Underage Drinking With Parents
Posted by casey on 06-30-2008
Last week’s issue of TIME had an article about underage drinking, hard-core drinkers on college campuses, and parents who drink with their teens. Since I am on the brink of the legal drinking age, the article was a very interesting read, and the drinking with parents part really struck a note with me. The summer before high school, the mother of one of my childhood friends bought a variety of alcohol, then sat down with her and essentially got her drunk. The mother said it was to prepare her daughter for high school, to let her know her limits, and to acclimate her to the taste of alcohol. Unsurprisingly, the whole experiment backfired when her daughter began spending weekends (and many week nights) binge-drinking.
On the other hand, I know many kids who were grew up in homes that banned alcohol and were raised to believe that alcohol was a gateway drug sure to lead to heavy drug use and eventual downfall; after discovering that alcohol had no immediate spiraling effects, they are now also very heavy drinkers.
From the TIME article:
So [recent] data indicate there are fewer young drinkers, but a greater proportion of them are hard-core drinkers. Parents have helped create this paradox. Many parents seem torn between two competing impulses: officially, most say in surveys that they oppose any drinking by those under 21. But unofficially many also seem to think kids will be kids–after all, not so long ago, they were themselves drinking as teens. A few of these parents have even allowed their kids to have big drunken parties at home.
But there is a better way. At first it sounds a little nutty, but you might consider drinking with your kids. Incongruously, the way to produce fewer problem drinkers is to create more drinkers overall–that is, to begin to create a culture in which alcohol is not an alluring risk but part of quotidian family life. Of course, that’s a mostly European approach to alcohol, but there’s reason to think it could work here. And it may be the best way to solve the binge-drinking problem.
I believe that creating a persistent presence of alcohol – with a glass of wine at family dinner here or there – sounds like a way to establish a healthy relationship with alcohol. Completely banning it, or reversely, encouraging over-consumption is bound to spark a tainted life-long relationship.
To all of the parents, young adults, and, youth experts, what do you think?
Categorized under: Youth Marketing
June 30th, 2008 at 11:37 am
This is so funny, because I was thinking about this the other night. I’m in a creative writing group where we free write off of prompts and the prompt I was inspired by happened to be a cork. I wrote about the teenage obsession with getting buzzed/drunk and how for me it was all about Andre pink champagne and wine coolers.
I do think that when drinking is normalized as in some European countries, it does seems to encourage more moderate drinking vs. drinking to get obliterated. Still in our abstinence-only loving culture, I don’t see this happening anytime soon. Instead of forbidding the substance, the education message needs to be about our relationship to the substance — how much is too much, what is problem drinking, impact of drinking on your body/brain, etc. My two cents…
June 30th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
when I was growing up, my parents kept the liquor in the lazy susan in the kitchen. At holidays when all the grown ups were drinking wine, my brother and I got wine coolers (1/2 inch wine and lots of high fructose corn syrup)
By the time I got to high school, alcohol wasn’t that exciting. My parents linked it holidays and special events, but never locked it away.
When I got to college in 1998, there was definitely a disparity depending on your prior relationship with alcohol. Kids whose parents locked up the alcohol definitely did more of the heavy drinking than those of us used to having it around.
June 30th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
We had a rooftop deck on our house, accessed by a spiral staircase, when I was growing up. When I was a senior in high school, my folks took me up there and offered to make me a drink – a stiff one. Another followed. My dad asked if I wanted another, and told me to go downstairs and make it. He came in a minute later to find me sitting on the top step.
“Did you feel drunk sitting down?” he asked. No, I answered. “Remember that next time you have a drink and think about driving. I’ll pay for a cab, any time.”
That lesson has stuck with me for life. I like the approach that teens have the chance to have a glass of wine or a single drink over dinner or while watching a game, accompanied by the occasional words of wisdom. Forbidden is too tempting, and parents look like hypocrites if they don’t do what they preach.
July 1st, 2008 at 2:21 pm
I’m 23 years old. I lived at home until I was 17 (almost 18) and moved to campus for college. To this day, I have never seen my mom drink alcohol and we’ve never had alcohol in our house. I don’t know if I’m one of those rare cases or not, but I think because I wasn’t around it at home AND my didn’t make a big deal about it (don’t you dare drink!), I was never really motivated to drink.
In my later high school years when I got my first “real” job I worked with a lot of kids my age and in their early 20′s. They ALL drank alcohol and either smoked cigarettes, or weed (or both). I never indulged in any of it, just politely declined. And I think because I wasn’t a prude about it and didn’t give them a hard time, I wasn’t an outsider (I definitely disapproved, but what good would lecturing do?).
I didn’t have my first alcoholic drink until I was 21 and I didn’t even enjoy it. And even now, it’s a rare occasion that I’ll drink. I never understood why people made it such a huge part of their lives. Why you had to have fun to drink. Why you couldn’t relax with alcohol. I still don’t get it.
Perhaps my nature, and my mother (nurture) combined in such a way that when it comes to alcohol I’m just kind of “eh” about it.
October 20th, 2008 at 10:59 am
the only thing about drinking with your parents is that it cuts you off from hanging with your friends; you don’t even feel like going out anymore.
you have more fun at home downing shots and listening to traditional polka and/or russian folk music =)
and when your grandparents are around, THEN the real party begins.