childfree

Meh. It's one thing to not like children, but here this seems to have been your real problem:

my normal 20 min wait it was almost a 2 hours wait. I just walked out.

We, uh... live in a society. You don't get to feel entitled to be served at an advantage over other people. We all have to share all these natural resources and the labor of all these workers. But more people is not a bad thing. What's next, you gonna complain that all these immigrants are clogging up the line to the drive through, or that all these old people are making you wait long time at the doctor's office? Everyone is entitled to life. And in truth more people means more workers means more benefit to you and everyone on average.

Yes, you feel that this barber shop in particular was targeted towards adult audience with its shave service and whiskey bar, but apparently all those moms saw something useful in that service too, and more importantly they were all willing to pay for it. If this shop was so exclusive and upscale, then how could those kids even afford it? Yet they are customers too apparently.

I feel that way too sometimes, like when going to the movies - if I pay $20 for a ticket, how can all those kids in front of me cough up the money, when I remember paying $5 per movie as a kid myself? And yet they paid too, so we are all in there together. If I really didn't want to share space with other people, I could go look for a $50 movie theater with individual "bedroom" cubicles. As could you. You could outspend all those kids and find an even more exclusive and expensive barber service, by appointment-only. I'm gonna tolerate the kids and keep my money. 😂

As someone who has kids, it's a fucking Act of Congress to get child care. I wouldn't trust my parents to watch a potted plant, and her parents really aren't interested in the whole grandparent thing. Hiring a babysitter is both sketchy and expensive, and asking a friend is awkward since

1. most of our friends are nokids and/or not super comfortable around kids and our kids were deeply blessed by the ADHD fairy and have never met a stranger in their whole lives. And
2. We don't see our friends often, so "hey, wanna come over and watch our crazy heathens try to beat the shit out of each other every 3.5 seconds?" Is kind of a hard sell.

So, it's just easier to take them everywhere, and if we can't take them, we don't go.

I'm sorry that happened to you. Let the business owner know that all of those kids are ruining the vibe that you patronize their business for. Solving this problem could be as easy as the barber shop offering something like a kids day where they don't serve whiskey and instead serve lemonade or something, allowing that day to be the main kids day.

I think you don't see those adult only places much any more because to most they have outlived their usefulness. There are 2 factors behind this. First, there are far fewer children around nowadays than before. When everyone had multiple children, adult only spaces were necessary if anyone wanted to get anything done. The second, and honestly a great thing from a childfree point of view, is that between birth control and abortion, most people who do have kids genuinely want them. I suspect that most of the demand for those adult only spaces in the past was from people who were seeking peace from their own kids. Of course all parents need breaks from their kids, but ever noticed that the people who complain the most about their children are the ones who had them out of obligation rather than desire?

There are some people whose idea of compromise is when the other party does what they say. Note: that was something explicitly said in USA politics at some point, but I honestly see it on both "sides", and surely happens in many other places in the world as well. I've seen parents literally lift up urine-soaked & still dripping children from non-plastic seats, only to either not leave a tip at all or like a bare minimum 10%, while leaving ~50-fold more mess spread out everywhere than any other table in the place (and not even tell the servers about the urine, which would need special cleansers to not become embedded into the furniture). My point is that it is not the children - the innocents - it is the parents, who are inflicting their choices onto you. And I suppose the owner too, but they are customers and what, are they supposed to just turn them away? Like gentrification, they come in and you can gtfo b/c they own the place now (childification?:-P)

Oh wow, it just struck me how much your story parallels what happened on Reddit too... aside from spez's antics, I likely would have left it anyway b/c all the children were taking over there too (they definitely are in charge of so many Discord servers). You can fight back (talk to the owner), or you can leave (maybe there is a place to get a haircut inside of a place of employment, where children are less likely to visit? or perhaps if you travel further away?), but definitely pick your battles b/c the kids, and more importantly their parents, aren't going to disappear anytime soon - if anything, the sort that you are talking about seem to be getting bolder all the time.:-( Maybe this is why people go to country clubs, to filter them out?

if you wanna play pool and drink whiskey just go to a pool bar. i've never seen a kid at the billards hall i frequent

kids don't drink beer and play pool

kids get haircuts

@scrubbles not childfree getting involved 😭

anyway it's a mixed bag. on one hand I understand the business sees an opportunity to make more money, and people with kids do still need haircuts, but it does also suck ass to have your moment of peace taken away

I wish childcare was taken more seriously, maybe people would run errands without bringing their screaming children

Because most people have children eventually. The rest of us are in the minority. Businesses want as much patronage as possible, so they don't target us.

Bro... children are a part of life, unfortunately you gotta get used to that