeine etc… I don’t see why that’s a problem.
I actually don’t have a terrible problem with that. It’s just not why I drink when I drink.
Did I say it was wrong? I’m just sayin’ that we don’t talk so much about the actual purpose of the alcohol, but rather talk about the bouquet or the body or the foam or the taste blah blah blah. And we’re much more forgiving of using alcohol than we are of using pot, say.
Here’s how my friends approach alcohol: “How quickly can this make me drunk?!?!”
I’m kidding.
I’m sorry, the “Welllll” sounded like a “but” and I assumed you were making the argument against drinking or at least continuing the argument against drinking in front of children.
My bad.
Nah, unless you come home and get shit-faced over the course of supper and what might be good family time. I’m not even making an argument against drinking (I choose not to, anymore, but again, there’s that beer in my fridge for ya). I just think it’s interesting that our attitudes about something that is very dangerous in some situations and for some people are not a little more — I dunno — honest? Realistic?
Maybe it’s so ingrained in the culture it’s hard to step back?
I was mostly referring to taking kids to bars or to social gatherings where the crowd is decidedly adult and drinking.
Yep.
As a mother of a 5 yr old and a 3 yr old, let me just say that Maia is off her rocker. Kid-free spaces are important for the sanity of adults and for the boundaries that children need (which too many people seem to want to erase).
I am probably reading too much into this, but I never considered my children to be my friends. It’s a very different relationship, that.
Hummm let’s see know “YES I DO!” I take a back seat to no one in love, admiration and pure joy in young children particulary a certain two little grandsons, but for ALL THINGS there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven (not exactly orginal).
(But it’s just a buncha heathens here and you could have passed it off as original and I would have backed you up).
(Nah, even the heathens know that’s from Pete Seeger! Yuk yuk yuk.)
Sis. Cynical shoots! She scores!
Good one.