Life

Leona O'Neill: Wetherspoons has a point – drinking with kids just isn't approptiate

Wetherspoons has been criticised for reminding parents that there are laws about drinking in public but it's a sad state of affairs when some people need to be told not to get drunk in front their of kids, writes Leona O'Neill

I’m guessing this new rule isn’t for the parents who call in for a quiet glass of wine or a pint with a toddler in tow
I’m guessing this new rule isn’t for the parents who call in for a quiet glass of wine or a pint with a toddler in tow I’m guessing this new rule isn’t for the parents who call in for a quiet glass of wine or a pint with a toddler in tow

FORGET supernanny Mary Poppins, pub chain Wetherspoons knows that parenting is all about.

The world tilted off its natural axis last week when the famed and popular drinking emporium started giving out parenting advice, limiting parents to two alcoholic drinks each if they have their children with them.

The rule emerged when a pub landlord in Gravesend, Kent, put up a poster publicising the guideline which applies in its pubs throughout the UK. They say it was designed to deter ‘unruly behaviour’ by children – anyone under the age of 16 – left unsupervised.

In 1902 it became a crime to be drunk in charge of a child under the age of seven in a public place. If you break the rules, you can be fined or face up to a month in jail.

The poster read: “As part of our licensing it is our responsibility to ensure that we are protecting children from harm. Therefore adults in charge of children will be allowed to have one alcoholic drink and a further alcoholic drink with a sit-down meal.”

After the news broke, social media went crazy. Parents accused the pub chain of policing them. Even parents who wouldn’t frequent Wetherspoons expressed their displeasure at being told how much they were allowed to drink while in charge of their child.

I would imagine that the new rules are half about stopping youngsters from running amok in bars and half stopping parents running amok in bars. Anyone who has been in a bar at any time would know that they are not really places for children. They are places where people are socialising and paying the person behind the bar to get them drunk.

If you’ve ever been the designated driver or indeed just don’t drink and are standing around a pub watching everyone around you get plastered, you’ll know what I mean. People get loud, lose their inhibitions, become irrational, their reactions slow, as does their attention, people argue and people fight.

When you’re drinking you are not as aware of dangers to yourself and certainly not to a child who is running about unsupervised among other drinkers in a strange place, possibly sampling the refreshments or heading out the door on to a busy street.

I’m guessing this new rule isn’t for the parents who call in for a quiet glass of wine or a pint with a toddler in tow, more for the parents who think nothing of sinking eight pints and handful of whiskey chasers and stagger home using the pram to hold them upright.

If it’s a creche you’re after, Wetherspoons and, indeed, any pub is the wrong place to be looking. Good creches tend not to have slot machines and five-shots-for-a-fiver offers – that’s a good starting point when looking for somewhere to place your beloved child.

I realise that we all feel that our kids often will drive us to drink at times with their antics, but maybe sort out the childcare first before you hit the bottle. I genuinely find it incredible and a little sad that Wetherspoons need a policy to stop parents drinking while they are in charge of them.

I think most parents aren’t stupid. They will know that it’s a bad idea getting smashed while in charge of their kid. But what also needs to be taken into account is that they are parents and as such are the masters of negotiation and kings and queens of finding loopholes.

If Mum doesn’t drink, does that mean Dad can have four pints, her two and his two? Is it two pints a day or two pints per sitting? If I have two pints here and go to the pub across the road for three pints, can I come back here for another two? What about if I wear a fake nose and glasses to order my third pint?

A lot of people called the move another step towards a ‘Nanny state’, but it is a rule that has been born of something, that has come from some experiences, presumably bar staff seeing parents in a state.