Beer or other alchohol served at a kindergarden festival - Right or wrong?

Great Debates
1

The summer festival at my daughter’s kindergarden is coming up soon, and I hear that the plans are pretty much the same as every year. Besides the clowns and skits and games for the kids, there will be a beer wagon provided by the local brewery and a cocktail bar run by some of the parents - just like every year.

I’ve always thought it strange that they would do this kind of thing on the kindergarden grounds. My wife was at a planning meeting last night, and asked why there should be beer, wine, and alcoholic cocktails at a children’s festival - she was nearly lynched for suggesting that these time honored plans be scrapped. Even the kindegarden director was somewhat put out by the question - it seems no one had ever thought to question the practice.

It seems that most of the folks around here figure the fathers of the kids won’t come to the festival if there is no beer, and that the cocktail bar brings in a good bit of cash for the PTA type organization the parents have going.

I checked today with the appropriate ministry, and was told that there is no law or regulation in Germany or in Rheinland-Pfalz (our state) prohibiting alcohol on school or kindergarden grounds.

Not everyone we know is in favor of alcohol at the festival. We have friends who are every bit as flabbergasted as my wife and I are. It just seems that everyone who has any say in the matter is for having beer available. The folks who are against it mostly come from other areas - one guy from Berlin, another couple from over by Leipzig. This makes it look like a very local thing.

I am an American, so maybe I’m seeing this with some kind of cultural blinders. I just can’t for the life of me understand the need for beer at this kind of festival.

I also can’t come up with any defensible argument against it. The whole idea just seems wrong, and I can’t really find words to say why.

So. Is there something wrong with serving beer and other alcoholic drinks at a kindergarden festival (take note: the kids most definitely do NOT get to drink this stuff,) and if so, what is wrong with it?

Or is there nothing wrong with having beer and cocktails on the kindergarden grounds and my wife and I need to get a grip and lighten up?

2

Personally, I think that the more kids are exposed to responsible, moderate consumption of alcohol, the more likely they are to grow up consuming alcohol responsibly and moderately. If alcohol is made out to be this mysterious, forbidden fruit that only adults get to be around, then you’re going to run into a lot more problems.

Assuming that you’re not going to have fathers vomiting into th etrash cans, weeping openly, or getting into fistfights at the event, I don’t see any problem with it. It does sound a little weird, but then, customs from other places often do.

Daniel

3

I’d just like to point out that Berlin and Leipzig were both in East Germany, where they had laws against fun.

You might want to take that into account when you decide whether to browbeat your nice neighbors over a little harmless imbibing.

4

It seems like a good idea to me, I wish the US were more reasonable about things like this.

5

They’ve been doing this for a long time. Have they had problems in the past with people getting falling-down drunk, vomiting in the bathrooms, and so on? If not, and there’s no reason to anticipate such problems, I can’t really think of a reason why I should object. If the families and the school are happy, I see no problem with it.

6

Oh yeah, and something I learned just this last year: you don’t mess with school tradition. Even if it’s incredibly bothersome and pointless and would be a lot less work and more fun if everyone just forgot about certain things and simplified a bit and relaxed, you don’t mess with it. So clearly a school tradition which involves beer is going to have to be pried from some cold dead hands before it gets scrapped.

7

It seems to me that the only real danger would be if the parents are getting drunk then driving the family home. Although, from what I understand, the penalties for driving under the influence are far more severe in Germany. Likewise if they were getting beligerant and disrupting any of the days functions. I assume that isn’t the case though and they are acting responsibly. IT probably does no real harm.

Personally though, I still wouldn’t want to be inebriated while at a function concerning my child. While they were with me (hypothetical, I don’t have children), I would feel that part of my responsibility to them is to keep them safe. That means making sound decisions if a danger were to arise. Say a fire broke out or something that required quick thinking. I would want to be at my best. Granted, thats an extreme circumstance. I would also want set a good example for the children, that, even though alcohol is accepted in society functions and causes no harm, it is possible to enjoy something without having to have a buzz on.

I grew up with two alcoholic parents and they chose to drink at just about every possibly place that allowed it, including places where there were a lot of children around. It never did any physical harm to me whatever. Still, from an emotional perspective, there are many days and events that I wish I could have experienced, without my parents being drunk at the time.

8

Mid-western American here;

Every Catholic school fair I have ever attended served beer and or hard alchohol. The ones I have attended in the past couple of years have included the raffling off of a children’s red wagon full of booze.

Going on at least 40+ years as far as I know.

I think you and your wife do need to lighten up a little. If you tried to push your agenda even here in the Mid-west of America they’ld probably be out to lynch you too. Maybe this is why American’s are thought to be prudes or puritanical in Europe.

9

I need to add that I’m not pushing any agenda. I questioned the practice because it seems odd. My wife asked at teh meeting because it seems odd to her. She grew up here in this very town and can’t see why it there should be beer at the festival.

For the life of me I can’t understand why there must be beer present for a few hours on a Saturday afternoon on the (state owned) kindergarden grounds.

I know perfectly well that it seems odd to me because of my own feelings on the matter. I don’t understand why anyone drinks beer at all, and I drink very little wine or other alcoholic beverages. The taste of alcohol puts me off fo one thing. Sone wines have a very nice flavor that is only marred a little by the taste of the alcohol. Mixed drinks can taste quite nice, although you can usually find a non-alcoholic drink that tastes the same - except for lacking the taste of alcohol. Beer is just nasty. I’ve yet to find one that tastes (or even smells) like something I want to swallow - and don’t even ask about cola-beer. Lots of Germans love the stuff. I consider it a waste of perfectly good coke.

I grew up in the southern part of the U.S. Arkansas, Louisiana, (southern) Missouri, and Texas. All of my male relatives drank beer. I could give a damn and care less about whether someone drinks - it their business. When we had family get togethers or friends of the family over for a party the grown ups would drink beer. No problem. BUT if we went to the state fair or a park or swimming or to a church or school barbeque there was no alcohol. Those were days for the kids, and the parents drank coke or sprite or what have you and played with the kids and had a good time.

So, yes, I know that it is my attitude the colors my perception. That’s why I’m talking about this here with you folks.

I think one of things that really bugs me about the situation is the most strenuous objection that my wife heard from the other women - “If there’s no beer, my husband won’t come to the festival.” Spending a few hours with the kids won’t get ‘em out of the house, but they’ll come a runnin’ for a beer?

Along with that, I’ve been to these fesitvals here before. The fathers tend to congregate around the beer wagon and lean on the counter like they were in a bar. Knock back a few beers, shoot the breeze with the guys, and pretty much treat it like an evening at the Dewdrop Inn. Never mind the kids want to show Daddy around the playground and that the kids have a little skit or play that they’ve put together. Nope. A beer with the guys is way more important. Or so it seems.

10

I read the OP thinking it was talking about a school in America, there does seem to be a lack of tollerance for drinking in and around american schools. But then I saw that the school was in Germany! I think the OP is lucky if they get away only with being linched by a mob :wink:

11

God lord they’re selling beer not playing Century Club. Likely it’s a beer or two, small talk with amongst the parents and then home.

Given your scenario a parent could never be allowed to have a beer just incase a “fire broke out or something that required quick thinking” happened.

12

A mob has just been dispatched by the federal beer drinkers’ union. :wink:

But seriously, offering beer on school festivals is pretty common here. Once in the late nineties my school’s principal decided that beer on the summer festival didn’t mix well with the alcoholic rehabilitation program in which they were in involved.
Let’s say the reaction was not exactly enthusiastic.
Keep in mind that the drinking age in Germany is 16, so for secondary schools this means that students will be drinking, too.

13

Well, I think in that case the problem isn’t so much with the question of beer, as it is with the parents themselves. Which isn’t going to be solved by the beer’s absence or presence, and there’s not much you can do about it. :frowning:

14

I wasn’t really talking about having a beer or two, that’s why I used the word inebriated. I just wouldn’t want to be drunk around my kids.

15

Well we haven’t even established that beer is a problem. So was it your intention to question the parental performance of these men from a single anecdote about a kindergarten festival?

Well no kidding. The problem is that no one has provided any indication that such drinking takes place. Given Germany has 0.05 as a drink limit; over the course of a 2 hr festival that’s about 2 beers.

16
  1. There’s no reason that you or anyone has offered why it shouldn’t be there; and
  2. Its presence makes some people happy.

Nobody said it “must” be there, but from their perspective, you’re coming in and bringing a strange and foreign attitude to criticize their harmless tradition.

Imagine if someone froma very conservative country came to your school district in Arkansas and helped organize a school fair. Udring the preparations they noticed that many of the women were wearing shorts, and asked why it was necessary that women be allowed to wear shorts at the fair. Why, they ask, couldn’t the women wear long skirts?

Betcha you wouldn’t be happy about their trying to impose their prudish value system on your community, either.

Daniel

17

As a non-beer-drinking German (I just don’t like the taste) I must confess that the idea of socializing at a festival of some sort is, im my mind, inextricably linked to the idea of drinking something. I usually go for wine, Spezi or mineral water. In these circumstances it’s not the substance that matters, but the ingestion of food/drink as a social bonding ritual (particularly among men), and beer is just what people are used to on a nice spring afternoon. They don’t see it as a problem because if the object were to get drunk they’d use spirits.

A lot of German breweries also have a line of nonalcoholic drinks; perhaps you could make sure that the beer wagon also serves those.

18

Mort, I think you’re definitely looking at this issue through a set of “American Temperance Movement” blinders. Even though you grew up in a milieu where men drank beer, still it was the Great And Glorious Bible Belt, and it was the standard assumption that Men drank beer–not little children.

And because of the strong cultural history of the Temperance Movement in America (wherein “temperance” was taken to mean, not “moderation”, but “total abstinence”), which it’s impossible to get away from, so thoroughly has it permeated American culture, you also find yourself disturbed by the mere proximity of alcohol to little children, hence your thread title, “Right or wrong?” To the Great American Temperance Movement, alcohol was intrinsically wrong (evil), and even its proximity to the innocent could be harmful. Children were adjured to not even go into a saloon, let alone go into one and partake of alcohol. My dad was raised a strict Temperance Methodist, and when I was growing up in the 1960s he wouldn’t even allow us to patronize a Chicago-area chain restaurant known as Lum’s, because it served hot dogs purportedly “steamed in beer”. The fact that any alcohol would have long since dissipated in the cooking was irrelevant–to him, alcohol was intrinsically harmful to children, they shouldn’t even be in the same room with it.

So I think you need to realize that your reaction to seeing alcohol in proximity to children is because of your cultural baggage, not because there’s anything intrinsically evil in having alcohol at a kindergarten “do”. As long as we’re not talking about the grownups being puking, brawling drunk (which it doesn’t sound like), I don’t see any problem with it. Different strokes, etc. And German culture, as you know, has a strong and unquestioned presence of beer and wine. Nobody has “issues” with customarily drinking beer or wine with a meal the way they have issues with it in the Bible Belt. I’ll bet that the men in your family who drank beer, did so “out back”, or in a bar, not sitting down with the family at Sunday dinner. Yes?

How did you manage to pick the one girl in Germany (who presumably grew up with the constant presence of alcohol and so one would think wouldn’t have any problem with it) who would be startled, American-style, by the presence of beer at a kindergarten bash? :smiley:

There was a similar flap when the Macon County Fair decided to add a beer tent a few years back. Horrified cries of, “But it’s a family event!” went unheeded, and now the beer tent is pointed to proudly by civic boosters as proof that the Macon County Fair is–a family event (“Fun for all ages! Beer tent for Dad, rides for the kiddies!”) Go figure.

And attendance is up. :smiley:

19

Grey, if you look at my first post in this thread, you’ll note that I have no objection to the beer. MF then said that his problem has something to do with the behavior of the parents: that there is a perception that dads won’t come if there’s no beer, and then MF’s own observation that the dads tend to hang out at the beer wagon and not with their children. Whether or not those perceptions are true, they have less to do with the actual beer as with the parents themselves–and whether or not the parents are less than ideal, MF is not going to be able to change their behavior one way or the other. Therefore my opinion is that the beer is unobjectionable in itself, and there is no point in expending energy on this issue-- the beer part or the parents part.

20

I’d personally be more enthusiastic about attending a children’s festival if I knew there’d be beer, and I’m a woman. If it brings parents out, makes them happy, and doesn’t hurt the kids, I’m all for it. And I believe you mentioned that the cocktail bar brings in a nice chunk of change for the school.

You have to pick your battles. Is this one worth picking?