24 responses so far ↓

• 1 throwbot // Jan 5, 2009 at 10:27 am

  I walk by this place all the time and it seems like 50% of the time there is a kid sticking his mouth on the window while his moms get lit up.

  This bar is lame anyway.

• 2 mh // Jan 5, 2009 at 11:23 am

  whoa. that’s one angry post. i’m not a mommy and i certainly don’t enjoy a bunch of strollers taking up space at my favorite watering hole, but mommies have as much right to get their drink on as anybody (maybe they deserve a drink even more, who are we kidding?). In any case, its not up to you to judge. AND, during the cocktail-happy 1950’s, do you really think that moms never drank, or brought their kids to neighbor’s parties? This is nothing new. Get over it.

• 3 Back off // Jan 5, 2009 at 11:58 am

  Why do you care? If people want to hang out in a bar with their babies at 3:30 on a Thursday, good for them and good for the bar. If it bothered the business owner, I am sure he would ask them to go someplace else. If it bothers you, go someplace else. The Turkey’s Nest is certainly open at that time.

• 4 rosemary // Jan 5, 2009 at 1:19 pm

  MH, of course moms drink. No one’s saying Moms should not drink (although if breast-feeding, this is very debatable). The question here is… should babies be in BARS (ie: not neighbor’s parties or at home). I personally don’t care, as long as they aren’t screaming, diaper changes take place in the restroom, and it’s not late at night. I don’t really think the post is “angry”. It’s a valid debate. And Throwbot’s got a point… that bar is lame anyway.

• 5 Jim // Jan 5, 2009 at 1:50 pm

  Nothing like a little rant about mothers and babies to drum up traffic, or not.

• 6 barrati // Jan 5, 2009 at 1:57 pm

  Mare:
  I agree with you but I bet you were not growing up on top of oil spillage and all kinds of chemical materials oozing and off gassing from the ground. Greenpoint is a nice area to visit, but is no place to grow kids for sure. At least I am not taking that chance in the near future.

• 7 Sara // Jan 5, 2009 at 3:26 pm

  I’m really disappointed you had to throw in that barb about breastfeeding circles with the mommy happy hour story…..you’re saying moms shouldn’t bring their kids into a bar? Or, that breastfeeding circles are as bad as mommy happy hour? In my big Irish family, we all went to the bar, and when we were old enough to walk around we played pinball and bowling and ate hot dogs and drank grape soda pop, while our parents and their friends had a nice pitcher of beer. What’s the matter with that?

• 8 wisco // Jan 5, 2009 at 4:43 pm

  this is a non-story.

• 9 D // Jan 5, 2009 at 5:12 pm

  Let’s just tar and feather the selfish mothers and get it over with.

• 10 your mom // Jan 5, 2009 at 5:24 pm

  WHOOO HOOO thanks for the tip! I am SO THERE.

• 11 Will // Jan 5, 2009 at 5:27 pm

  The problem is kids hate bars. What is fun about being in a bar when your 4 years old? Nothing. Then they start acting their age and annoying patrons and everyone else in the place. I like kids but have your own cocktail party elsewhere and invite over your friends. Like in your home.

• 12 jeff // Jan 5, 2009 at 6:17 pm

  I stumble onto this site and wham! -I’m hit with misogyny. Wow

• 13 Rosa // Jan 5, 2009 at 6:19 pm

  from it’s opening line, “we knew this crap had to be around,” this post is strangely angry (and extremely poorly written).

  Babies in a bar during a pre-set time (before 6pm) on a Thursday. What is the issue exactly?

• 14 Jay // Jan 5, 2009 at 10:13 pm

  Why the hate? Who does it hurt if some mothers get together for a beer or two on a weekday afternoon, with their kids in tow? If they use nannies, people bitch, if they take care of their kids on their own and dare to take two hours out of the week to socialize, people bitch. I don’t get it.

• 15 bri // Jan 6, 2009 at 8:42 am

  It sure isn’t “Park Slopeification” – they’ve already kicked us out of the Park Slope bars. You suggest that perhaps mommies should also be chased out of Greenpoint, then? BANISHED to the suburbs, I suppose? Wheeee… bring on the isolation and postpartum depression! Yippee!

  I HATE when you write like this, GL.

• 16 Mare // Jan 6, 2009 at 10:51 am

  barrati,

  You are so wrong. I grew up in Perth Amboy, NJ – a place that makes Greenpoint look like Great Neck. My father was a foreman at Shell Oil for 35 years.

• 17 bigandtall // Jan 6, 2009 at 12:13 pm

  Yes, where is the hate coming from. Frankly, if a kid is spoiling your time at a bar from 3:30 to 5:30 on a thursday, you’ve got bigger problems.

  It’s not like the parents demanded this. The bar is officially endorsing and announcing it. It’s good business.

• 18 luckygirl // Jan 8, 2009 at 6:37 pm

  I am trying to justify why i am even wasting my time writing this blog!!
  Please get your facts in order…I have been living in the neighborhood for seven years,There is no “baby happy hour” maybe a couple of local moms having a afternoon glass of wine..
  I think you may have had a few wines when you wrote this ” Well written piece” Very well done you…..It’s a bar,not some “Mommy Mecca” as you wrote..
  I like the Pencil and Greenpoint,Go to Alaska and write fiction there..
  A lucky girl……….

• 19 Julie // Jan 9, 2009 at 9:45 pm

  I tried calling the Pencil Factory to find out more about the happy hour but they don’t know about it. Can you let me know where you got this information? We’d like to do a piece on Mommy and Kids Happy Hours for the talk show I work on and I’m trying to find a place that does it. Thank you!

• 20 Greenpoint Boob // Jan 10, 2009 at 10:34 pm

  First, Whats your beef with Moms and Breastfeeding? Still pissed you were weaned? Second, What makes you think the moms get “shitfaced”? Quite a lot more likely that the space and the alcohol is enjoyed responsibly.
  Third, Who has the greater right to go out for their afternoon drink – YOU?? Oh right, you are that guy hunched over the laptop who feels entitled to sit around at public cafes and bars with your laptop and give moms dirty looks because this kind of third rate blog is the ever so important crap you are working on. HA!! HA!

• 21 rsguskind // Jan 11, 2009 at 1:09 pm

  This was written to be humorous. Not hateful or angry. And not as misogyny. The listing is posted on Brooklyn Baby Hui. We do believe there is a valid debate about little children hanging out in bars. I am neither for or against, but it’s an issue. There was no anger intended only some humor that perhaps went awry.

• 22 Abbey // Jan 12, 2009 at 12:28 pm

  Take it from an ACOA (adult child of an alcoholic) who grew up in a family riddled by varying degrees of alcoholism…
  drinking in the afternoon with your baby/children at a bar (or anywhere) is not normal or harmless, it’s symptomatic of what is a deeply insidious and cryptic disease.

  Since the recovery movement became part of popular knowledge and vernacular people with drinking problems have found more and more ways to disguise the type of drinking we know to be text-book unhealthy. Misery loves company.

• 23 Jenny // Jan 15, 2009 at 12:57 pm

  Not for nothing, but I happen to know one of the mothers who drops in on this group every once in a while.

  To be honest, I’m not particularly interested in debating the whole babies in bars thing, but someone needs to get their facts straight.

  The Pencil Factory DOES NOT endorse this event, it’s just a bunch of ladies with babies who want to hang out and get a beer, not a sponsored thing.

• 24 I'd like to see you stay home all day with a newborn // Jan 23, 2009 at 2:42 pm

  In this shitty economy, wouldn’t any bar owner be thrilled to have customers at 3:30 on a Thursday when otherwise the place would be empty?

  I’ve gone to the Pencil Factory a number of times for this get together and trust me, no one is getting wasted. One day, if you ever have a baby, you’ll understand that there is just not enough free time in a stay at home mom’s schedule for such debauchery.