Beer Ettiquette question... (BeerForge Assemble!)

Saw the following in a local Hockey message board, and it generated a LONG thread of heated replies. Wondered what WF would think about it...

What say you, BeerForge?

Is the OP making a mountain out of a molehill? Should the Dad have bought him a replacement beer? Should he have at least offered to?

Nine bucks is a lot for a drink. I would've thought the guy would take some responsibility for his kid. But if the "victim" said it was all right and that it was an accident, then that's probably what caused the misunderstanding. Not to say the guy shouldn't have pressed the point anyway...

Hard to have any sympathy for a $9 beer drinking, hockey fan meat head, but regardless of whether "the victim" said it was OK or not, the father of the little bastard who spilled it should have voluntarily bought a new one without prompting or encouragement.

Yes, the dad should have bought the guy a beer. I would have if that was my kid.

I would have bought the guy a beer if it was my kid, but that's just me.

People are weasels, especially over a few bucks. I agree they guy should've tried harder to buy a makeup beer but it doesn't surprise me a bit he let it go so easily.

Also, it wouldn't have killed him to beat that kid a little bit. If he's thrashing around and spilling peoples' beers, both he and his parents are fucking up.

The kids father should have definitely offered to buy the replacement beer. What a major asshole.

Why didn't the guy just put his beer on the other side of him - away from the kid?

Kids are going to be kids.

No, the dad doesn't owe this guy jack shit.

Oh, hell no. I don't adjust around someone's unruly kid. The unruly kid adjusts around me, or his parents will fucking answer for it. "Kids will be kids" is only an excuse in the confines of your own home.

With kids, there's a 99.9 percent chance of something getting spilled. Doesn't matter if the kid is unruly or not. It's a fact of life. If you don't want your beer spilled or a vase broken or ... any damn thing else, keep it out of the path of children.

Yup. That's a phrase that's been used to excuse shitty child behavior and parental disinterest for far too long.

I don't think a stadium seat at a hockey game qualifies as standing in the path of children. By that logic, anywhere the kid chooses to go is "in his path," and I should never leave the house unless I've accepted having beverages dumped on me by children.

While I think it would've been nice if the Dad had at least offered to buy a replacement beer, I don't know that I'd say it's required by Man Law.

Look, the OP saw the kid moving around, and even warned him about watching out for the beer. So it is obvious that the dude knew there was a risk in leaving the beer there. He choose to leave it there, rather than holding it or moving it to a cupholder on the other side of him. So in effect, he choose to live with that risk, and got burned by it.

And if you want to get truly technical about it, it wasn't even a full beer! Dude said it was a "little more than half-full $9 draught". So he lost a little over half a beer.

I say...Apologize for the kid, throw the guy a fiver, scold the kid, and move on!

He should've ordered two beers and "spilled" one all over the guy and his kid.

I don't know about expecting to have a beverage spilled on you every time you leave the house, but the rest ... Yes, the world is full of children and even when they're trying to behave, they often make a mess of something.

As a parent, though, I'd feel some responsibility to make amends if my kids did something like what happened in the story.

How about learning to control your kids in public OR not taking them to places you can't control them? Sure. Kids will be kids and other people should recognize the dangers but parents have an undeniable responsibility for managing their kids in public places or not taking them there at all until they know how to behave.

And I say that knowing full well what it takes to control a couple of rowdy kids in public.

And/or use it as a teaching point on looking where you're going and taking responsibility for your actions. This is why I don't move when some house ape is running around a public area, not looking where they are going. If they run into me and hurt themself, maybe they'll learn to pay attention to their surroundings. Although I do stop short of actively checking them.

That people aren't brought up to pay attention to their surroundings is painfully apparent any time you step into a mall or supermarket or get on the highway.

I'm pretty much the same way, especially when I'm working.

Unless I'm actually shooting with it, I carry my camera slung over my shoulder so it's riding near my lower back area. I love to see the expression on the parents' faces when their kid runs into it because. The realization that their rug rat just jostled a piece of gear that costs more than a brand-new car is priceless.

Plus, the smaller kids almost always hit their head on the battery (to give you an idea of their size and mass, the slang term for them is "bricks"), so that's a bonus.

And it's the responsibility of the parent to watch them at all times, preventing incidents when they can and making it right when they can't. Unless I'm hanging around day care centers and elementary schools with 14thdoctor, at no point is there any implied consent to cheerfully tolerating a berserk child dumping shit on me.

That's a given. It may not have occurred to me to buy another beer (sorry, I don't always think in those terms), but then, I probably would have switched seats if the idiot couldn't be arsed to move his damn beer to the other side of his chair.

That's the reason we take them out in public, isn't it? To teach them how to behave around people who are not friends and family.

Yes, it is the parent's responsibility. But, like I said in another thread - kids get excited, and despite how many times you tell them to stop, they forget.

Eight years ago, I would have agreed with everyone here - kids should be able to behave like adults in public. Then I had my second child. People told me for years I didn't know how lucky I was to have such a good kid and I just smiled and nodded and didn't really believe them. But, after the second child was born ..., well, he's my punishment for being so judgmental against parents who can't seem to control their children.

Logic is not allowed here. We're talking about beer and hockey, woman!

That's why they have parents, for whom it should be the absolute top priority to confine their kid's ability to do damage. It this case, the kid was sitting right fucking next to his dad, and yet daddy couldn't pry his attention away from the game to take care of business.

What do I mean by take care of business? "Listen son, you will sit still over there, or you'll sit on my lap and I'll hold you still. If you don't like that, I'm taking your little monkey ass home in the middle of this game, where you will sit in the corner until supper time."

In the ideal world, guy number 1 would have offered to buy guy number 2 a beer, and guy number 2 would have said "nah, that's cool."

It's a fucking hockey game not a catholic mass. Jackass should have just moved his damn beer.

I don't think anyone here is expecting kids to "act like adults", but they do expect children to behave themselves in public.

And the number of kids someone has or the different "personalities" those kids have has has nothing to do with it. Despite our two kids both having much different personalities/behaviors from each other, my wife and I were constantly being complimented on their good behavior when they were in public or other social situations when they were little kids.

From an early, early age they were both raised to behave themselves around other people. Some close friends of ours, OTOH, have always been very lax with their kids and, as a result, those children are hellions in public. When they come to our house, I threaten to let our dog bite off their nuts if they don't behave.

They do, around us.

Did Skin miss a memo? When did there come to be a requirement that adults must accommodate anybody's spastic crotch-spawn at all costs?