Welby in the Doghouse

In My Humble Opinion
1

And doesn’t think he deserves to be.

My son and I participate in medival re-enactments and foam fighting. Occasionally the group we are in has a campout. The campouts are times for the group to spend a weekend camping in the woods, beating the hell out of each other, and drinking a little beer as night falls and the campfires grow large.

I took my son with me to the campout and let him consume, over the course of the entire evening (say, 7 PM to 2 AM) three beers. I allowed this for several reasons:

  1. I don’t mind, and don’t think it’s unhealthy, for him to have a beer every now and then.

  2. He was in a controlled enviornment. I was there, and several other responsible adults were there as well. I have known many of these people for 10 years or more. There is no possibility of him driving somewhere, getting into trouble, or doing things that a few re-enactors enjoy that I don’t want him to do, namely smoke pot.

  3. I knew that there was no possibility of him becoming so drunk he could hardly stand, because I only brought a six pack, and there is no one there who would provide him with a beer without asking me first. In fact, most of the people in our camp wouldn’t even bother to ask me first, they’d just say no.

  4. If I hadn’t let him drink with me, it’s possible he would have snuck off to another camp and tried to get a beer or two himself. I doubt he would have been successful, because the club has rules about underage drinking and enforces them with an iron fist.

As it was, I placed ground rules for him that he won’t violate because he really enjoys both the re-enactments and the camping, and he knows that the first time he breaks them is the last time he camps.

The ground rules were as follows:

  1. He must eat a good dinner.
  2. Not more than 1 beer per hour.
  3. After the first beer is opened, he can’t leave camp.
  4. He must alternate beer with water or soda.

The boy, who’s head is occasionally not in the right place, mentioned to Mrs. Welby that I let him drink some beer this weekend.

Result: Me in the doghouse, and a threat that she won’t allow the boy to go camping if I’m going to let him drink.

Did I do something wrong? I can understand my wife’s fear that he’s going to become a raging 15 year old alcoholic, but I don’t think we’re in danger of that just yet. My son is relatively responsible and mature. If he wasn’t, I wouldn’t even take him out with me to the re-enactments, much less allow him to drink a beer or three there.

I tried to explain my thinking behind letting him drink a little there, but my wife would hear none of it. My feeling is that he’s going to drink as he gets to driving age and goes to parties with his friends. If it is a forbidden fruit, it will make it more likely for him to get stupid drunk with his friends because it’s seen as a big deal and he’s “fooling” us to do so. If it’s soemthign he’s done before, on a fairly regular basis, it won’t seem like such a big deal to him.

So chime in Dopers, and tell me if I deserve to be in the doghouse for this.

2

I know I had alcohol when I was young(ger) under similar sorts of conditions.

I think you did good, and that what you did was responsible and also showed responsibility to your son. Of course, wether or not he decides to keep that responsibility when he gets older is his choice, but one would hope that with good groundwork, the self control would stand.

3

Yes! Absolutely!

And is has nothing to do with your son drinking.

Listen very closely. This is her son to.

You had no right what-so-ever to make this decision about whether this child should drink alcohol without her input.

IMHO you showed an extreme lack of respect for you wife in not including her in this decision. The error wasn’t in letting you son drink a few beers it was sneaking around behind your wife’s back doing something that you obviously thought she would disapprove of. You need to get straight with this at some point because this kind of behavior starts the train of thought rolling, "If he’s lying to me about this . . . " and that is somewhere you do not want your relationship with your wife to go. I assume.

So let the drinking thing drop and apologize to your wife for sneaking around behind her back. then discuss this stuff with her before you do it next time. I can’t stress strongly enough. THIS IS HER SON TO.

4

Well, my first instinct was to say you’re doing the right thing by teaching your son how to drink responsibly (something more parents need to do, IMO). However, on second thought Degrance is right – this is something both parents need to discuss in advance and agree upon. Sorry.

5

I do think teaching your son to drink responsibly is a good thing. But I’m torn over the part with your wife. On the one hand, I think full disclosure is an important part of a marriage; on the other, sometimes having these little secrets from mom is an important part of bonding, especially between father and son, or at least I felt that way when my dad and I had them.

6

  1. I agree with Degrance - you can’t even discuss the topic at hand (i.e., underage drinking) without clearing the air regarding good communication regarding upbringing between Dad and Mom. Welby, IMHO, you are in the wrong here.

  2. Stofsky, it depends on what you regard as “little” - drinking has so many implications for families, that I would be careful. Even more importantly, Welby - if you had Stofsky’s thinking in mind when you did this then at least make sure that you and WelbySon are in agreement that what you are doing IS a little secret and should not be shared!!! Your son really didn’t help out your cause here, did he…

Best of luck - and be more careful on several fronts next time.

7

When I read the OP, my first thought was “Fifteen? I dunno…my mom didn’t start letting me have wine coolers until I was sixteen.”

Yes, I recognize the irony. Anyway, I don’t think you were wrong wrong, but I understand how your wife was offended by your making this decision without her.

Question: How did your son come to blab? If it was an “oh by the way”, then you really shouldn’t let him drink, because he’s displayed a lack of discretion. If Mrs. Welby was interrogating him, on the off chance that you’d let him do something “bad”, then there may be more issues between the two of you. Or three of you.

8

Welby1,

First of all, let me say that you cracked me up with the Euty song lyrics post. . . That was hysterical! :smiley:

With regards to your sons drinking, I am with you totally. I don’t think you necessarily had to talk things over with the wife. You have your own relationship with him that is different from the one your wife has with him. You should have seperate relationships (as well as a joint relationship - the one where your son recognizes you both as equal partners.) But, what son can’t remember doing something just with his dad . . . fishing, or drinking a first drink, or working on a car. . . etc. It is the first time that you were treated like an adult by your old man that you remember most, am I right?

It was with me anyhow. I’ll never forget when I was 14, my dad sat me down for “cut the bullshit hour.” We had some stuff to discuss (I think it was a failing report card) and he poured us both a glass of Jack Daniels. He said, “Now son, I’ve never been able to lie to anyone over drinks, and that’s all we are here, just two guys having a drink. Is there anything you want to talk about?” And we talked without any crap and I’ll never forget it.

Your son will turn out fine if you continue to prepare him for the responsibilities of life, instead of trying to protect him from them.

9

I can’t help but imagine a “Cut the Bullshit Hour” in which a son confesses, “Yes, Daddy, it was me who stole all of Mom’s lingerie, not Susie!! <sob>” where the bewildered father fervently wishes he’d never thought of such a thing. Ah, but enough of that.

Drinking does have a lot of implications. Not that its so much the drinking- the point is, I don’t think one parent has the right to override the other, just because they feel like it. It could have been the safest most reasonable thing in the world, but if both of you aren’t okay with it, then you shouldn’t do it.

10

I agree with those who said you really should have discussed this with your wife first.

I also think three beers in one night is a little much for a 15 year old. Were I Mrs. Welby I probably would have agreed that it would be fine to let Welby Jr. have a beer under the conditions you described, but not three beers.

11

When you get that phone call from the police at 2 in the morning and your teenage son was picked up for drinking, what do you think his answer will be when he is asked where he thought it was alright to drink? I was glad to tell the cops that he did not learn that from neither of his parents.

12

How would you feel if your wife had laid down the ground rules for sex with your son or daughter without discussing it with you first? If she had taken your daughter in for birth control pills, and given her some good, reasonable advice about with who, when, and how she should have sex?

What if your wife had let your son take just three tokes off a joint, under the same circumstances you discribe, without talking about it with you first?

13

Zoggie,

My father passed away 11 years ago. I shared a fond memory from my youth, and did not appreciate your comments.

Try the BBQ Pit next time you feel the need to flame, nitwit.

14

IMHO, Zoggie didn’t say anything at all offensive, just an ironic comment about a discussion that might go somewhere unexpected.

It was not a flame, it was not even directed at you. And calling someone a nitwit is against board rules.

Lighten up, Devorzhum. People often take others’ comments off on tangents around here.

15

Assuming I trusted my wife’s judgement that would fall into the category of a “very good thing”. :smiley:

16

Without even discussing it with you privately? Maybe I just have too much of a CYA mindset, but I would want to discuss such a thing in advance with my spouse just so that if everything went Horribly Wrong there wouldn’t be any undercurrents of blame floating around.

17

To each to his own. My post was partly in jest but only partly. Communication is important but trust is also. My dream is to meet a woman whose judgment I can trust and rely on without question to take care of important things and make critical decisions without a committee meeting at each juncture in the road, and hopefully she would place the same trust in me. To be able to say to someone “I trust you to take care of it” is almost more powerful in real terms than saying “I love you”.

But that’s just me and I realize this level of trust between real life individuals may only exist in my fevered imagination.

18

Big deal. So you let your son have a few beers on a camping trip. If I was in your shoes, my wife would be in the doghouse for raising a stink over something so innocent as father/son bonding.

Maybe that’s why I’m not married.

19

astro, I guess I don’t see trust someone’s judgement as meaning that you will always tend to agree with what they decide. I do think that a marrige works better if there are clear cut areas of responsibility–for example, in my household my husband makes all the decisions about the computers (which is alot of decisions in our tech-heavy household) and I make all the decisions about finances. We don’t have a comtitee meeting each month to decide how much of the Visa to pay off or what motherboard to buy. We do this because i’m good at budgeting and he’s good at reading tech specifications.

But childrearing is a little different. For one thing, it’s not something either of us is an expert at, so it’s not like there is any reason for one person to say “Ok, you’re the expert, IU’ll trust your judgement ahead of mine.” Second, I’m selfish–when we have kids, I want to be in on all the major, major decisions. Third, I believe that it is important that the adults in the family have consistient policies with regard to basic rules/policies. I do think it is good for kids to see that coming up with those policies involves a lot of give and take and discussion and talking things through, but that once those policies are set, they are set–there isn’t any need to worry aobut mom chewing you out for what dad let you do or vice versa. So if my husband were to lay down an entirely new household policy by fiat without ever having discussed the issue with me, I’d feel obliged to fall in line with that policy and support it, but it would leave me feeling manipulated and, well, bitchy.

Again, to each his own. But I don’t think that being irritated by such an action means that your marrige is inferior or lacking in trust or falls short.

20

I know I don’t have much in the way of reputation, this being my second post and all, but I wanted to throw my opinion in here.

I have to say that I think welby was doing a fine job on the camping trip. He evaluated the situation, based on his knowledge of his son, the people he was camping with, the location he was in, and the relative risk of letting him have a beer or two or three, and decided that it would be fine. As in loco parentis, I think it was probably something fully within the realm of his responsibility to decide. It’s more a question of who’s butt is in the hot seat when the question is asked than making a child-raising decision.

Now, we don’t know when these rules were laid down (is it something they have been doing for a couple years, or was this the first time, or what) or if he had taken a couple extra beers with the intention of giving him some. But I don’t think it’s something that the wife should get all annoyed about. She wasn’t there, and I don’t think that it’s good parenting for one to always run off to the other and huddle up before making a decision. And in the grand scheme of things, 3 beers is probably not gonna make a big difference.

But if there is one thing that should be learned from this, it is that you should keep your mouth shut. Is he learning that, welby? :slight_smile: