Booze And Babies: Should Moms Drink On The Job?


By Lauren Legette

“It’s 5 o’clock on the dot you’re at your girl’s house sippin’ some Chardonnay…while the kids play…” Okay, no, that’s not a song or a line from a horror story, but it’s a reality that many new moms are living. Sure, Mommy-hood hasn’t been all that you expected it to be.  Late nights, lots of crying, poopy diapers, and runny noises. But do you really turn to alcohol to cure the stress?

On any given evening, a young mom is entitled to a glass of wine at the end of a long day to wind down and enjoy some adult time. The problem, however, is that Good Morning America (GMA) says that mothers are double booking their social drinking with childrens’ playdates.

Think this is just a sick rumor?  Well, GMA recently visited a group of mothers in Florida for their Friday evening get-together. While we’d like to think these mommies got together and shared juice boxes with their children, they were more so onlookers enjoying their own
“juice”.  Children ran around the garden, playing and laughing, while they rang in the 5 o’clock hour with a glass of wine, chatted and watched on.

Kelly Donoghue, a mom featured on the GMA segment, said: ‘You have a glass of wine. You take off your shoes. The kids are having a great time … What’s better than that? After all, says Joelle Siek, a mother of three, it’s only a few drinks and friends while doing what we do best; being mommies.’No one’s getting bombed or anything like that,’ she said. The problem is when alcohol becomes a crutch for stressed mums.

In a recent survey by Working Mother, 40 per cent of mothers said they drink to cope with stress. Stefanie Wilder-Taylor, author of  ‘Sippy Cups are not for Chardonnay,‘ says while having a glass or two of wine is in now way an implication of alcoholism, the problem arises when one becomes dependent upon the alcohol as a means to suppress mommy-stress.

But it seems this phenomenon of drinking while baby-ing doesn’t just exist in the confinements of their homes.  No, it seems that these little kiddies are making their way into bars without even having fake IDs! In the GMA segment, Rory Haleprin, editor in chief of Time Out New York Kids, said: ‘A lot of people are going to local pubs where they can just sit with their friends, bring young babies.’ Jill Hoefs, who has taken her baby Aidan to the bar since he was two
weeks old, sees nothing to worry about. ‘He would just curl up in the booth with us. We’d be having dinner, having a beer and he’s just sound asleep in the booth,’ she told GMA.

Should we be concerned about this type of parenting or lack there of?

Do American citizens, bar owners, teachers, etc have the right to
protest babies in bars?

Topic of discussion…#babiesinbars! TAKE IT TO TWITTER…@askdro

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