My kids are now legal, and I am sure they drank before they were 21 -I know they did, but I didn’t serve them. Or their friends. Even though my kids are legal now, I would still not play quarters with them or want to “party” with them. A drink, yes, but not sit around getting drunk with my kids.

That suprises a lot of our friends because I am untra liberal, and I really like drinking.
.-= Paula´s last blog ..I Failed the My Little Pussy Test =-.

At the same time, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with drinking. I don’t agree with “teaching my son to drink” exactly, but I do think it’s important to set a good example. My son goes to dinner parties with me where the adults drink wine (or beer or whatever). I have no problem with that. I don’t want to treat alcohol like some big scary thing. BUT, in my opinion, taking your 7-year-old to a kegger and teaching him to play beer pong is an entirely different thing.

Beer pong is maybe not the most responsible way to drink. Nor is any drinking game. Sure, they can be fun (though I was never a fan personally), but they often lead to people getting WAY too drunk because they’re not in control of their intake. A ping pong ball, or some silly “drink/drank/drunk” rule dictates how much they drink and how often. Not the wisest approach.

My son, I’m sure, will discover beer pong and quarters and all that good stuff in high school just like the rest of us did. And I certainly don’t intend to send him out into that world without having some frank conversations about it. What bothered me in this situation, is that my ex taught him to play a game that almost guarantees drinking too much (which I don’t think he should have done in the first place), and then GAVE HIM ZERO CONTEXT in which to frame the experience. No explanation of the dangers of the game when played for “real.” (And my son even commented to me later that most of the people playing were acting “really strange.”)

I may be overly sensitive on this topic, but alcoholism is an issue in my family. My dad died at 47 from cirrhosis. My dad’s dad was an alcoholic, and his dad, and his dad, and so on and so on. And my ex has had substance abuse issues as well, though his were pills more than booze. So it’s important to me that my son is given a good example of responsible drinking, which to me does NOT include a ringing endorsement of drinking games from his father.

The upside to the situation is that my son and I had a frank conversation about the topic. We’ve had plenty before, since he’s asked numbers of questions about his grandpa and how he died. He knows that alcohol can cause severe health problems if abused; he knows that you shouldn’t drive if you’ve been drinking; he knows that drinking too much can lead to embarrassing judgment calls. But he also knows that it’s not evil… just that there is a responsible way to drink, and an irresponsible way to drink. And that, because it’s tricky and even a lot of grown-ups have a hard time knowing their limits, it’s an activity best left for adults.

Thanks for posting this. It’s a good topic and a tricky one, especially when your opinions on the matter differ from the other parent’s.
.-= Martini Mom´s last blog ..Mommy fail =-.

One other factor thoug ~ in many states, it is illegal to give alcohol to anyone under age. Even if it’s in your own home and they are your own children. So you may be teaching them that it’s okay to break the law.
.-= Cathouse Teri´s last blog ..Hauling Ash =-.