Seeking comment or input about what to do with my loss of respect for a friend. We have always seen parenting issues differently. We are raising same-age kids in the same schools, and I have taken a live-and-let-live approach, focusing instead on her qualities as a person, and wanting to pick my friends as individuals, not necessarily as mommies. But when she and her husband deliberately hosted a party, serving booze to 12th graders, many of whom were driving, I began to wonder if this is more than I can overlook. (This is something I am very much against; clearly not everybody is. This fits in with her longstanding eagerness to please her kids at all costs.) I find I have lost enthusiasm for getting together with her. I don’t want to be a jerk and give the cold shoulder to an old friend. But I have limited time in which to socialize, and I find that I’d rather spend it with people whose judgment I respect and admire, where I can come away from a get-together feeling uplifted. Any thoughts?
Agree with you 100 %. I don’t agree with pleasing kids at all costs. I wouldn’t send a teenager to that type of party.The parents can get into big trouble if reported. There will be differences in opinion but don’t compromise your beliefs to suit others.
What did she say when you brought it up?
Were your kids there? I’d be furious if an adult offered my child alcohol, and I’d find it difficult to continue the friendship.
Even if your kids were not there, it sounds like the friendship has run its course, if you don’t really enjoy being with her.
It’s a crime. Do you want to spend your time w felons? (life was much different when we were growing up and the drinking age was 18 and the allowable BAC levels were much higher - in NJ it’s 0.00% for anyone under 21)
Did you know she was going to host this party? What was their reasoning?
@fieldsports, I agree with everything you said! All of it! May I ask if you have other children? I’m wondering if the 12th grader is your oldest, because if you have older children I expect you may have faced this before. My 12th grader is my youngest.
I always knew there were parents serving minors. I just never expected it would be parents we liked and respected. But several years ago, when our oldest child was a senior, our best friends allowed alcohol at a prom party. Another couple “donated” vodka to a party. Whatever happened to donating chips and brownies?
We are facing it again. My current senior was excited about prom with kids he’s knows since 6th grade. He knows he cannot attend any party unless it is chaperoned by parents we approve of. The kids have never been partiers (drinkers). But the “chaperone” parents they lined up are planning to serve alcohol and my son has already told them he won’t attend. He didn’t even ask our permission to attend - as soon as he heard who the chaperones were, he told the other kids he was out. He knew we would not approve.
But here’s the thing. These parents are driving this train. The kids had not planned to drink, but now that parents are actually encouraging in, they are all in.
Complete fools. And, as @nj2011mom points out, criminals.
The high school graduating class for my daughter was very small, less than 20.
While the school and parents organized a final celebration directly after graduation, * after that* another event was planned which was a week at the cabin owned by one of the parents.
This made me very uncomfortable. True, they would not need to drive and they all were for the most part, very responsible kids. But it still made me very uncomfortable and after discussing it with my husband ( who is in recovery), we decided we wouldn’t allow her to attend.
It bothers me a great deal that parents organize these sort of unsupervised celebrations without thinking about the position that it puts others in.
I hope you discuss your concerns with your friend before you break it off with her.
I would state however, that if there had been initial supervision, to determine that they didn’t have drugs or alcohol, or at most a few bottles of champagne or even beer, I probably would have been fine with it.
Even in my D’s case, the parents were not supplying any alcohol, but I assumed that the kids would find their own.
A mother in our town bought alcohol for a get together at her house for her high sch. son (16) and his friends.
She went upstairs to bed and left the boys downstairs to play poker/watch movies/drink. The boys were all spending the night at her home. They stayed up partying and then went to sleep. When they woke up in the morning, one of the boys didn’t wake up. He was dead from alcohol poisoning.
The mother was arrested and charged with involuntary manslaughter.
Yes, I’d be mad as a parent if I found out that a parent offered alcohol to my under-aged kid at a party and I wasn’t aware.
I can tell you up front the answer would be NO so why would my kid bother asking? Did I need to be aware?
If my kid wanted to go to such a party or attended one-they didn’t ask me about it or tell me about it. I’d be the last to know unless they got in trouble. They ain’t dumb. Nobody needs to ask to know the answer that attending the party is a bad idea.
Blaming a parent giving the party rather than the kid?
You can do that…but it short circuits the fact that kids need to know that the law can come down on a very personal level which may affect their lives for a very long time.
My kids already know the rules for our house–it doesn’t matter what other people do. Deal with mom/dad and not the law is always the bottom line. Mom/Dad is a lot more lenient no matter how hard it is.
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I’ve no idea why a parent would consider hosting such a party these days–the consequences are too great. I know state law differs greatly. 18 was the legal drinking age for me which I still agree with but we don’t get to make our own personal state laws.
Maybe your friend just doesn’t know how serious the consequences can be these days. It’s rougher than when we were young. Maybe laying out how having that one party could affect so many young lives would be an eye-opener.
Happens a lot. I don’t make a huge deal about it. But as embarrassed as my kids got, I always spoke to the parents when any of them went to others homes for things to make it clear that no alcohol was going to be served. My close friend serves alcohol, as part of meals to her children and to their friends with parental permission and she disagreed with my stance on this which was zero tolerance, een as a toast or meal accompaniment. She was a gourmet chef, and to her, a glass of some wine or other spirits were no more than if the alcohol were in the sauce or part of the ingredients of a meal and felt I was being a hypcrite allowing one (yes, I’ll cook with wine and other alcohol, but it’s boiled off) but not the other I don’t pass judgement on parents who do this, as it is within the law in our state, but not for my children for a number of reasons.
Other parents look the other way or excuse a beer or a glass of wine as a “snack”, but not allow what they consider excessie drinking and only if the kids are not driwing untill the next day. I draw my line where I want to do so as a parent and make it clear that my kids are not permitted. If underaged kids are being serwed alcohol, or adults are looking the other way, I don’t permit my kids to go to such ewents.
I would not be able to call anyone a friend who blatantly puts the lives of teenagers at risk with something so obviously stupid and illegal. Sorry, just can’t do it.
That said, over the years I learned there are three kinds of parents:
- those who willingly purchase and allow high schoolers to drink in their home without their parents permission
- those who don’t purchase the alcohol, but either look the other way, or don’t provide adequate chaperoning to deter high school drinking; they also won’t punish those high schoolers who are caught
- those who say no to this, but whose high schoolers somehow sneak it in, and parents don’t find out about it until after they’re either caught or someone rats them out.
- those who refuse to allow high school drinking in their home and are willing to take proactive steps to deter it and punish those who do this; kids learn this house has the reputation of their not wanting to be caught here, so they basically avoid it if they’re looking to get involved in drinking or drugs.
I have no tolerance for parents in scenarios 1 and 2; I would not be friends with them. It’s just not a good use of my time.
That being said, anyone who has a high schooler with addiction issues has my complete compassion, as long as they are actively seeking professional help for the high schooler’s addiction. It’s just not a road I’m willing to go down… judging these parents because, there, but for the grace of god…
Many (or all) of you seem to understand my disappointment in my friend. My kid came home and was open with me about what happened and it was obvious that my kid (a bit of a health nut) had not gotten involved in it, so the issue is not with my kid; it is with my friend who, in my opinion, has made a public menace of herself, potentially lethal, in her effort to bolster her own kid’s standing with the “cool kids”. Which I just cannot respect. I have tried valiantly for years to refrain from judging her parenting style. But this is more than a personal choice in the home or family; this is willfully jeopardizing the lives of other people’s kids.
She absolutely knows me well enough to know how I would feel about this. She may assume that I don’t know that it happened. I have not mentioned it to her, as there’s no question about what the facts are, so it’s not like I’m trying to confirm a rumor, and I’m not sure what would be gained by rubbing her face in it. I am certain that it’s her husband who is the driving force, and if she had a more conservative husband, or one with better judgment, she would not have initiated this herself. She is trying to keep the peace with him, and pander to her kids. But I have lost my respect for her.
I am so with you…I had a friend who had become a friend because our boys are the same age…this was during a time that they were doing lots of sleep-overs and i came to find out that they were nearly always watching r-rated movies during these nights (not sex but really rough/violent films) and – after a talk with her – i backed off bit by bit…until our kids were doing nothing together…
I’ve had a similar experience. Good friend who is well-meaning but naive about what the kids were doing. When I found out about a party her son was at in a hotel when she thought he was spending the night at a friend’s house, I told her. I did it in a non-judgmental way, saying, “It’s a shame that you have the first kid ever who lied about his whereabouts.” 
This continued to be something of an issue for her kid (and, like your friend, her dh thought she was being too uptight about it), but it didn’t damage our friendship because she knew that I loved her and her ds and that I was more concerned about making sure he was safe and that I’d risk our relationship to make it so.
If your friend knows you that well, I’d say something. I’d tell her that you know about the drinking at the party and that you wanted to make sure she knew that she could be charged with (whatever is applicable in your state) and that she would be liable if something happened to a kid at her party or who left her party. And I’d tell her that if you know about it others do or will and that they might not be so kind as to talk to her directly but that they may call the police because not everyone believes like they do that it’s OK to provide alcohol to others’ teens. The one thing I’d never do is give up your ds as the source of the info.
I will add a 5 to teri’s list above. My house was the second 3 
but kids still came here because it was a safe harbor. My kid was the popular, non-drinking one in HS. His friends seemed to respect that. Our home always was open to anyone, but the kids knew that I would not abide drinking or drugs in my house. For all I know they left my house and went drinking at midnight, but they respected me and my rules while here. And it didn’t cause long-term damage – this fall I had a tailgate for a football playoff game for their HS team and, even though ds didn’t come home for the holiday, six of these friends came over. I felt pretty happy that, even without ds, that they would come eat and visit and didn’t try to take a single one of the beers provided for the adults.
We allow our S(20) to have a beer or wine at our house, if he is not going out for the night. In our state it is legal for an underage child to drink with their parents in their home.
I was even a bit shocked that a close friend was allowing her daughter to celebrate her 20th birthday w girl friends and provided the alcohol. They were at a beach house and mom collected all keys, so no one was driving, plus she stayed up to ensure no one passed out. When I confided in a mutual friend about it, she noted that they were all college kids and were not new to drinking.
Not to mention how the kids getting into trouble could effect college admission outcomes.
Um, raclut, the danger of driving and drinking is probably 1000x more important than whether Johnny can’t get into college.
Pizzagirl, I am agreeing with you, I was just mentioning other things that hadn’t been discussed that she could mention to her friend. I’m remembering local incidents with this post. Nothing is more important than safety.