Your Teen Can't Hold His Liquor
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Can't see the 'ShareThis' icon? Reload your page view by pressing Shift and clicking Refresh at the same time.As we enter grad season here in Saskatchewan (complete with the celebratory bush parties that accompany the occasion), I give you this little nugget of honesty. Your teen can’t hold his liquor. In fact, you couldn’t either when you were his age. And you did ‘many stupid things’, because that’s what ‘kids do’. (But I thought they were ‘young adults’?)
Yet, wearing rose-colored glasses while recalling your ‘many stupid’ adventures (oh... sorry... your ‘glory days’), you still knowingly pull booze for your kid. You participate in meetings (sometimes held on school property) to plan so-called ‘safe’ grad parties. You give your kid and his friends a place to party because you’d ‘rather have them do it where you can watch them’ – even though you know they’re drinking and partying behind your back, too.
So, let’s take off the gloves. Let’s get serious about under-age drinking in this province.
At what age are you okay with your kid being a lush? (Because you know he won’t be a sociable drinker until he’s dealing with the economic reality of $7 Heineken at the nightclub, and $10 highballs for the cute girl across the room.) The answer to that question probably dips down as low as 14 depending on what kind of parent you are. But beyond that... let's get to the root of the problem : how is it that in a province where it seems everyone is okay with underage drinking, we don’t just lower the drinking age.
Lowering the drinking age by even one year would get otherwise-legal-adults-with-teenage-hormones out of bush parties and in to pubs where bartenders can at least be held responsible for not over-serving (and for babysitting). Your kid will have to learn to be civilized while under the influence… or otherwise endure the wrath of a 200 pound, solid muscle bouncer named Bruno.
Let me make it clear... I don’t approve of underage drinking. I never did it as a kid and I don’t feel I missed out on some sacred ‘rite’ of being a teenager. I don’t think it’s cute when your teen has a hangover at Sunday morning brunch because he was out the night before getting plastered. I don’t think it’s funny when your teen pukes on the sidewalk during his long walk home after a night of filling his guts with Molson or Labatt products. And I don’t think merely ‘being disappointed’ in your teen is good enough when it comes to breaking a law – no matter how silly, irrelevant, or otherwise useless you perceive that law to be. (Although some parents would have you believe that denying them the right to 'be disappointed' is like denying them some sort of sacred parental rite of passage.)
I’m not being a prude here… if I was, what comes next wouldn’t be falling from my fingers. Let’s change the minimum drinking age in Saskatchewan to 18, and let’s create stiffer penalties for both those who enable underage drunks and the little lushes themselves.
John Himpe is Program Director of News Talk Radio.
Comments
Underage drinking
Your idea of lowering the drinking age to 18 makes some sense. The real problem here is a lack of parental supervision. I know of some parents who allow there teen children to drink at home with there friends. The problem with this is the parents could care less how the child's drunken friends get home. Drive, walk not my problem, my kid is home drunk but safe. Parents in this province are never accountable for there kid's actions. Funny they are in Manitoba where parental responsibility laws are in force. But like so many things we in Sask we lag behind in everything. Lets wake up and make irresponsible parents accountable. Slainte Mhath
Parental Responsibility
How can a parent be more responsible for their later aged teen-age children when Canadian Federal Law states clearly that you cannot restrict the movements of anyone over the age of sixteen? This law MUST be changed to MATCH the age set by the feds for defining a 'young offender', either that or drop the age from 18 back to 16 and start sending these older kids to jail!
This means you cannot even legally ground a 16 year old. As long as this law exists I can defeat any parental responsibility law out there as I CANNOT DO ANYTHING to restrict anyone over the age of sixteen and therefore I cannot be legally held responsible for such person's actions.
Allowing your kids to drink at home simply promotes alcohol abuse at a young age. Dimwits! Do you pre-book the AA meetings too?
I am horrified that these
I am horrified that these parties have literally made it mandatory for our teen grads to attend and get drunk. Their PARENTS have planned it all year. Their PARENTS have fundraised all year. The PARENTS organize and conjole, and bribe their kids to take part in this planning and fundraising. Their PARENTS buy the alcohol. Their PARENTS still spend vulgar amounts of money on prom/grad dresses/suits to be worn for 2 hours. Funny, there seems to be a trend here. Maybe the PARENTS have a psychological problem with letting go. When I graduated I wasn't a part of the "in" crowd. There was also no pressure from my mom one way or the other. I didn't attend the parties and yes, at the time, I felt left out. But that ended by the next weekend. Even kids who have nothing to do with the drinking scene all year are pressured, by conscientious parents probably afraid of appearing to moral, to attend. My kid graduates in 2 years. Do you think there's any chance of these stupid parties going away? The max. number of drinks per kid, is 10. Seem excessive? How is this teaching our kids anything but corruption. It just stinks. I do believe this is a juggernaut and the only way to shut them down is with the police. Where are they?
That's an interesting way of
That's an interesting way of approaching the issue and I must say you are perfectly right about it. There is something that I want to add though: I don't think we can make an accurate comparison between kids today and kids before. Kids today are more exposed to booze and drugs and it's much harder to keep them safe.
Haris, addiction treatment consultant
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