In honor of the Dev and I being in Time magazine last year my wife?purchased a subscription for me as a gift. Now I spend a couple off days a week reading the articles on the subway as I commute. I read from cover to cover and I am consistently entertained and informed. Every so often an article is published that I want to mention on this blog, then life gets in the way and I don’t. I read one today, however, that made me actually commit to a gentle critique. The John Cloud piece ?that got me going is about drinking alcohol?with your kids.
When I was much younger I would make jokes about how I was going to teach my kids to make me martinis and other beverages like I had seen in a movie. Years later my thinking on having ‘kids’ has shifted to having kid and I can imagine?him with a cocktail shaker in his hands?considerably less?than I can imagine him driving my car. Then I try to picture my little doppelganger as a teenager and?him and I sharing a bottle of pinot noir.?I must admit I get a little nauseous by the image. I just can’t see it happening. But what Cloud is arguing is that maybe it should happen because it’s a better option than the binge drinking that teens find themselves?partaking in at small unsupervised social gatherings. And be clear, he is not talking about supplying vodka for your child’s sweet 16, but rather a glass of wine with dinner on occasion.
I had a beer with my own father when I was about 20. That was fine and harmless. He had given me a sip of one of his beers when I was about Dev’s age and I thought it was the most disgusting thing ever. He knew I would, and it stuck in my mind for years to come. Family members would drink beer and I would be appalled – at least until I got to high school. Let’s just say that the teenage years are impressionable, which we can all agree on I’m sure, and?I question if drinking with mom would have helped me make better decisions. I didn’t start getting carded until I became legal so that definitely didn’t help.