I wade into this one cautiously because i’m likely to be cast as either an out-of-touch old fogey (i don’t mind that label, btw)
or someone who’s beyond naive…but does the nonchalant attitude towards excessive drinking (and any drug use) by even the parents here at CC bother anyone other than me?
Case in point: A person will start a conversation in the X college thread about students drinking to excess (to the point of hospitalization, in some cases) on campus…and the most common reaction is “Hey, it happens everywhere” with the reaction, I guess, that because many people do it, it’s okay? Or expected? Or something that can’t be stopped so might as well go along with the program?
Every once in a while, a parent will chime in that their kid has managed to carve out a small but nice group of friends who don’t drink to oblivion…but it always seems to be a tiny exception to a very big rule.
Other times, parents jump in with, “well, big drinking starts in high school…it’s not surprising that it gets even bigger in college.”
And then the whole thing resolves itself with somebody literally always jumping in with a “well, the only place you can avoid it is a place like BYU” and then everything settles back down.
What set this off for me today is the story of the rave drugs at Wesleyan and the kids in critical condition…and even there, the reaction among some is “they must have gotten a bad batch.” Really? that’s it? The problem is that they didn’t manage to buy high-quality drugs?
Ugh. I have one kid going to college next year…another in two years…and it infuriates me to think that i’m going to be spending tens of thousands of dollars a year to send my kid to a campus where this happens? And, btw, it happens everywhere? Ugh. seriously.
There are as many experiences with drugs and alcohol as there are parents or students. My point of view is that it’s not the campus…it’s the student. With the exception of the service academies and religiously restrictive schools, the good or bad decisions are made by the student. And how well they are equipped to make the right choices is, to a certain extent, up to how you raised your kid. Hate to tell you, but they are now adults.
I am not a parent, but that attitude bothers me a lot too, including the threads that you mentioned.
For what it’s worth, if I were choosing a college again (I graduated college several years ago), I would try at all costs to avoid a school with a huge frat presence (my school had over 50%). Yes, you can carve out your niche, etc. etc. etc., but it doesn’t really work that way. None of my closest friends drank at all (all of them, except for me, did start drinking once they turned 21, so these weren’t people inherently opposed to drinking or anything like that), but it doesn’t mean the overall campus life did not affect me or them. We wanted to go out (mostly, dancing), not just stay in every Friday night/weekend, but when the entire social scene revolves around beer pong, heavy drinking, and frats, with very few people attending ‘alternative’ events, it definitely does affect you.
I think illegal drugs are just not OK. Period. I somewhat see the argument for legalizing marijuana to regulate it, although on a personal level, I would never, ever use it, and quite frankly don’t think it’s OK, but any other drugs, with the impact they have on people, no way. I don’t get any defense of illegal drugs.
I’m that “bad batch” person you’re talking about. I guess I don’t see why I should care if some people I never met have medical problems after taking something illegal. At pretty much any college there will be some amount of drinking and some amount of drug use, no one is ever forced to partake. If you’re worried about it that’s on you and your kids.
I don’t think it is a nonchalant attitude so much as a realistic attitude. Neither my husband or I drink. While our children were in high school (and therefore we had some influence in the development of their values and could monitor their activities) we instilled our values towards drinking and drugs in them. Additionally, they knew there would be consequences if we found them drinking. Once they moved off to attend college, we knew we had done our best to educate them and “form” them, and that we could just hope they would use good judgement and common sense. We no longer had daily contact with them or monitored their daily activities. We had no control over who they chose to spend time with, or over how other students chose to behave. We set a good foundation and can just trust that they act in accordance with our values. However, are not naive enough to believe that our children are perfect and will never experiment with alcohol and I have NO doubt that underage drinking does occur anytime there is a group of 17-20 year olds living together in close quarters. Yes, I think it does happen everywhere and parents who deny that are sticking their heads in the sand. That being said, hopefully if we have done our jobs, our kids will learn to set boundaries. The one line my children know they can not cross is driving while under the influence. While they were home, we had a rule that if they were ever stranded with a driver who had been drinking (including themselves) we would pick them up anytime, anywhere with no questions asked. We figured it was better than the alternative of losing them or them killing someone because they were afraid of being caught drinking.
[ quote] How well they are equipped to make the right choices is, to a certain extent, up to how you raised your kid. Hate to tell you, but they are now adults. [ /quote]
@musicamusica I respectfully disagree. Case in point, my sister’s kids…both graduates of a respected small high school with heavily involved parents and not too wealthy (which can create its own problems) left for college. In their case, they both went to a smallish school that’s very academically-focused. About 6 weeks into the first semester, one of them went to the huge state university for a weekend to visit former classmates. She’s no fading violet but she came back literally flabbergasted…her friends were bombed…throwing up in the bushes…passed out on the bathroom floor… Were they all somehow raised by bad parents? i think the more likely scenario is learned behavior…sure some kids have their acts together but if a majority of kids are drinking on any given night, why wouldn’t you be too?
it’s hard to write about this without sounding like a hypocrite…i drank in college…but I don’t remember kids going to the hospital for drinking…
Case in point: my D did undergrad at a small LAC and transferred a large state. Both had heavy drinking and drug scenes. She too went to a academically challenging private religious HS. She got through both HS, college and grad school unscathed. She was not “flabbergasted”, she was ready and up to the challenge.
" but if a majority of kids are drinking on any given night, why wouldn’t you be too?"
No. Since she was young it’s been something discussed in our home TO DEATH. (we have more than one recovering alcoholic in the extended family.) Did she drink while in school? Yes, but in moderation. We continued to talk about it while she was in college. Do I find binge drinking in schools horrifying? Yes. So did my D. It’s still the students choice. and they need to be made ready.
^^^Yes. Prepare them well and they will make reasonable choices. Both my DDs had active social lives accompanied by the infamous red cups—theirs filled with club soda, diet soda, or the occasional white wine. One is a non-drinker now, the other a one glass or no-alc person. Studies and sports were prioritized over partying, like many of their friends.
I expect my kids to obey the law. Period. It’s that simple.
SH, It is OK to help your kids choose schools that aren’t party schools.
Not sure if this is true, but there are posters all over my kids’ schools (high school and middle school) saying that Parental Disapproval is the #1 Reason Kids Say No to Alcohol. So keep on disapproving. Our kids know how we feel. They also know that there are/have been alcoholics on both sides of the family. They know we view alcohol as a drug that we don’t want them to use. As for other drugs–they’re illegal and dangerous. A member of D’s sports team died of an overdose. A relative is a drug user and my kids can see that his personality has changed for the worse. Several local kids died in horrific drunk/drugged driving accidents. S’s roommate overdosed and had to call for help. Scary stuff. Nothing appealing there.
Yes, we also tell our kids that we will come and get them any time, anywhere for any reason because we love them and want them to be safe. But we also tell them that if they get in trouble with the law, we probably can’t help them out of it. Perhaps I’m just lucky that none of my kids so far (4 adult kids) has been attracted to alcohol/drugs. They tend not to take risks.
Rave drugs are not directly college related. At an out of the way college, however, kids are more likely to all have the same dealer so one bad batch would run it’s course like a hallucinogenic Norwalk virus. I am not condoning them at all, just pointing out that I don’t think they are “caused” by going away to college. When the kids who are going to the local voc tech have bad drug reactions they don’t present as a cluster so we don’t read about it in the newspaper.
I have encountered similar attitudes here and in my children’s high school. “Well, everyone does it.” “Better to have them experiment when they are under your roof than when they go off to college.” I think the statistics from the CDC and other organizations show that underage drinking and drug over-use are not as much the norm as some parents claim. In our community there are a number of recovering alcoholics, addicts who have made it clear to their kids that they may be genetically predisposed to addiction and really discourage, if not forbid. There are also families with lawyers and doctors who are adamant that they could lose their law and/or medical licenses if alcohol is served to under aged kids. For college, I think there is drinking and drug use at just about every school (except maybe BYU) but I think cultures are different and you can tease that out anecdotally as well as through statistics.
I would be concerned if I raised a kid who had the inability to resist the crowd. Besides teachable moments on alcohol consumption, young adults need to learn how to avoid giving in to all sorts of “group think” situations. We have always taught that “if everyone is doing it” then it’s probably a bad idea and a moment for reflection. This works in politics as well as alcohol and drug consumption.
One of the many advantages of raising a self possessed, rebellious little artist.
I haven’t seen nonchalance on the part of parents on CC. It’s more of a reality check. Hopefully your kids have been taught how to handle certain situations that they’ll run into and how to gracefully extricate themselves.
“the Hey It Happens Everywhere!” attitude is not an attitude. It’s the truth. You can’t run from it, it’s going to happen at some point. Know it and be smart about it.
But maybe your questions are really “Are you sad that it’s come to this? All the drugs and drinking that seem to be wildly out of control? Don’t you care?” Answer: Yes.
My older kid was a baseball player and we got a front row seat for many of the dumb antics of guys in groups. I used those as lessons for little brother. Dumb ideas get exponentially better with the addition of each teenage boy to the group. Guys who we knew to be pretty safe and sane did some amazingly stupid things.
H doesn’t drink, I do. I don’t much like the 21 law because I think it’s virtually impossible to control at colleges and universities and some states are especially punitive with kids off campus and the kid ends up with a record in a situation where they were harming no one but themselves. I’d throw the book at kids or adults who drink and drive. Drugs like heroin or oxy or even Mollies, I draw a hard line on those. Pot I’m pretty benign about and I don’t particularly find any happiness in getting high and never really did in back in the day. Give me a couple glasses of legal wine and I’m perfectly content and relaxed. Pot is on it’s way to be legalized like alcohol and cigarettes and that’s fine with me. We’ve spent so much money tracking and criminalizing and punishing personal use of pot that could have better been spent taking care of our countries poor or taxing it and fixing our country’s infrastructure. Plus pot is probably less or at a minimum equally harmful as alcohol and cigarettes which are legal. I don’t think I’m nonchalant, I just think there are far greater issues to be dealt with than alcohol and pot use in young adults.
I am ambivalent.
My mother has smoked weed since she was younger. It’s now legal because she’s a “Medi” patient. My parents are open about having experimented with acid but didn’t like it.
I rarely drink, never do drugs, but I don’t care if others do as long as they’re safe about.
I absolutely, 100% believe they should be legal and regulated. This is coming from a public health perspective as the war on drugs has been MORE than a miserable failure.
ETA: I went to a huge party school. The vast majority of my friends drank- rarely into oblivion. I think I was drunk a grand total of once in undergrad. Just not my thing.
I don’t think parents are necessarily nonchalant…it’s just that by the time the kids are finishing high school and entering college they have cut the apron strings and any concepts that you, as a parent, wanted to instill have either “stuck” or are being rejected at the moment and there’s not much more you can do as a parent to bend them to your “will.” tongue in cheek. You never stop “talking” to your children or being concerned, it’s just that you can’t really change the world anymore in any concrete way…you just have to hope that they hear your voice in the background if they are about to do something they probably shouldn’t.
tongue in cheek. You never stop “talking” to your children or being concerned, it’s just that you can’t really change the world anymore in any concrete way…you just have to hope that they hear your voice in the background if they are about to do something they probably shouldn’t.