<p>You make my parents sound like the most irresponsible, lenient people in the world.
And here, they are even seen as quite strict. </p>
<p>Must be Europe. </p>
<p>I do want to note though, that it is quite ironic that in Europe (Sinners galore) the number of accidents that happen with minors at parties/DUI etc. is drastically lower than in the US.</p>
<p>I think the strictness might be the reason for all these drama’s in America we even hear about here. The combination of a (too) low driving age and a too high drinking age (causing children to drink in secret, without any supervision, to appear cool) is apparently quite lethal. My country is notorious for its lenient attitude towards drugs (weed is legal), which results in a situation where tourists come here to, well, utilitize this option to the maximum, so to say, while most people here never smoked before. I go to a inner city public school, and most students here never smoked weed before (I can only name a handful out of nearly 750). When it is legal, the excitement of doing something ‘bad’ wears off quickly, and most people refrain from doing it completely.</p>
<p>This wasn’t meant as a critique towards you parents, or the US in general, but I think it might be a good idea to at least make the driving age higher, and possibly lower the drinking age a bit.</p>
<p>Europe - are u kidding me. Yeah - why don’t we just have our children get their drivers license and be able to drink on the same birthday. No we should not raise the driving age - most states it is 17 - and drinking age should be 21.</p>
<p>I’m a conservative parent - I read my childs texts and I know their email passwords and they know this. What I also have is a very open relationship with both of my children and they know they can come to me about anything. We have openly talked to our children about the pitfalls of drinking and drugging. Luckily they have both chose clean lives. I know this can change at any time, but so far so good.</p>
<p>You can’t hide this knowledge you now have - you have to start the conversation.</p>
<p>Well, in my country, you are allowed to drive at 18 (after a really thorough examination!)
and drink at 16. So the same-birthday argument doesn’t really count here.
It has actually been proven that in countries where the drinking age is lower than the driving age, less accidents happen, because children have already learned to drink reasonably by the time they get to drive. </p>
<p>It is actually funny, because the UK is one of the only countries in Europe where the drinking age is 18 instead of 16. I wonder from which European country you hear the most horror stories about bingedrinking… </p>
<p>I didn’t mean to direct this directly at the OP- By all accounts, do not let your child go to this party! What I tried to say is, that it is more a general mentality that can be changed by government policies etc. that leads to these kinds of parties where no parent in their right mind would let their children go to. It was more of an observation really.</p>
<p>[English is quite obviously my second (third…) language, so that is why my point was rather unclear in the last point, and seemed overly polemic]</p>
<p>Yes, guiltyb, I agree. When I was growing up (in Vermont) the drinking age was 18…we didn’t center our lives on drinking, we’d have a drink at a party…by the time I was teaching at a college (one much admired on CC) the drinking age was 21 and the binging was everywhere. Which leaves all of us worried, as is the OP. I don’t think it’s totally the drinking age–we can be kind of obsessed with drinking, pro or con, in this country–it becomes too much of a focus. In Italy wine is just part of one’s natural diet, and you’d no more binge drink than binge eat–it would just seem gross. Which it is! More on the subject–it sounds like the OP and her D have a respectful, trusting relationship-- and that solves a world of problems right there.</p>
<p>I’ve seen plenty of over-indulgence in drinking in many European countries including Holland. I don’t want to get into the whole ‘lower the drinking age’ and ‘Europeans can handle drinking better than Americans’ discussion because that’s been discussed on CC many times but there is a key practical difference between the USA and Europe generally and that is that most areas in the USA are not centralized cities with great public transportation so many of the people drive and therefore can end up in accidents when they drive drunk whereas Europe tends to have the centralized cities with great public transportation. In addition to having the option to drink and ride public transportation (or just walk) I would expect that many European kids, even when they turn 18, don’t necessarily run out and buy a car right away since they have the option to still get around on the public transport. In your experience do you think this could be a factor?</p>