Teens and Parents Drinking Together?

In My Humble Opinion
61

I grew up with the Greatest Generation Evah, where cocktail hour was always something seriously taken. Especially on vacation.

I would deliver drinks to any guests and sometimes have a sip. Manhattans were my choice favorite. Beer wasn’t something you would find at our house. Wine was unheard of, dunno why. maybe it was too fancy. Whiskey and the assorted liquors were. (Irish and Catholics all that was missing was a Bingo )

I have a distinct memory of riding my bike when I was about 13 up to the corner store, with a note and a $20 from my mom, to buy some Canadian club for a party that was about to commence and she was too busy with all the cooking. Try that now.

I remember drinking beer Red, White and Blue or Milwaukee’s Best in my 18-21 Quest for Fire days and getting a nice buzz, but going, Gah, this stuff sucks.. and eventually, when legal, would order a mixed drink at the bar, which impressed the guys for some reason. I hated bars: the noise, the smoke and the generalized Stupidity then, so those moments were pretty rare.

I never drank if everyone else was drinking, I was always the designated driver by my choice and still am.

I have a predereliction towards mixed drinkswhich I owe partly to my upbringing and mostly to Nyquil as a curative for what ails’ you in my youth., cannot stand beer, and am the only member of my family that likes wine.
It takes me about a year to drink a bottle of wine. I have enough problems with migraines, I don’t need to add to it all.

Within the last two years tossed out decades old bottles of miscellaneous booze ( gift stuff, mostly) because I was sure it had gone bad. ( dunno, really, never been opened. I needed the freaking cupboard to cram with other stuff that I will never use, but won’t throw away.)
I think introducing your teens to alcohol in a controlled but relaxed setting is more important that denying it too them because it is evil.

62

I agree, but in the interest of keeping parents “grown ups” - parents should not be the person to introduce the idea of “jello shots” to their kids.

There are certain things I’d rather my kids get into their late 20s or 30s before they clue into their parents even knowing about them (much less having any experience with them) - it adds an aura of respectibility to your parents. Jello shots are one of those things. I don’t want to be the person who explains to my kids that a dog collar is not just a fashion statement, either.

Parents need to walk some line between informing and exposing their kids to the world - naive kids aren’t good. But there are some things you need to learn from your friends.

63

Thanks for this post. I’ve been trying to put my finger on what makes almost more uncomfortable with someone giving their teen-age daughter a small mudslide or other tasty, not particularily potent drink. I think you’ve expressed it well. I’m not sure that allowing someone too young to drink legally a sip or two of something alcoholic is all bad. (I do think some people oversell the virtues of introducing alcohol to the young. Mostly I think they over-rate the likelihood that sampling small amounts with the parents around will protect them from finding drinking till drunk with the parents not around appealling).

Of course, my own background is relevant. I’ve had Grand Marnier and the like mixed with chocolate, and I’ve had wine several times. Almost all of that has been since turning 21, because my parents so seldom drink wine that offering a sip any time they had wine would have only netted me a handful of sips. (I’ve never had wine that I actually liked.)

Alcohol in moderation is OK, alcohol not in moderation is not OK, things which make it (too) easy to enjoy the flavor and make the alcohol unobtrusive make me squirm.

And I had to laugh at the minister of the church I went to who told the following story:

Whenever children are summoned to the front of the church and offered a microphone, I can just envision their parents bracing themselves for what will come out of the child’s mouth. I want to assure you, parents get a free pass for whatever embarassing things their child says under such circumstances. I still recall the reaction when my son announced that Daddy burps really loudly when he drinks beer. The fact that the beer was ROOT beer got lost in translation.

The story amused me both for the “kids say the darndest things” factor, and for the haste which the minister made to assure us that he only drank Root beer. While it doesn’t appeal to me, I fail to see the problem with drinking a Beer while watching football, or after mowing the yard. Drinking lots of beer? Yes, that’s a problem. But surely even the minister can be allowed an occasional beer in front of his child without being strung up.

(Note: there are churches which believe all alcohol is bad and require their members to denounce alcohol. My church is not quite so firm on that position, but is certainly not going to promote the use of alcohol, even in moderation. )

64

It’s worth mentioning that there are churches where the communion wine is… well… wine.

65

I see what you’re saying here, and I don’t *entirely * disagree, but seriously… do you have any teenagers? And if so, have you *met * their friends?

I agree that jello shots is something your friends should introduce you to. But frankly I don’t want my kid meeting the jello shots until she’s learned something about responsible alcohol consumption, and it’s MY job to teach her that.

After all, I’m not going to teach her how to give a blowjob, but if she starts learning it from her friends before I’ve taught her how to use a condom, then I’ve been criminally remiss in my duties as a parent.

66

Yes, I know. And I once took communion with wine. I have no theological objection–but it isn’t what I grew up with, so it isn’t normal. Which is probably the other reason that offering a teen a portion of a tasty low-alcohol drink makes me squirm-- it just doesn’t feel normal to me.

67

I’m sure you realise though, that ‘normal’ is quite variable (not that this is a bad thing necessarily) - I recently moved from a Methodist church to an Anglican one and I did a serious double-take when glasses of wine were served along with the tea and coffee after the service (it was a special occasion), but that was just because I had been conditioned to accept a particular state of affairs as ‘normal’ (as I am now being conditioned to accept a different one).

What makes me squirm more than anything is how uptight people (not necessarily yourself, I’m speaking generally) can get about little stuff like a sip of wine, or an exposed breast, or something. The fuss is a bigger problem than the thing that triggers it.

68

My kids are seven and eight.

We agree perfectly. My job is to teach them about responsible alcohol consuption. I may choose to do that by allowing some reasonable experimentation at home. But that doesn’t include exposure to the idea of jello shots. Learning to drink responsibly from your parents and “hey kid, you want cherry jello?” seem like two different things.

69

Ok, now I know what your talking about! I was specifically talking about abusing alcohol, not just taking sips. That’s why I didn’t understand that comment. I don’t think it’s wrong to give your kids sips, or or introduce them to alcohol if you chose to. I wouldn’t because I don’t drink. I’m not a prude or think alcohol is evil, it’s just a lifestyle choice. It has nothing to do with religion, I don’t go to church.
It’s more of a health factor for me.

I said -

I don’t think by letting your kids drink it’s going to turn your kid into a raging alcoholic. I’ve just never seen any evidence that when a parent lets their underage kids drink at home it make them more responsible with alcohol.

70

Hoenstly, had you seen a study, I think it would be frought with problems. Lots of variables, social conditioning, attitudes on what is “right” and culture. We can talk about European cultures, but the U.S. ISN’T one, so data from there may not extrapolate. You’d have to weed out the genetic tendancies towards alcoholism. Family attitudes. What “responsible” home underage drinking IS (and since I’m guessing plenty of people would say NO home underage drinking is responsbile, you may have ethical issues.)

Anecdotally, I know three types of people:

People raised in strict households. They fell into two camps in college - weekend binge drinkers and those that stuck to their parents values. The weekend binge drinkers were scary.

People raised in exceptionally permissive party households. They seemed to come to college binge drinkers.

People raised in “responsbile use” households. They fell into two camps in college - weekend binge drinkers and those who stuck to their parents values. Anecdotally, it seemed to me that there were a smaller proportion of bingers in this crowd, but there were certainly bingers - and, unlike the first set, almost everyone drank.

I wouldn’t want to raise my kids in the second set. Either of the other two sets is a reasonable choice.

71

Are you asking me to explain myself, or are we simply in disagreement? Because I don’t think there’s anything wrong with not agreeing.

Dangerosa put it beautifully - I want to maintain a little distance, a little bit of respectability. I think that’s an important asset for a kid to have, an adult who’s got their back. Particularly when a kid is 17 years old.

If I’m a kid, too, a peer - what do they gain from that? It might give me some fleeting satisfaction, proving that I’m still cool, contemporary, young; but I don’t think the kid gains anything from seeing their parents act like their peers. I think it diminishes them.

IMHO.

72

As a matter of fact, here’s a great description what I’m trying to say, which WhyNot posted in another thread, about toddlers. Same thing is true of adolescents, though - they need someone who’s going to set some limits within which they can experiment and fail. Not someone to push the limits for them.

Of course, now that I’ve babbled all this, I’m due for a Major Parenting Blunder. Shouldn’t take me more than an hour :stuck_out_tongue: .