The Grown-up Safe Space

A sacred adult escape from adulting

I love my kids. And I love my bars. But I don’t love my bars with kids.

Now don’t get me wrong; kids are great. I have three of my own. They bring an incomparable sweetness and joy to life, without which, it can all too easily devolve into solipsism and nihilism.

Yet they also bring chaos and disruption (not to mention a ridiculous amount of fussing and fighting), and with it, the need to reign in that chaos, to be responsible. In a word, the need to adult.

And frankly, adulting gets tiresome.

Meanwhile, we have bars. Ahh, bars. Those timeless bastions of disinhibition and debauchery. Those refuges of insobriety and vice and, as Homer Simpson would say, “the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.”

The problem, however — much like the case of chocolate and cheeseburgers — is that both things — while great on their own — nonetheless have absolutely no business being combined.

I mean, I get it. You’ve been at the park for hours, watching the kids swing and slide to their wee hearts’ content. And then you’re on your way home. You’re bored, you’re tired, and above all, you’re thirsty. Oh so thirsty.

And what do you know? Like an auspicious omen meets an answered prayer, your friendly (and better yet, kid-friendly) neighborhood pub suddenly appears along the way. Salvation at last! It even has salty snacks to fill grumbling bellies and old-school arcade games to entertain.

It would seem like the ultimate win-win. And it is — for the thirsty guy with his kids in tow.

But what about the thirsty divorced guy who has happily dropped his kids off with their mom for the week and now wants to bask in kid-free bliss? What about the thirsty gal who needs a brief respite of sanity before heading home from work and facing an onslaught of cooking and crafting and story time? What of them?

Think how often we’re lectured by pearl-clutching reactionaries to “think of the children.” Well, I’m thinking about the adults. And frankly, the adults are not alright.

And why are they not alright? Because they went to a bar to escape their workaday worries and what did they find? Screaming kiddos.

I’ll pass, thanks.

So here’s to all those places keepin’ it real, keepin’ it cool, and best of all — keepin’ it kidless.

Salud!

Colby Hess is a freelance writer and photographer from Seattle, and author of the freethinker children’s book The Stranger of Wigglesworth.

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