How to Still Have a Drink When You Have a Newborn
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You know how even though you have a kid, you’re still you, which means you still want a beer sometimes? And how the logistics of having that beer suddenly seem more difficult than the entire coordinating of having your baby including the insurance? That is because the world is not set up for you to have a beer and have a baby. It wants you to choose. I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to.
No, I’m not encouraging wanton drinking of the sort you were into literally up until the minute you found out you were pregnant. I’m talking about how you manage to be a responsible parent and also a human being with an affinity for a glass of wine or a beer or a cocktail every now and again or with dinner every night or whatever it is you are into within a reasonable amount of consumption.
Right now you’re thinking, “But isn’t it obvious/easy?”
I thought so! As far as I can tell, there are a couple of ways to do it:
- Have a drink or two at home.
- Go out to dinner somewhere you can take your baby AND have a drink.
- Hire a babysitter and go out for a drink, but not too many drinks because you must always be prepared to stay up all night, drive to the ER, or wake quickly after returning home.
- Take turns going out for drinks with partner, who stays home not drinking, aka, “tandem socializing.” Note: this free pass doesn’t cover a next-day hangover. Therefore, avoid hangovers by not drinking very much.
But then there’s this little advice exchange over at the Atlantic reminding me that some people have it even easier:
Q: My husband and I live above a bar and, naturally, patronize it several times a week. It does not serve food, so according to state law, minors cannot enter. This has not been a problem for us so far, but we are expecting the arrival of our very first minor in just a few weeks. Can we leave a sleeping baby in our apartment and go down to the bar? It is right downstairs, easily within the range of our baby monitor. People have babies in those giant suburban houses with, like, five floors, and nobody says anything.
—L.P. Dover, Del.
Before we even get to the Atlantic response, I just want to note that if I lived above a bar that might be something I’d have considered doing as well on occasion with a newborn. It’s so tempting, what with how it’s literally right there. Especially if it was a fairly chill bar, and everyone there knew what I was doing and that I lived just upstairs and everyone was cool with it, because community.
But I wasn’t born yesterday with a beer and a baby, so I probably wouldn’t tell people about it if I did. Nor would I even go seeking advice from randos online. Because they don’t know! Because the Internet lives in black and white! It don’t know gray! It don’t know nuance! Take Nuance Offline! is the Internet’s secretly not-so-secret slogan.
However, I’d have to suss out the following, possibly even with a trial-run:
- Precisely how long would it take for me to sprint to the child?
- Would I have to pay a tab first or could I literally flip a table over and run out very dramatically at the first sign of a fuss?
- Would I need to pass through multiple locked doors wherein there is a reasonable concern that I would be prevented from getting back to my child?
- What if suddenly I heard the voice of that baby monitor hacker instead of my baby?
- Is it actually illegal?
We have a patio, and on occasion, while in the living room hanging out after our daughter has gone to bed watching TV, I wonder if I could even tell if someone broke in through the patio and made it to her room, since they wouldn’t have to even pass by us. #coolparentingfears