Do most people keep it locked up, or just keep it in the fridge or a wine rack? What kind of liability do adults have in regard to kids having access to it?
Properly brought-up kids aren’t a problem around booze. It’s their crummy friends.
Well, the hard alcohol is in the cabinet above the refrigerator, because that’s really the most convenient spot. Beer is kept in the fridge, and wine either refrigerated or in the wine rack, depending on the type.
Our son (aged 9) knows that ‘adult beverages’ are for adults. I see absolutely no reason to lock it up, eihter now or in the future.
My parents never locked up their alcohol and we never got into it.
None of mine is locked up, nor was my mother’s. And, yeah, I got into hers and I suspect sooner or later my son will get into mine. Circle of life, and all that. The thing is, I’m not willing to set up an atmosphere of mistrust until he does something to earn that. I start out with the assumption that he’ll be sensible (including sensible and safe in his sneaking of my alcohol) and usually he lives up to that. If it becomes a problem, I may change my mind and lock it up, but it will be because of something he (or his friends) did to earn it.
My parents always had liquor/wine/beer in the house, and it was never any big deal. If I wanted a taste, I was allowed a sip. It was just the thing that adults drank, like coffee and buttermilk (my Dad drank buttermilk. Yuk.)
And yes, I drank before I was legal, but I never stole my parent’s liquor. I knew they were smart enough to find out, plus I didn’t want to drink what they drank - brandy and red wine was not a big draw for teenagers. In general, I was responsible with alcohol. Yeah, I liked having it, but I also knew it would make me sick if I drank too much and I avoided that.
The summer I was 15 I went to Europe on a school trip. My big memory? Taking care of all the other girls who parents were very strict with alcohol. They all got silly trashed every night, and I got to take them back to the hotel and get them to bed. I had to take one girl’s contact lenses out. Not much fun.
My parents never locked up the booze. We were always told it was off limits, as were cigarettes. For grown-ups ONLY! We never got into it. Well… okay, when my sister was 17, she was home from school with a wicked cold. She tried a single shot of brandy, but said it didn’t help.
Any underage drinking we did as older teens was with alcohol we’d managed to acquire on our own.
I had an alcoholic husband…we never had alcohol in the house, though. He did all his drinking elsewhere. After he left, and I realized my kids had a problem with alcohol, I never kept any in the house unless I hid it in my room. Now, I leave it out because they are adults…and they don’t touch it because we don’t have the same taste in liquor.
Vodka and light rum have become the drink of choice among my teen’s peers. They can put it in any ordinary bottled water container and no one’s the wiser.
What little liquor we have is unlocked, above the fridge. We’ve never kept more than two bottles of wine on hand, and when we used to have beer in the house it was either in the fridge or next to it on the kitchen counter.
I don’t know if it’s the best approach, but I’m pretty sure my teen knows there’d be hell to pay if she was ever found to have helped herself to the liquor cabinet.
Wow, you were wearing another girl’s contacts? Are you sure you weren’t drinking?
Ok, not particularly funny, but I couldn’t resist…
I remember when we were teenagers, we would raid my friend’s dad’s liquor cabinet. We’d play a game called “6/49”, a reference to the local lotto. We’d start with a random bottle and then move six over, 4 down, and then nine back, mixing all three as we went. Nothing puts hair on your chest like a blend of Campari, Yukon Jack, and Tom Collins mix… :rolleyes:
Beer, wine and liqor all are aquired tastes. Most kids don’t like them, too bitter and burning.
I would be more interested in how parents store away sweet, sugared, creamed liquors. Those are a lot more seductive to kids.
We don’t keep an awful lot of booze in the house, but there are a couple of bottles of wine in the rack, a bottle of brandy and another of sloe gin in the cupboard, plus a bottle or can or two of beer in the fridge occasionally - the kids know they’re not to touch it and, unlike some other things, they always seem to take the instruction quite seriously.
They do sometimes ask for tastes of beer or wine at the table and I’m happy to oblige - it helps to dispel the mystery of it.
Liquor is kept in a closet at my house. If our kids ever got into it, we never found out about it. I did find empty beer bottles stashed in my son’s room after he left home but he got those elsewhere, not from his dad’s supply.
When I was a kid I remember a huge bottle of vodka in the refrigerator that stayed there for years. (My parents weren’t drinkers.) I never got into it, and I’m sure my sisters didn’t, either.
The obvious answer is, “In their bloodstream!”
My parents didn’t drink when I was young. I did have a friend whose father had owned a bar and who kept his bar in their basement fully stocked. My friend and I would make “cocktails” by mixing Scotch, Gin and Triple Sec. (Similar to Maastricht’s strategy, but not so systematic.) I quickly learned to associate drinking with getting sick. That didn’t stop me though.
My son is probably too young to be interested in alcohol, but considering my personal and family history, I try to talk to him about it. If I do have alcohol in the house I don’t hide it or lock it up, but at the same time I don’t buy anything that lasts more than a couple of days.
:smack:
Now that I think about it, my parents did have a cabinet of “mixers” - things like Creme de Menthe and such. I didn’t touch that either. I guess I just knew that there’d be hell to pay if I stole their liquor.
My folks used to store their liquor in a disused gun cabinet.
Really.
<How do most people with kids store their booze?>
We stored ours in bottles. Mostly in the ones that were holding the booze in the store when we bought it.
The booze has always been in an upper cabinet in the kitchen. Kids were allowed one sip or taste of our cocktails and taught that those were adult drinks that were harmful to rapidly growing people. That one sip was enough to satisfy their curiosity and took away any temptation to discover the forbidden drink on their own. Most of the time they were amazed that we would actually drink something that tasted that nasty.
My kids were taught that they were responsible for keeping their friends out of our booze.
My kids are now in their late teens and are allowed a drink on occasion with the understanding that they don’t leave the house for the rest of the evening. They choose “getting out of the house” over “having a drink” about 10 to 1.
My parents never locked anything up, and always encouraged us to try whatever they were drinking. Of course, my brother and I both hated the taste of alcohol until we were 13 or 14 or so, at which point my parents would offer us a glass of wine if we wanted when they were having some too. My parents were always aware when we drank and were fine with it.
Actually, I have a distinct memory of having some friends over when I was 18 (legal drinking age here) and buying a bottle of vodka. My mom yelled at me the next day when she saw it - didn’t I know that they had a whole bunch of vodka here? Why wouldn’t we drink theirs? My brother and I still buy replacement bottles when we drink some of their alcohol, and it still drives them crazy.