This thread is fascinating to me! It has morphed into other issues!
I have no problem with parents letting their own kids try a bit of beer or something at home as long as the kid is staying home that evening. It’s legal here and most places. For many kids, that’s a great way to take the mystery out of it. That method probably works for some parents/kids but not other parents/kids. What I have a problem with is the adults who serve alcohol to someone else’s kids.
I could never be friends with someone who served alcohol to minors, or someone who cheats on a spouse or taxes for that matter. I truly believe that you can’t compartmentalize cheating and unethical behavior. I have limited social time, and I prefer to spend it with people who have (and hold me to) higher standards. We may disagree on parenting styles, politics, etc., but they aren’t breaking laws or acting immorally. The great thing is that I get to choose my friends! So I do!
We all have our own moral compass. I am fine with it as long as my friends do not try to impose it on me. Likewise, if I didn’t want my kids to drink at other people’s home, I deal with my kids rather than forcing others to conform to my rules.
When D1 was in middle school, her friend’s mom dropped them off at a mall for them to go shopping together unsupervised. D1 told the mom that it wasn’t something I would let her do, but D1 told the mom if that’s what everyone wanted to do she would be happy to go home and she would call us to pick her up.
“Just available” to me means a party where many/most of the guests are of legal age. Like a holiday party where families are invited and the guests are mixed in age. Guests tend to drink socially at these gatherings, and not make getting drunk the focus of the entertainment. If a 16 year old w parents in tow, wants to have a glass of champagne, I’v got no issue w it.
“Pushing” to me evokes a situation where ALL the guests are underage. Underage kids tend not to sip chardonnay. Parents have no business deliberately providing alcohol to parties of underage kids w/o the consent of those kids’ parents.
"could never be friends with someone who served alcohol to minors, or someone who cheats on a spouse or taxes for that matter. "
You might not know these things. People who cheat on spouses don’t want the spouse to find out and so they don’t necessarily go blabbing it to all their friends, you know.
The problem with remaining friends with someone with parenting differences is that you never know what other decisions they will make that affect your child. I once left my second grader with a friend and the mother decided it was okay to run to the grocery store and leave the two kids unattended. I only found out because I stopped by to drop something off and the two kids answered the door. I don’t feel it was up to my 7 yr old to tell the mother that wasn’t okay. My child was never allowed over there again. The friend was welcome to come to our house though.
I also had a mom drop my child off once and she had removed the seats from the back of her minivan and the kids were sitting in the back unbelted. She thought it was okay because “she was only going a few blocks”. No, it was not okay so my child was never in her care again.
Yes. I could have just discussed the issue with them but what other issues would come up? I can’t possibly run through all the possibilities. It never would have occurred to me to ask a parent whether they planned to leave two 7 year olds home alone or drive a child with no seatbelt.
It’s true that I would expect my older teen to tell someone they weren’t allowed to do those things but I feel it’s unfair to expect an elementary or middle school aged child to be put in spot of having to tell an adult they are making unwise choices. It’s hard enough for adults to do that.
Again, I don’t think it is my business what another parent wants to do. Your definition of pushing is very different than mine. It was a senior year party where I am sure most students were over 18. I would think those adults should know what they want to do.
This is a side note, not the issue OP is raising, but more of my view about drinking age and what we did in our family about alcohol when kids were under 18.
D1 was allowed to go to small parties where there is alcohol when she was a senior, if I knew parents were going to be there. She was not allowed to go to big parties where parents had no knowledge of. She either slept over or we picked her up after the party.
D2 lived in a country when she was in high school where the drinking age was 18. She went to elaborate private parties where major alcoholic producers were sponsors. Due to the local situation, we had a driver to drive to all of those parties, so there was no DUI or going to parties we didn’t know about. At her prom, alcohol was allowed, but bodyguards and firearms were not allowed (parents got such communication prior to the prom).
Both of our girls made it through high school without any issues. Whereas they told me a lot of their kids who never drank in high school got into a lot more trouble when they went off to college. My kids didn’t become alcoholic, DUI, or come home drunk. They knew what we allowed and what we didn’t. Alcohol wasn’t a big taboo in our house, but care and behavior when drinking were discussed often at home. Both of our girls are over 21 now, and I rarely see them drink when I am around them.
The original question was, should the OP continue to be friends with someone whose judgment she no longer respects. My answer to that is No. OP already said she has limited tie to socialize, so I don’t think it’s wrong to limit your contact with this friend, provided how you feel about her decisions. And I happen to agree with you.
The other discussion about allowing drinking in homes etc is not really relevant to the OP. She has already stated that she does not respect this friend because of her decisions, and if OP feels that strongly, I don’t think there is anything wrong with letting the friendship wither.
True, @Pizzagirl, you don’t always know. So just to clarify, assuming I know someone is doing those things, I could never be friends with them. I also could never be friends with a serial killer, assuming I know the person is a serial killer, and I could never eat dog, assuming I know that’s what I’m eating.
Yeah, but just because I used to drive as fast as I wanted on the Autobahn when I lived in Europe, doesn’t mean I can do it when I come back to the US.
And you never go above 65 when you are in the US, and it makes you a bad person when you do? As I said, whether drinking 21 is a reasonable drinking age is not what OP is asking here. What she is asking if it is a reason to terminate a friendship. It is a personal choice, but it wouldn’t be my criteria.
Pot is legal now in many states. If a parent were to offer pot to young adults at a state where it is illegal, would you judge that parent for offering mind altering substance to young adults or would you judge that parent for doing something illegal? What we are talking about here is how we judge someone - their parenting style. We are not talking about someone being a serial killer. There are laws in the US which outlawed certain sexual acts. Would you stop being friends with someone because they practice those sexual acts? Again, would it be those acts are immoral or would it be it is against the law?
I think the differentiation here is kids who are still in high school vs. young adults. I do not appreciate one bit other parents making decisions that can lead to such disastrous consequences in such one fell swoop. Every year or two, our high school loses one or more kids to alcohol or drug-impaired driving. Any parent who not only allows, but provides high school kids with alcohol without consulting with the kids’ own parents is somehow saying to me, “I know what’s best for your kid better than you.” And I cannot be friends with someone who has that attitude. That is a HUGE boundary conflict for me.
D’s best friend through middle school and much of high school had very, very strict parents. I did not agree with much of how they parented. But I knew they had strict rules, and it never occurred to me to dishonor them when she was with us. If something were in question, I would clear it with them first, even if it eventually meant she would not be allowed to join us for something.
@oldfort wrote: “It was a senior year party where I am sure most students were over 18. I would think those adults should know what they want to do.”
Brain science has told us pretty definitively that 18 may well be the legal definition of adulthood, but the prefrontal cortex—and therefore, a reasonable understanding of risk, among other things—isn’t nearly done developing in at least the vast majority of humans at that point. Just because someone’s passed an arbitrary chronological point in their life isn’t necessarily a guarantee that they “should know” what’s best for themselves.
Also, just because your own children did fine with your particular house rules, please don’t assume everyone else’s children would do just as well with those same house rules. If you go up the family tree not really terribly far, it’s pretty clear that my children are very likely to have a genetic predisposition toward alcoholism. If you were to provide alcohol to my children at a party, even if they’d already passed their 18th birthday, they’d hopefully already know enough about their personal risk to be able to turn it down—but why offer them an extra opportunity for them not to?
The issue has nothing w the development of the prefontal cortex of 18 yr olds. It has to do w what’s a law. If i disapprove of a law, i have the right to petition to try to change the law. I personally think 21 is ridiculous for a drinking age.
Another example. If a high school says no pornographic magazines are allowed on campus, is it OK to you if more liberal-minded parents offer Hustler magazines to students at school?
OP’s friend didn’t throw a party at school. She had the party at her house. When I was in high school, I did have friends’ parents who openly left Playboy and Hustler magazines around the house.
Any of those adults (18 yr olds) could have decided if they wanted to go to the party or participate. I think it is ridiculous to say those 18 year olds do not understand risk and are not able to make the right decision because their brains are still developing. We let them vote and go to war, maybe we should wait on that too.
I am sure most people do break a law they do not agree with and hope they don’t get caught. How many of us have ever petitioned to try to change a law?
I personally wouldn’t have such party at my house and I wouldn’t offer alcohol to other parents’ kids in high school. I did throw a dinner party for D1’s birthday when she was in college. I told her to have her friends deal with their own parents to see if they were allowed to have wine at my house.
These parents believed they shouldn’t hide anything from their kids. I am not sure if it was Hustler, or what’s the difference between any of those magazines, but it was before internet days. Now the kids could just get all of that online.
It was snowing here last night with high winds so my daughter asked my husband to drive her to her friend’s house. She was supposed to spend the night , but I got a text a few hours later asking us to come and get her. The girls were drinking and she didn’t want to hang out with them while they were getting drunk. So she faked a migraine and off my husband went again to pick her up.
This is the same friend whose mother blamed my non-drinking daughter for a drinking episode last spring break. I’m glad she came home. She said that once they went through a bottle of vodka, they broke into a bottle of unopened rum that was a gift to the dad. That’s not going to go un-detected.