For Generation X, Y, and Z, having a child no longer marks entry into adulthood:
From time to time, Sasha Raven Gross can be seen teetering around a neighborhood drinking hole. She flirts with strangers, talks gibberish and sometimes spins in circles for no apparent reason until she falls down. In one hand is her liquid of choice -- watered-down orange juice in a sippy cup.
The 14-month-old toddler is the sort of barfly who's at the center of a recurring and heated debate: Should parents be allowed to bring their babies and children to bars?
As a libertarian, the question is grating: Bar owners should be allowed to decide whom to allow onto its private property. As a student of culture, it's disturbing when grown "men" and "women" want to bring their children into a bar.
There are serious entitlement issues:
Single hipsters and others without (and sometimes with) kids complain about being asked to watch their language, to not smoke outdoors near strollers and to keep their drunk friends under control so as not to scare the little ones.
Who goes into a bar scene - a scene having well-established mores and norms - and demand that everyone else change? My generation, that's who.
I hate my generation. I hate you, Boomers, even more: You're the ones who raised these people.
