When I was 15 and worked for a political campaign. Drinking coffee was just part of it. I don’t think my parents would have objected before this, but I much preferred tea. When I was 10, and living in Africa, my brother and I stayed with friend of ours from Columbia when our father was sick. They all drank coffee, but we didn’t like it.
I didn’t really start until grad school when there was a coffee pot, and not at home until I got married.
I was probably about 2 or 3 when I starded drinking coffee. I used to go to restaurants, and want coffee, bacon, and eggs.
I was probably 12. I grew up in the middle of nowhere and basically had to relocate with my Mom (who went back to school at that time) in order to attend a high school in the nearest actual town. We rented a little place during the week and would drive home to Dad on the weekends. Sometimes we’d stay through till early Monday morning before driving back into “town”. Those mornings were damn early, and sweet and creamy coffee made them more bearable. I still prefer it very sweet and creamy 22 years later.
As a kid, my mom didn’t allow us kids to drink coffee at home. However, when we went with Dad to his parents’ or the coffee shop, we got to drink coffee with lots of cream and sugar. His PA Dutch mother used to make “coffee soup” (coffee with cream and sugar poured over buttered bread) for Sunday evening supper.
I still like my coffee sweet and light.
I still haven’t started, and I’m 51. I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s and the common wisdom back then was that coffee was for grown ups, and if you were drinking coffee you weren’t drinking more healthy stuff like juice and milk, and that wasn’t good for kids. I don’t remember any of my friends drinking coffee at any time. And in my house, we didn’t even have pop except for pizza night…it was milk all around. My parents also weren’t coffee drinkers, though Mom would have tea, so I never got into the habit of even thinking it was necessary or normal. And even though now I’m hard pressed to give up my Pepsi or Coke, I’m kind of glad I’m not a coffee addict. My kids started drinking coffee when they were teens, but we didn’t have it in the house…they drank it elsewhere.
I think I was 15 or 16. I started mixing coffee with lots of milk and sugar at the Sunday Coffee Clache , so I only had it once a week. I also drank tea with milk and sugar starting at a younger age and more often than once a week. Eventually, I just started drinking coffee every day but it may not have been until I was out of high school. This would have been in the late '70’s.
I was 2 when I started sipping coffee from my grandpa’s cup while sitting on his knee. I remember when I was 3 or 4 getting to have coffee in restaurants when ever my dad had it, mainly on road trips. My mother doesn’t drink coffee so the waitress would put my cup in front of her and I would have to get it back. It annoyed me.
I made my daughter wait until she was 2 to start drinking coffee and I am making my son wait until he is 2. That doesn’t keep him from stealing my coffee spoon and sucking the coffee off that. My daughter is now 5 and she drinks coffee every so often, but not everyday. She is welcome to have a cup when we do.
And yet, she probably allows him to drink coke and maybe even red bull, both of which probably have just as much caffeine or more than coffee…:rolleyes:
I started drinking it when I was a sophmore in high school, way back in 1973. I had to start getting up earlier for school that year and I started making it for myself adn I always drank it black with sugar (still do). When my Dad saw I was drinking coffee he didn’t say anything, so I figured it was cool with him.
I had coffee milk a few times when I was a kid, but I could take it or leave it.
My son is 20 and he still prefers Mountain Dew.
College, doesn’t everyone?
I don’t drink coffee, but my husband loves it, and our kids started drinking coffee-flavored milk when they were toddlers. I think my 12-yr-old now has a cup of coffee with a lot of milk and sugar every morning with breakfast.
I started when I was five or six. Funnily enough, I drank it black from then til I was in my early twenties, then I started with the sweet n low.
Would have flunked college without it.
Once you realize that the paper you could usually do in thirty minutes is going to take six hours, and it’s due in ten hours, you start looking for ways to stay awake.
The first week I discovered coffee I drank it with everything. I had coffee with cereal (along side the cereal), coffee with pizza, and basically with every meal of the day.
I don’t remember when I had my first cup. However, I drank coffee VERY rarely until I was in my 40s. I finally realized that at my workplace the coffee was already paid for as opposed to the soda I purchased. So I switched to coffee at work. But I still rarely drink it elsewhere.
I started when I was 9 at my grandfather’s funeral, which was in 1984. After that, I drank coffee at all adult functions.
I think as long as someone is there to enforce moderation, it probably won’t do any lasting damage. That said, I don’t like that kids drink soda and coffee, at younger and younger ages. I’d prefer that my son not drink coffee or soda at all until he’s old enough to be able to exercise moderation. When I had coffee for the first time, I wasn’t careful enough to moderate it, so I was shaking and twitchy and had drunk 3 cups by the time my mom figured out what I was doing.
Never did. I don’t like hot drinks in general, and the taste of coffee is sort of burnt-tasting. I guess I could get same fancy-schmancy drink or put loads of sugar in it, but I’m mostly on just water lately. Pure and clean.
That’s one way to learn moderation, though. You drink too much coffee, you don’t feel good, so you don’t drink that much again.
As a kid, maybe 5 or 6, I remember begging sips of coffee off my mom at church. Lots of milk and sugar so it was a great kid’s drink. She told me that coffee makes you ugly but I didn’t care.
My favorite ice cream has always been, and will always be, coffee.
I discovered regular coffee drinking in the college cafeteria. It takes a true coffee head to drink that stuff. During those lean years I drank in the cafeteria, or instant coffee or maybe a “bottonless” cup at some cheap restaurant.
But I would say I really started drinking coffee when I traveled to Italy, then the middle east in my late 20s. Espresso, cappuccino, then Turkish and Greek coffee, oh my god. That opened the world of coffee to me. Now I drink a lot of regular old drip coffee and couldn’t imagine going a day without.
I remember being 3-4 years and drinking office coffee. Black coffee, cream, LOTS of sugar in the bottom. The type when you finish drinking the coffee, the sugar is like a slimy stuff slowly oozing out of the cup and into your mouth. Yummy!!!
So, yea, erm, ever since that young. And when I was in secondary school (12 and up) I sometimes made the coffee for my family (Puerto Rican style). And I still like it with lots of milk and artificial sweetener (I’m partial to Equal brands).
The thing is… I can stop drinking coffee and be OK. No problem… I don’t drink sodas everyday either, so I can go a week with minimal caffeine intake and not have a problem.
The downside is… I can drink a LOT and still be sleepy. I’ll have to drink a lot of very strong coffee to get an effect, which I don’t do often because I do not my coffee “puya” (black and unsweetened).
Too true. Though my grandfather’s funeral was perhaps not the best place to learn moderation with caffeine. I thought my mom would clock me after the bazillionth time I got up to pee during visitation. Thinking back on it, that situation would have worked perfectly in a sitcom.
When I was in India, my husband’s family and their servants were constantly slipping my 18-month-old son coffee. Drove me nuts. The poor kid was already having jet lag issues from a long flight; after the coffee, I thought his head would start spinning around. But he loved the taste. I still have to be very careful about where I put my coffee, even though he’s almost 3 now. Without supervision, he’d probably down an entire mug.