<p>I assume that the insurance industry will lobby successfully against any specific legislative proposals to lower the drinking age. Public health researchers are also uniformly opposed to lowering the drinking age.</p>
<p>“The evidence is clear, consistent and compelling: A drinking age of 21 has led to less drinking, fewer injuries and fewer deaths.”</p>
<p>by Toben F. Nelson and Traci L. Toomey, members of the faculty of the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health and of the staff of the Alcohol Epidemiology Program.</p>
<p>Signed on as co-authors: John R. Finnegan Jr. is dean of the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, Henry Wechsler is director of the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study, Robert Saltz and James Fell are with the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, Thomas Greenfield is with the Alcohol Research Group at the Public Health Institute, and Ann Mahoney and Linda Bosma are the current Chair and Chair-elect of the Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs section of the American Public Health Association.</p>
<p>b’smom and EAO- Thanks for the parents’ weekend reports. I read an article in the Crimson that said it was also Homecoming weekend, but the undergrads were pretty much unaware of it. :(</p>
<p>It was the first ever Homecoming organized by the college, probably pointed to alumni rather than students. The big event was The Head of the Charles rowing regatta the previous weekend with a hundred thousand (or more) attendees. Although it started snowing on Sunday afternoon just as the men’s finals boats started. Brrr.</p>
<p>If the drinking age in CA was 19 then those kids wouldn’t be headed down to Mexico. And the whole mystique of getting away with something would fade. They head to Mexico because it feels as if they are outwitting the law. </p>
<p>Agree with Bay - the taboo aspect is what is driving a lot of the drinking. No scientific evidence, just my gut feeling.</p>
<p>The problem with 18 year olds drinking is that they will probably supply it to 15-17 year olds. That was one of the reasons the drinking age was put back to 21.</p>
<p>growing up in southern California (45 min. from the Mexico border) not many kids went into Mexico just to drink. Too much violence that we all knew about living so close to the border. Now even less since you need a passport. Border patrol would stop kids driving back into US from Mexico and would search the cars, so it was not as easy or as common as people may think. I was stopped many times and was down there with friends who surfed and wasn’t even drinking. It’s not a risk many local South Orange County kids are willing to take</p>
<p>b’smom has a good point. The lower the “legal” drinking age, the lower the illegal drinking age becomes</p>
<p>Agree that it trickles down, here the drinking age is 16 and the 14 and 15 year olds do it. But here the driving age is 18 and public transportation is fantastic. I never hear of drunk driving incidents although I am sure it does happen sometimes. I do think we make way too big of a deal in the US about drinking. Also think its wrong that our young men and women in the military can go to Iraq and Afghanistan and risk their lives but can’t legally drink in their own country. If we consider them adults in all other aspects than why not with alcohol.</p>
<p>I guess the college kids farther south in San Diego are braver (or more foolish), Just a month ago our neighbor’s daughter, a freshman at UCSD, told how on Move-in Day this year within 15 minutes of when the last parent of the roommates left and drove out of sight, all the girls in the suite jumped in a car and headed to Tijuana for a drinking binge. These are girls who had mostly just met each other, but they all knew that the drinking age in Mexico was 18, and that’s all they needed to have in common.</p>
<p>Sorry I didn’t have a minute to post earlier, but I attended the Parent Weekend and am very glad I did. First, my daughter had told me about the things that were bothering her at Harvard and largely neglected to mention the things she loves, which led me to believe she was not as happy as she clearly is. </p>
<p>The weekend had more activities than we could possibly do. Made it to a class, the football game, a concert, the museum, breakfast at Annenberg, Weidner Library, a ballroom dance competition, and at least 15 trips up and down four flights to my daughter’s room. </p>
<p>It was good to meet her roommates, her friends, and to see where she goes and what she does. I could also give a little more advice on safety, which really concerns me, and take her shopping for warm winter gear.</p>
<p>Please give me your advise on the one real problem I did find. My daughter has always had access to her savings account. During the weekend I took the opportunity to sit down with her to discuss finances and found she is spending three times what I think she should be spending per week. We had a talk and I thought she “got it”, but right away this week she’s done it again. Do I take away her access to the savings? She is clearly not using her brain here. She has never been like this befpre; in fact she has NEVER touched her savings in the past. </p>
<p>She claims the majority of her expenses are food because, “There is too much pepper in everything at Annenberg and you have to wait too long to get them to fix things on order.” Tried to give suggestions for food they can’t pepper (Make your own chefs salad, sandwiches, etc). I would really welcome your advice. Is this just a problem for us? How can we settle the food and finances issue?</p>
<p>Ronsard - My wife and I are notable spendthrifts and our kids have never seen the flamboyant use of money up close. But when they went off to H, we decided to not pinch pennies on our visits, our hosting of their friends, on family trips around getting them to and from Cambridge because - hey, when will we ever have the opportunity to do this again?</p>
<p>D1 may be picking up bad habits from us, because she’s been doing just what you’ve described with your D. And let’s face it - she’s also hanging out with some peers who really have no concerns about finances. But I think her mindset is “I want to drink the cup of Harvard experience dry because - hey, when will I ever have the opportunity to do this again?”</p>
<p>D2 is just the opposite (perhaps because she’s always watched her sister and done the opposite). We’ll ask how she is and she’ll say her toes are freezing, and we’ll say “Fall in Massachusetts is not the same as fall in Georgia - buy yourself some wool socks for God’s sake!” And she’ll say, “I don’t know - I can’t bring myself to spend $15 or $20 just for a pair of socks” and so on.</p>
<p>D1 is effusive, the life of the party, and a flaming extrovert. D2 is happy in a small circle of friends, and covets quiet time to recharge. Their spending habits seem to mirror their personalities. I have no answers, advice or insights, but I’ve found it kind of therapeutic to type this.</p>
<p>Didn’t any of this year’s parents go to the a capella concert? Performances by those incredibly talented singing groups are one of my favorite things about the various parents’ weekends at H.</p>
<p>Ronsard - I don’t know about the pepper in Annenberg, my son adds hot pepper to most things. But, when he returned home this past summer, what he said that he really wanted was eggs for breakfast. When I asked about eggs at Annenberg, he said that the eggs were powdered. I said that I was surprised that you couldn’t get “normal” eggs there. He said that you could, but you had to wait (like your daughter says). When I asked how long, he said “five minutes” - like it was an eternity. Maybe its the everything now aspect of this generation, but waiting five minutes for food prepared the way you want it did not strike me as <em>forever</em>.</p>
<p>Ronsard:
My D (now a sophmore) has her own summer earnings, and a small allowance which she uses. She is spending more than she used to—there were a number of sales in Cambridge last year, which she has taken advantage of–and she picked up several very nice dresses, for example, at very low prices. (A couple of Nicole Miller silk cocktail dresses for about $20 each, for example.) I have encouraged this to a certain degree—she is getting things that she has used, at bargain prices, and she will only be there for a short time, so I feel she should take advantage of it. There is a sort of “Carpe Diem” mentality that sets in. But, its also part of being a freshman. One thing that my D did last year was seriously overdraw her checking account, and she was charged an onerous sum for overdrafts before she realized it. This, for some reason, seemed to cure her taste for spending a bit. On the other hand, how can you pass up a trip to Berryline?</p>
<p>I/we were at the ballroom competition as well! D and her roommate are both on the team. </p>
<p>As for spending, yes D is spending faster than her brother did in college but that is directly linked to her access to Cambridge. When I talk to him about his sister’s activities, he simply stated that he would have been doing the same thing had his campus had access to the same late night options that hers has. For him to say that is interesting because he is VERY careful with his money. My only advice is for your daughter to have a budget for the semester and when the money runs out, she runs out. That is actually like real life is like. It is also what my parents did. The only money I had was the money I earned over the summer. I think I spent it down each year but I knew I had to leave enough for the cab ride to the airport or I was not going home (I’m sure that my parents might have helped me get to the airport). My senior year, in order to “socialize” during senior week, I had to sell every text book that could be bought back. I did regret that down the road.</p>
<p>BTW just two weeks ago, we just pulled the majority of the money from D’s personal savings account and put in a 1 year CD so she could actually earn some interest. She has enough left in her savings to last a year (in the event she has no paying job this summer).</p>
<p>Harvard may reign supreme when it comes to academics, but the Ivy League university is apparently regressing when it comes to sex.</p>
<p>According to the recently released 2009 Trojan Sexual Health Report Card, Harvard ranks 62 out of 141 American colleges and universities on availability of sexual health information and resources. That’s a slide of 37 spots from last year’s report.</p>
<p>Boston College held steady near the end of the list at 126.</p>
<p>For the report, the condom company compiled data from campus health centers and student opinion polls about a range of sexual health topics, including the availability and cost of condoms and other contraceptives, HIV testing, availability of sexual assault programs, and anonymous sex-related advice via e-mail or newspaper column.</p>
<p>Who’s number one at disseminating sexual-health information? The University of South Carolina, besting Stanford University (2), UConn (3), Columbia University (4) and Florida Atlantic University (5.)</p>
<p>Dartmouth College made gains in this year’s report, the fourth annual report card – advancing to number 19 (up from 68 in 2008.)</p>
<p>Other than Harvard, the Ivy League dominated the rankings, with Brown and Cornell, in addition to Columbia, landing in the top 10.</p>
<p>Son enjoys Sunday brunch at his college but not much else. He has a campus job tutoring to pay for his restaurant meals. Not sure what’s so bad about Harvard food. He says there is chicken practically daily and a lot of squash. He actually goes to most meals in the dining room at Harvard but also gets meals at restaurants most days. He and his roommates are just perpetually starving skinny guys who will eat anything and never be full. It helped when he got into his residence hall after freshman year because there are lots of events involving free food. We send him a lot of food which he seems to appreciate - protein bars, mostly.</p>
<p>Our kid (a sophomore) has spent very little pocket money at Harvard. When I asked him what his favorite meals there are, he said mussels and salmon; I was impressed that the dining halls actually serve those things. (As a midwesterner, both are luxuries for us.) When he was home for the summer, he exhibited a new fondness for hummus, which he said was often available on the salad bar.</p>
<p>When we visited for Parents Weekend last November, that was the first time he and his friends had eaten at a restaurant together (besides Noch’s Pizza).
Some of his friends’ families have a lot more money than we do, but none of those kids seem to spend lots of money. (I think they all drink cheap beverages, too.)</p>
<p>None of them are “shoppers;” clothes and haircuts seem pretty far down on their priority lists.</p>
<p>With ski season approaching, I wondering if any body knows what group options are available to Harvard students to go skiing on weekends. I know S would reallly love to go on some day trips with a club or group and perhaps a weekend trip or two in the coming months.</p>