My wife and I hardly ever drink. We are adamantly against drugs. My daughter volunteers in a drug center counselling family members of addicts. I hope when I retire in a few years to be involved in or start a drug awareness program for parents. For our family, this is a very personal issue.
Agree a bit with OP regarding the “every school is a party school” attitude among some CC parents.
It’s especially galling to me considering I know for a fact some colleges don’t have the party school attitude where a critical mass of students partake in a heavy drinking culture which is pervasive enough it even affects those who don’t partake.
I attended one such college…an LAC where being a heavy drinker marked you out as an uncool boring square at best as alcohol was regarded as a conventional vice associated with the bourgeois establishment when I attended.
Though classmates did partake heavily in weed/psychedelics, the effects of them on users was such it didn’t cause students to be rowdy or even belligerent enough to start fights like what I witnessed among some Boston area undergrads after college or the antics I heard within my extended family about a few older relatives who did major in beer/partying at some party schools.
When someone is asking about party schools, they’re not only asking about whether there’s drinking or drug use, but also whether there’s a critical mass culture of such use which affects even those who don’t partake in the form of regular noise issues late at night, rowdiness, belligerence/violence, etc. The latter’s one reason why I avoided applying to or attending known party schools…especially after hearing from actual alums or attendees who transferred out to get away from all that BS.
“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?”
I don’t read it as any of those things, necessarily. The reason to point out that it could happen anywhere is in order to avoid singling out the school named in a particular incident. A highly publicized incident at School A can create the mistaken impression that similar Schools B and C are safer when they are really just luckier…today.
“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?”
Well, that’s likely a fundamental reason that they’re in the hospital, yes. If a high schooler drinks alcohol and goes blind, my first reaction won’t be, “He shouldn’t have been drinking,” even though that’s true. It will be, “Oh no, it must have been wood alcohol!” There are risks attendant to the use of a given drug, and then there’s the risk of getting poisoned drugs, and they are not the same thing.
I’m a teetotaler on recreational drugs and always have been.
Oh, I remember getting a call in the middle of the night from one of my roommates, asking me if I could come pick her up from the ER in 1982. But she was a little more experimental than me. I was a rung lower on the step ladder from her experiences. But again, at that time, the drinking age was 18; had it not been 18, I don’t know if I would have been brave enough to get a fake ID. I know one of my daughters had one; I don’t know about the other one… I never asked - most of their partying was done at house parties, whether that be on campus or nearby.
I know my daughters have a few friends who do not drink and are confident in their decisions. They have been very happy with their college experiences, and do learn to carve out a little niche for themselves.
I agree OP. But there are a lot of posts that leave me scratching my head. I don’t go for the laissez-faire moral relativism that gets spouted here a lot. I don’t fall for the, hey, everyone’s doing it, heck I did it and protect this named college at all costs kind of thinking. Or they were raised like hot house flowers their entire childhood, but hands off when they hit the magical age of 18.
There ARE some schools where the drug culture is more embraced than others. Kids determined to be involved in the drinking/drug scene will likely find it wherever they go, but it will be easier at some places than others.
I skim a lot, and avoid a lot of threads I know I won’t agree with as it seems it’s okay here to be an extremely liberal anything goes parent, but it’s not okay to have conservative ideals.
I did not get an “anything goes” sense at all from the posts on the thread in question. Pointing out that all the kids likely had the same supplier and therefor a cluster of kids in the hospital was related to the single source of drugs does not condone the behavior. It simply answers the question of “what is going on” at Wesleyan. At an urban school with 20k kids they won’t have all partied together and gotten their drugs from the same place so . . . no news story. Another way of putting it would be that what is going on at Wesleyan is going on at many other places irrespective of the liberal or conservative ideals of the parents. I am a very light drinker and have smoked pot once in my life but that doesn’t stop other kids at my D’s “dry” campus from drinking or doing whatever they do.
Remember the CC poster lucifer11287 and his attitude about drinking?
http://dailyprincetonian.com/news/2006/04/in-postings-a-tragic-portrait-of-defiance/
Another article on lucifer11287
We always let our kids have wine at holidays and when they were 18 we didn’t care if they had a beer when we were at our cottage in the summer. We wanted to get away from it being the “cool” thing to do if they were allowed some social drinking around us as parents. So far it seems to have worked as both kids tell me that they are not big partiers at big party schools. We also have a best friend who has a major pill/alcohol addiction and seeing him at 60 act like an idiot isn’t pleasant. They see how it can turn a person into a shell of their former self and how hard it is to get someone into much needed treatment.
This discussion makes me reflect on the huge LDS population at ASU Tempe.(and believe me it is substantial)Do you really think Mormon kids indulge in drinking and taking drugs just because they are not sheltered by BYU? No. Because for the most part it’s the kid and his or her upbringing that dictates their behavior at school whether it’s ASU or BYU.
I remember lucifer11287, and I’m not sure how he figures in this thread. He was strongly defensive of his extreme binge drinking. IIRC the parents here ALL tried to make him understand the danger of his drinking patterns. I don’t remember anyone having a cavalier attitude about it or defending his behavior. They tried every which way to convince him to slow it down. He wasn’t an average college student either. Even many of his friends worried about him, if memory serves.
Hi folks, OP here…and have been thinking about this a bit more overnight.
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I agree with several posters who note that some campuses are more into the drinking culture than others. it is what it is. As an urban liberal, I’m not liberal in this area. That is, I just don’t want my kid attending a school that revolves the great bulk of its activities around drinking…it’s on my checklist of places to avoid (my money means my checklist).
and I agree with other posters who note that high school experiences and parenting shape attitudes towards over-drinking and drug use.
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However, i do think kids are shaped by their current environments.
In broad strokes, i’d see 3 types of kids here:
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kids who aren’t going to get into any drinking/drug issues on campus…they might drink some…but whether its through a combo of good parenting/good kid personality/or just plain dumb luck, these kids aren’t going off-track no matter where they attend.
then you have kids who are a handful (i know some of them in HS)…maybe it’s a parenting thing but i often think it’s more…well, actually, i don’t know what causes it…but we all know these kids. And in college, they’ll be even more likely to go nuts.
and then there’s the great unwashed middle…kids who look around their environment and can be influenced by what they see. here’s where i think that the culture created by the university and the current students and the attitudes of parents makes a BIG difference…
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thanks for the great insights…its given me a fuller sense of what’s ahead.
Drinking and drugging to excess never did anyone any good. But trying to stop most young people from trying them is like talking to a rock. Especially the drinking. I told mine “know when to say when, never put anything on FB when you’ve had too much, never, never, ever drink and drive”.
I agree with @VaBluebird and would add that acknowledging the reality of alcohol and drugs on campus is not the same as approval.
Last winter at an Ohio LAC a few students went just off campus to a bar, got drunk, and attempted to stagger back to their dorms. One became disoriented, fell, and froze to death. During a subsequent tour of the college last summer I asked the sophomore female tour guide if anything had changed on campus since the student’s death. She burst into tears (had been a friend of the deceased student). I felt terrible, but also felt that I needed to ask.
Since then, I guess I’ve focused less on the amount of drinking etc that occurs on any given campus, and more on the support and educational opportunities for students’ health there. Drinking, drugs, and unwanted sexual advances are all high risk situations at college, and particularly so for first year students. So I want my child to be aware of all of these risks (that’s my responsibility), make some good friends to have her back (that will be her responsibility), and go to a college that provides appropriate levels of education and support (the college’s responsibility).
…and CARE for your friends as well."
Parents who allow underage drinking, criticize the law, shrug off fake IDs (because “everyone” has one, or because they had one when they were young), etc., are part of the problem, imo. They essentially show their kids that they approve of and expect under-age drinking. Kids receive a mixed message–anti drug/alcohol education in school vs. “it’s a stupid law–we drank/did drugs when we were that age and it was fun/didn’t hurt us” at home. Studies have shown that raising the drinking age to 21 has saved lives. When I was in high school (late 70s) there were 16-17yo getting fake IDs, high school seniors legally buying beer for their friends, and more kids dying in drunk driving accidents. http://www.collegedrinkingprevention.gov/supportingresearch/journal/wagenaar.aspx
I rarely drink. I have gone years of my adult life without having any alcohol. This came from how I grew up - a big Irish family with lots of alcoholics, and spending a significant percentage of my life in a bar with my father. As a teenager, I saw drinking as something my father did with his buddies, not really a fun, cool thing. I saw more than one old guy puking in bushes, and more than one old guy peeing in his own pants because he was too drunk to make it to the bathroom. Not sexy, not cool. I’m not Judgey McJudgerson about other people drinking, but I know there is a genetic component to alcoholism, so my kids know that they should be careful when and if they decide to start drinking.
It’s not a fait accomplis that all kids will drink when they’re at college, but I won’t be shocked if it happens. I think I’ve prepared my younger kiddo to make good decisions.
I will note that I always get a bit nervous when anybody (and me especially) starts to talk about what a particular kid would never do because of the way he was raised or because of his personality. They will surprise you sometimes.
I’d like to think I take a middle ground on this. I don’t have a big general problem with moderate drinking by underage college students, because I don’t agree with the current drinking age law and think it’s counterproductive (at least on college campuses). I also think that our society is ridiculously hypocritical about this, telling 20-year-olds they are making a terrible life decision by having a drink, but then having a popular culture inundated with images of cool people drinking.
But on the other hand, I think binge drinking on campus is a huge problem–and it is a worse problem on some campuses than others. It happens everywhere to some extent, but on some campuses it happens a lot, all the time, to many, many students. You can find out a lot about the drinking culture at different schools by asking about it here on CC, by reading the campus newspaper, and by visiting and asking questions.
There’s a big difference between thinking that a glass of wine with dinner is OK – and that offering a taste of it to one’s own teenager in one’s own home is also OK – and condoning binge drinking, especially by irresponsible/naive college kids.
My children were often offered a taste of wine now and then, with dinner, from the time they were in their early teens. (Like most kids, they didn’t like it, and it took them years to develop any kind of a palate.) Alcohol wasn’t a taboo at home, nor was it glorified: we consider it a fine compliment to food, especially good food (special occasions, etc.) Offering a small amount of wine to my teens was done responsibly, in small amounts, knowing that they wouldn’t be driving/going anywhere that night. My kids had wider exposure to alcohol when visiting their European relatives; again, not surprising, but done under supervision.
We certainly made it clear that drinking outside the home could get them in trouble with the law and that if they were ever caught having been drinking and being anywhere near a vehicle (even as a passenger), they’d loose all their driving privileges. We also taught them how to call a cab, and that we’d pay for the fare once they got home, so that they never had to depend on getting a ride from anyone who was drinking. (Daughter did it once to get home from a party that was out of control.)
I believe this measured, rational approach to alcohol prepared them to handle it responsibly. Both kids thought the binge drinking scene in college was, well, juvenile and somewhat embarrassing.
point well-taken that there’s a big difference between drinking (I’m cool with that) and binge-drinking. That to be me is the issue. And I truly think that some campuses are centers of binge drinking more than others…
hey, on the idea that raising the drinking age dramatically reduced drinking on college…it did reduce fatal car accidents for 18-22-year-olds but fatal car accidents are down for every age group…cars are safer. So there may no be cause & effect there. On the bigger topic, 65% of kids now drink in college…which is higher than it ever was when it was legal… an interesting viewpoint here http://www.techtimes.com/articles/10652/20140717/pros-cons-raising-legal-drinking-age-30-years-later.htm
i was among the very last class that drank legally…I believe it was a smarter system…it made it less alluring.