This morning I read 2 articles on cnn.com about mommyhood.  One was about people objecting to parents bringing their kids to bars.  The other was about mommy bloggers losing their integrity as they become bloggers for pay but don’t disclose their sponsors.  The article claimed that readers could no longer trust these bloggers who had sold out.  Sheesh.  If there are any PR firms reading this, I AM FOR SALE!  I will be your corporate shill.  No problemo.

As to the former, I used to be one of those twenty-somethings (okay, thirty-something too) who despised other people’s children with a vengeance.  I even believed my caustic comments about them to be witty and clever.  I certainly agree that there are times and places where children should not be seen or heard.  Disneyland is NEVER one of those places.  A bar, on the other hand, certainly can be.  It should be up to the owner of each establishment whether or not to allow children and when.  When my husband was a child, he used to have to go along with his father to happy hours and try to entertain himself eating beer nuts while his father’s coworkers guzzled suds together.  I understand needing to get out and have a drink every now and again (BELIEVE ME), but I don’t think that this regular happy hour was good for little Odie.  I would feel uncomfortable walking into a BAR bar with Baby V, but a restaurant that serves alcohol suits us fine.
 

A few weeks ago, Odie, Baby V and I met up with a friend at a wine bar in Pasadena.  This particular establishment serves food and has an outdoor seating area, so it isn’t strictly a BAR bar.  Still, I felt apprehensive pushing my stroller into the place.  “Oh no,” I thought, “I’m one of THOSE mothers now.”  Thank goodness there was already someone out on the patio with a child in a stroller.  Phew, close one.  The place was practically empty and it was barely 5:00.  The waitress who took our drink order cooed over my child for a minute and then informed us that they don’t allow children after 7.  Not an issue, I assured her.  We’d be long gone by then.  We had some wine, Baby V sampled her first hummus (hummus is yummus, I keep telling her.  She isn’t so sure), and we were out by 6:30.

We definitely got some dirty looks from younger people at other tables.  Mostly the women looked over longingly, eyes slightly dreamy, and the men glared.  One even made sure I overheard him say, “Oh GREAT, a baby.”  I’m not sure if he overheard my “Oh GREAT, a douchebag” remark.  I think that the men don’t appreciate me making their young female companions think of babies when they clearly want those ladies thinking about how oral sex isn’t really sex, especially among friends.

Now my little moppet has the ladies thinking about marriage and babies, sigh. 

In the CNN article previously mentioned, one twenty-something opined that people who bring babies to bars are clinging to their youth.  This comment made me unreasonably angry.  It smacks of that “everyone wants to be me; they’re SO JEALOUS” attitude that the Hiltons, Kardashians, and Olsons have made so popular with the young people today.  I’m not clinging to my youth.  I’m clinging to my wine.  And you can have it when you smack it out of my cold, drunk hand.
 

The adult world is not the exclusive right of young, attractive, and/or childless people.  Just because I have a baby doesn’t mean that I have to resign myself to Target, public parks, the library, and secretly swilling vodka in the laundry room-all because childless people think babies are oogie.  As long as my child is well-behaved, well cared for and my stroller is well out of your way, I don’t see why we can’t raise our glasses on opposite sides of the bar.

And sorry about the Cheerios on the floor.