<p>spideygirl - I don’t think of myself as a superior parent or my D as an angel. In fact, I even suggested that she might decide to try drinking because I can tell she is curious. I was just trying to say that parents have to give their kids the information they need to keep themselves and others safe. Many teens will decide to drink, no matter what type of household they are brought up in - I just think it’s better if kids know that their parents are not going to totally freak out if they get a phone call from their teen saying he/she (or the kid who drove him/her) was drinking and they now need a ride home. I would rather my D know she can call me without worrying about being punished than be afraid to call because she doesn’t want to get in trouble or get her friend in trouble. I have to say, many of the parents around here know their kids drink. I’m not saying they condone it necessarily, but it is not a secret. Most of the parents have made rules about no drinking and driving, and the kids seem to be ok with that. Maybe I’m being naive - but I certainly hope not.</p>
<p>hops_scout: Your assertion that a greasy fast food burger has more health benefits than a glass of wine is laughable. Really laughable. So laughable that when I read it, my mouth actually dropped in surprise that someone would say that and not be joking (and, by your tone and subsequent defense of the post, I assume you were not joking).</p>
<p>Also, you say “why take the risk” of a young person drinking. That’s true, you may not want to.</p>
<p>But it is morally presumptuous and not your place to make those risk/benefit decisions to others. Full stop. Not your body, not your kids, not your choice. End of discussion.</p>
<p>A couple of other general comments:</p>
<p>mini, you’re so neo-prohibitionist it’s laughable. I’m also still waiting on those statistics regarding European drinking problems, which I’m beginning to think, based on your failure to show them, that you don’t have.</p>
<p>Finally, about MADD: I think they’re the worst organization involved in the alcohol debate nowadays. They did a great thing, originally; drunk driving needed to be made taboo, and it was. It used to be societally acceptable; now it’s frowned upon heavily. Great.</p>
<p>But the organization nowadays is incredibly neo-prohibitionst. Reading the propaganda and other crap they spout about the evils of alcohol is sickening. A yardstick of how bad they’ve gotten is this: MADD’s original founder left the organization and called them “neo-prohibitionist”, citing that as the reason she left. I really, really dislike MADD.</p>
<p>It depends on the family and kid. My family including my father and DH do drink but they never had any problem, absolutely none, not even throw up, nor violence.
I drank modesty when I was teenager(stealing my brother’s drink at night club). My family also does drink wine on a regular basis, almost with every meal. Kids are allowed to taste some fo our wine if they want to. In fact, I always cook with wine and alcohol. Food just tastes a lot better with wine.
For example,this afternoon, I served onion soup which has white wine in it (the youngest one did not like the taste and ate something else). They finish off with pears stewed in red wine sauce. So yes technically it’s considered underage drinking. Is it illegal? I hope not.</p>
<p>Great topic. It’s really worthwhile to address the changes that come with age and maturity with regards to the decisions our kids end up making about their bodies. </p>
<p>My position has always been that it is illegal and immoral to drink while under the legal age limit, and it sets a horrible example for your children if you permit them to do so. There are, of course, a few exceptions - I let my kids drink the church wine when they take Communion, for example. Also, my 12-year-old is just starting to learn how to drive and I usually let him have 3-4 beers before he gets behind the wheel, to calm his nerves. But other than that, my wife and I have made our position on alcohol very clear and hold our kids to the same stringent standards of self-control that we assume for ourselves.</p>
<p>To those of you who feel that MADD is such a bad thing/organization - I certainly hope you never have to experience the life long pain of loosing a child (or any other family member for that matter) thanks to a drunk driver or drinking - or end up caring for someone with life long injuries or maimed because some stupid person decided to drink and drive.</p>
<p>To the OP - in our home - we have allowed our college kids to have ‘a’ drink or 2 at times - but they can’t leave the house afterwards and they know this before hand. We have wine with a meal - a beer watching the game - but that is about it.</p>
<p>“Moderate drinking of any good liquor is healthy.”</p>
<p>Risk of cirrhosis and liver cancer rises at less than one drink per day. </p>
<p>“The change in drinking age has had little impact on whether or not 18-21 year olds drink (anyone whos been to any college campus will confirm that).”</p>
<p>Demonstrably false. We have excellent data from the University of Michigan’s “Monitoring the Future Survey”, begun in 1976, and the specific impact of change in drinking age in the early 1980s on those under 16, those under 18, those under 21, in college/not in college, male/female, broken down by race and ethnicity.</p>
<p>Here’s at least one study that shows more binge drinking in Europe than the US: <a href=“http://www.udetc.org/documents/CompareDrinkRate.pdf[/url]”>udetc.org;
<p>“They finish off with pears stewed in red wine sauce. So yes technically it’s considered underage drinking. Is it illegal? I hope not.”</p>
<p>This is fine in any case as any wine or other alcoholic beverage used in cooking (if it’s cooked with the food) will lose its alcohol quite quickly has alcohol as a low boiling point. Any traces left over are next to nill and won’t have any impact. For example, all those flavor extracts used in baking are almost always near pure alcohol… but it all evaporates during baking. Furthermore, remember that when you bake bread the yeast not only produces CO2 (to make the bread rise) but alcohol too (hence how alcoholic beverages are made) and that too evaporates during baking. </p>
<p>“Risk of cirrhosis and liver cancer rises at less than one drink per day.” </p>
<p>Mini, if you want people to take you seriously, you have to back up such claims with specific citations of peer reviewed studies stating such things. Show us a proper study that shows that otherwise healthy individuals who have a glass of red wine a day have higher risk of liver cancer. Previous posts cited stuides in the New England Journal of Medcine and other notable journals showing a 25-40% reduction in many (mainly heart) diseases in those that consume such levels of alcohol. As such, people aren’t going to take silly off the wall cancer claims seriously unless you can also back them up with proper peer reviewed studies published in respected journals.</p>
<p>Mini, this bogus cancer claim scare tatic (that you’ll increase you’re risk of cancer with even less than a single drink a day) is silly and illogical. </p>
<p>Yes, those with cirrhosis of the liver have a signifigantly increased risk of cancer. In almost all cases this cirrhosis is caused either by a hepatitis infection or HEAVY drinking. Are you actually suggesting that someone will develop cirrhosis from a single glass of wine a day? If someone in this catagory suffers liver damage from a glass of wine a day then they’ve got serious health issues that are unrelated to the drinking (their liver would then be just as easily damaged by, say, a normal dose of Tylenol).</p>
<p>It’s well established that moderate alcohol consumption can be part of a healthy lifestyle (others have posted plenty of respected evidence to support that). </p>
<p>There has been a lot of good dicussion taking place on this thread regarding parenting and alcohol; however, it doesn’t help when people use bogus and illogical scare tatics like 'if you drink even a little bit it might give you cancer!"</p>
<p>See, remember when I said that mini was neo-prohibitionist?</p>
<p>It’s worth noting that (as I recall) he works for the government in alcohol policy research or something along those lines, and so would presumably have most of the information available to him. Unfortunately, instead of providing it, he chooses to make vague and likely over exaggerated pronouncements.</p>
<p>limomof2: “spideygirl - I don’t think of myself as a superior parent or my D as an angel.”</p>
<p>I stated in my last post that I didn’t think these things.</p>
<p>limomof2: “I just think it’s better if kids know that their parents are not going to totally freak out if they get a phone call from their teen saying he/she (or the kid who drove him/her) was drinking and they now need a ride home.”</p>
<p>Common sense - I agree 100%.</p>
<p>limomof2: “Maybe I’m being naive - but I certainly hope not.”</p>
<p>I think all parents hope the same for themselves.</p>
<p>1of42: “But it is morally presumptuous and not your place to make those risk/benefit decisions to others. Full stop. Not your body, not your kids, not your choice. End of discussion.”</p>
<p>What a ridiculous assertion. It certainly is a reasonable point for debate that any activity which could could cause harm to others may be regulated by society. Drinking and driving, smoking weed and operating machinery 48 hours later (as THC is not water soluble, it combines with fats and stays in the body for a much longer time than alcohol) are two possible examples of this.</p>
<p>I am 20 years old, turning 21 in exactly 2 weeks. For the first time in my life I appreciate the law that prohibits drinking under the age of 21. I am an alcoholic. yes, I am young, but I’ve done enough research to know that there is no “moderation” out there for me. Growing up, it was hard to get alcohol. My parents NEVER allowed me to have any (most of my family are recovering or practicing alcoholics), and I just thank God that I wasn’t able to go out and buy it. I was drinking enough in secret. I can’t imagine what would have happened if I could have gone to bars or bought alcohol. Then i would have also been driving. Eek. I took a trip to Europe a while back and boy was that a disaster.</p>
<p>When I turn 21, I never plan to buy/indulge in alcohol. </p>
<p>I know people have this “as long as you don’t drive, getting drunk doesn’t hurt anyone but yourself” attitude. But if “getting drunk” happens frequently, it tears apart families and ruins jobs and relationships.</p>
<p>spideygirl, if weed made you high for 48 hours, I would be smoking a lot more of it.</p>
<p>inexperienced with alcohol is the cause of drunks. yeah right. Drunks can take way more.</p>
<p>OP here…
I’ve read the whole thread with interest. Some comments (and clarifications for those who only read the first and last pages of a thread)</p>
<p>If serving wine and beer in the home to one’s own 18 year old children were legal in our state, we’d do it. Our sons have had alcohol, with us, where it was legal to do so (Europe, etc.)</p>
<p>Upon reflection, in our home we’ll continue to abide by the law of our state, and not serve alcohol to our kids.</p>
<p>I have no illusions about the behavior of my boys when they are not in our home. We talk about drinking a LOT, with the emphasis on not getting stupid, not drinking and driving, and taking care of friends. Hopefully the much-repeated message has sunk in. </p>
<p>I’m not telling others to do what I do. However, in our society we do have the mechanism for legislating the behavior of others. So I hardly think that’s a wacky idea. </p>
<p>I hope all the younger folks on this thread make good decisions and stay safe, and I share the hope of all the parents that our kids make it safely to the other side of 25.</p>
<p>Take care.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well. Firstly, I was referring to the part of hops_scout’s post where she pointed out that alcohol could influence the mental development of an 18 year-old and asked why one would take the risk of some adverse effect, small as that risk is. I pointed out that she was welcome to that opinion, but that she could not force it on to others, since if another person wants to risk slower mental development, that is their choice. That disagreement was never about impaired operation of machinery, or drinking and driving.</p>
<p>Now, as for the whole THC impairing you 48 hours later: wrong. Dead wrong. If you can show me a reliable study showing that THC is in the body at impairment levels 48 hours after smoking, we can have this discussion, but that assertion is crap, basically. Yes, THC is fat soluble. But that doesn’t mean you get high for 48 hours after smoking a joint. It just doesn’t happen that way. 48 hours after a joint, there will still be THC metabolites in the body, but that does not result in impairment.</p>
<p>Want to know how I know? I play a sport in which I require extraordinary precision. The most relevant thing to say is that it requires me to be able to regularly hit a 1.5 inch ball into an area about 20 square inches, from 15-20 feet away, to be good. When playing, I can tell if I’ve had even so much as a single alcoholic drink - impairment is that obvious and translates that quickly into performance differences. However, 48 hours after smoking marijuana, guess how much performance impairment I experience? None.</p>
<p>But in terms of non-anecdotal evidence: [Erowid</a> Cannabis Vault : Cannabis (Marijuana) & Driving Impairment Executive Summary](<a href=“http://www.erowid.org/plants/cannabis/cannabis_driving4.shtml]Erowid”>Erowid Cannabis Vault : Cannabis (Marijuana) & Driving Impairment Executive Summary) suggests that the period of full THC impairment is only about 2 hours after smoking. It also suggests that in real operating conditions, impairment is much less pronounced than in artificially constructed tests.</p>
<p>Furthermore, repeated studies have shown that detectable impairment and psychoactive effects last only 2-3 hours after dosage, for smoked cannabis. I have the citations, if you’d like them. Or, you could read the book Pot Politics, by Mitch Earleywine. He’s the head of the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws, and the book contains a collection of essays on topics like addictiveness, driving impairment, as well as arguments for and against marijuana legalization. It also contains significant surveys of the literature. Would be worth your time to read, since much of your argument here rests on misconceptions already disproved by researchers.</p>
<p>Parents - we can all be writing on this thread on what we think is right or wrong about alcohol, drug and sex. But at the end of the day what is important is how we communicate with our kids. Many parents here have very strong views about alcohol and also have some very bad information about effect of it. Very negative response coming from some younger posters here could reflect what some of your kids are thinking. It is one of many reasons why kids tune parents out because most of the time they think we are rediculous. Yes, I could already hear some parents out there writing very fast about just because kids don’t like it, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t enforce it because someday they will appreciate it.</p>
<p>Scare tactic doesn’t work with our intelligent next generation (if worked well with me, but I didn’t have internet when I was 18). I would opt for raising driving age than drinking age, but I think it would inconvenient most parents because we do enjoy having our 16-17 year olds drive themselves to and from parties(after all, we all have things to do on weekends too). It frankly amazes me that some parents would allow their 14-17 year olds hitch rides to/from parties with older kids.</p>
<p>BANDTENHUT: “spideygirl, if weed made you high for 48 hours, I would be smoking a lot more of it.”</p>
<p>LOL. It doesn’t make you “high” for 48 hours, but there is enough THC left in your system to measurably effect things like decision-making, and the brain’s ability to accurately perform quality control over that decision-making.</p>
<p>Additionally, if you smoke three of four times a week over a period of months, your brain can store enough THC in little fat globules to stay with you for up to two years. No - don’t get excited - you won’t be “high” for two years. Measureable effects happen because of that THC presence in your body (other examples are slight impairments in motivation, ability to delay gratification, increased impulsivity, etc.).</p>
<p>spideygirl, mind citing studies that confirm those assertions? I did a quick survey of the literature I could find after I read your post, and everything I found said that noticeable impairment stops after approximately 3 hours.</p>