If I Get Drunk And Hit Your Kid In The Face, It's Your Own Fault

Okay, so this has nothing to do with being child-free at work. In fact, it has to do with being child-free in the one place that I know I can get relief from children after work. It's the one place a grown adult can go where there is the absolute (and very sweet) PROMISE of being in a child-free environment. Please don't take it away from us.

I'm talking, of course, about bars. Any bars. Big bars, little bars, Irish bars, Russian bars, gay bars, plushie bars, whatever you're into, there's a bar for you. And if the only thing you're really into is child-freedom... well, you're in luck, because that means EVERY bar is for you! I'm not a big drinker, but I love being in bars sometimes just because I know that no matter what, there will be no screaming children or parents talking in that kid dialect of English wherein every other word is either "poopie" or "pee-pee." Yes, I love bars for precisely that reason.

Then, I saw this: Brooklyn Brewhaha: Babies in Bars. It's an article from CNN.com about something that I didn't even know was going on: apparently, in Brooklyn (elsewhere, too, but the article highlights Brooklyn) parents are not only bringing their children to our workplaces -which is bad enough, because we're required to deal with their snot-flinging spawn during daylight hours- but now these parents have grown such a sense of self-entitlement (and perhaps regret of having the little brats to begin with) that they've decided they should have the "right" to bring their children to bars with them. Yes. OUR bars. OUR places of refuge. OUR safe-houses.

This makes me angry enough to hit my Caps Lock and start spewing, but instead I'll just hit the key points:

Anyone who thinks that parents should be allowed to bring their children into bars is only highlighting my primary argument as to why such vast numbers of parents are imbeciles: does anyone remember that children are PEOPLE? Children are HUMAN BEINGS. They are not PETS. They are not TOYS. Pets and toys are not subject to laws (actually, sometimes pets are) but children are PEOPLE. They are people under the age of eighteen (or, in this case, twenty-one), but they're still people. And all people are subject to laws. When you have a child, you're not just bringing a cute little pet or a toy into this world just so you can have something cute to play with; you're creating a human being and that human being will be subject to the laws of the land in which you live.
In the state of New York, it is illegal for ANY PERSON (your child is a person, isn't he? Or, are you saying your child is not a person?) under the age of twenty-one to enter a bar. The law does not specify that the person must be drinking. It is illegal for that person, if under twenty-one, simply to enter that establishment. (Not that we didn't all have to get our hands stamped when we were nineteen and twenty and wanted to go see our friend Jimmy's gig, but that's college. That's different. College is suspended reality, really.)
This concept, that you should be allowed to bring your children into bars, implies that your children aren't really people; that they're simply cute little extensions of you, and are therefore exempt from the laws.

Fuck that.

When I was a kid, and my parents wanted to go anywhere that prohibited children, they respected the laws (and the rights of the other patrons) and sent me off to my aunt's house. But in this day and age, parents are so spoiled that they think they should have the right to bring their kids anywhere. Because they don't view their kids as actual human beings: they think they're precious little angels; they're cute little creatures exempt from all laws until they turn eighteen. Or twenty-one. If you raise your kid to think that he doesn't have to follow the laws, plan on visiting him in jail one day.

This also calls into question the legal definition of a child: a minor is somebody under the age of eighteen. You can't legally enter a bar in New York until you're twenty-one.
So, technically, if you wanted to bring your seventeen-year-old son to a bar, would they let you? I mean, they're letting people bring their four-year-olds into bars. The law is the law. Whether you're seventeen or four, you're a minor. So you can be seventeen years old and walk into a bar, but you have to be accompanied by your mom or dad. (Yeah, that's really pimp, right?) Oh, but once you turn eighteen, don't plan on getting back into that same bar until you're twenty-one, even if you're with mom and dad. Because you're technically not a child anymore, but you're not twenty-one yet either. You're just fucked.
This is the most retarded thing I've ever heard in my life.
I had to spend a hundred dollars on a fake ID if I wanted to get into a bar before I was twenty-one, but some fifteen year old girl can get in if her dad goes with her? Not only is that wrong, IT'S WEIRD! You think a bar wouldn't allow a fifteen-year-old but they will allow a four-year-old? Well, that's a Supreme Court case waiting to happen.

So, that's the legal side of why these parents are retarded. Now let's get into the practical side.
Bars are the only places where it's acceptable to be publicly fucked up. Parents of America, don't you dare try to take that away from us, you shitty, Enfamil-covered bastards. Everywhere else in America belongs to you. Retail establishments. Public parks. Swimming pools. Libraries. Starbucks. Beaches. Fuck, dude, every SIDEWALK on earth belongs to you! You have taken everything from us. Everything. You have banged your fists to get what you want, and the laws have bowed down to you so that your idiot children can be safe and welcomed no matter where they go, no matter what they do, no matter how loud and obnoxious they are, no matter how big a mess they make, no matter how much we want to smack them across their worthless little mouths.
Leave our bars to us. I understand you're jealous because we had the foresight not to have kids and you didn't; you made the mistake of having brats and now you can't go to bars anymore, so you want to make the bar-hopping experience miserable for the rest of us.

Well, guess what? Sober people care about the way they act in front of kids... but drunk people don't. And there's no way you could get a drunk person to tone down his or her behavior just because children happen to be in a place where they really shouldn't be. If I'm in a bar and I see your slimey little spawn, I'm not going to say, "Please leave me alone" to the skeevy old guy hitting on me. I'm going to tell him to fuck off and eat shit just like I always do. Don't want your kid to hear me say it? Well, don't bring him to a bar.

Oh, and by the way, if you're one of those parents mentioned in the CNN article who will actually ask people in a bar to tone down their language because your children are there... I will throw a drink in your face, no questions asked. In fact, I will order the most alcohol-filled martini available just so that I can throw the whole thing in your face, and then I'll order another drink just to throw into your kid's face too, and it will be the best twenty-three dollars I'll ever have spent.

Take my advice: bring your kids for Happy Meals, not Happy Hour.