Conversely, when I was growing up I regularly saw my parents and their friends drinking and drunk. I decided they were so embarrassing that I didn’t want to drink, despite being freely allowed to drink at home from the age of 15 or 16.

Maybe the alcohol isn’t the problem, but the attitude?

“So, no one is saying don’t enjoy a holiday beer or two whilst you’re away but perhaps forgo the lunchtime drink for another dip in the pool with the kids?”

My preferred solution: don’t have kids.

The research papers appear to make considerable use of such phrases as “enforcement”, “intervention”, “universal prevention” – clearly it would be better for all concerned if people just did what they were told, rather than what they feel…

If my children watch me drink somewhat more than usual and during the day, whilst on holiday, and grow up to be people who drink somewhat more than usual and during the day, whilst on holiday, that’s okay with me.

@3 – you’d not rather they were perpetually afraid and ashamed of life, choosing to exist in a tortured puritanical cage of some neurotic half-creature’s design?

“So, no one is saying don’t enjoy a holiday beer or two whilst you’re away but perhaps forgo the lunchtime drink for another dip in the pool with the kids?”

Or alternatively, how about you guys mind your own business.

Whenever my kids complain about me drinking I reply, “You should be grateful. You wouldn’t exist without this stuff.”

/not actually a parent

This article makes no sense? Are we trying to discourage young people from using alcohol or something?

@3

I don’t think that’s what the research is suggesting though? rather that if your kids see you drunk on holiday they’ll end up drinking more *generally* ?
correct me if I’m wrong OP….

Mr Pil,

I think there is evidence that parental drinking affects offspring drinking generally, but no evidence that the children of moderate drinkers, who would rarely drink during the day otherwise, are any more likely to have drinking problems just because they saw mummy have a lunchtime G&T by the pool, or a pint with a pub lunch whilst walking in Wales. Things that many of us don’t get the chance to do most days, but look forward to doing on holiday.

If kids watch their parents get shit faced on holiday, no doubt they learn to think of getting shit faced as what one does when one gets the chance, but the OP is not talkinf about exceSsive drinking, it is asking us to forgo a lunchtime drink. To which I say, get knotted you sanctimonious berk.

the OP is not talking about excessive drinking, it is asking us to forgo a lunchtime drink. To which I say, get knotted you sanctimonious berk.

And so say all of us.

Seriously?

You’re suggesting that being with, yes even your own, kids all day for weeks on end *isn’t* going to lead to more drinking?

The role model I choose to be for my children is a matter for me.

The amount I choose to drink is also a matter for me.

When they grow up, the amount my children choose to drink will be a matter for them.

Your advice is well meant, Claire, and I know you believe it is in all of our interests, but unfortunately you are the type of well meaning busybody who desperately needs to mind their own business.

Now bugger off.

Kids cause drinking? Weak even for you…

In fact, please publish your holiday plans so that I can aviod your hectoring and self-righteousness. Ta…

Ill-thought out lecturing piece including no meaningful wisdom or advice. Why?

Breaking news: The ill-founded presumption that drinking lots is inherrently bad leads to shockingly shoddy research work.

First – lets recognise the gaping chasm of a hole in the research.

The children of practicing muslims are not more likely to go to mosques because they saw their parents go – nor are the children of Derby County fans more likely to go to Derby County games because they saw their parents do so.

Maybe children of drinkers grow up believing, as their parents do, that alcohol is part of a happy lifestyle?

Secondly – lets attack the conceited presumption that motivates sch shoddy research.

Parents who think drinking is part of a happy life are not wrong. They are not misinformed. They are in fact free people who judge by their own experience what works for them.

Given the role of alcohol as a social lubricant and a release mechanism – is it possible that our low levels of nationalism, religious extremism, suicide, murder and so on – are a result of that parental wisdom?

After all – the only “absolute” bad attached to alcohol is the provable impact on health. But since most people when surveyed say they would choose a happy life over a long one – perhaps free-thinking people should rightly assess that alcohol does more good than harm?

I am going to have to stick my neck out and defend Claire here. Excessive drinking – that’s *excessive* drinking folks, not all drinking – is a Bad Thing that does untold damage to individuals, families and society as a whole. And in spite of some unfortunate phrasing (“forgo the lunchtime drink”), it does seem to be *excessive* drinking Claire is talking about here (“a time when they were modelling more excessive drinking practices”).

It’s one thing to insist that it’s up to you how much you drink around your children and when, but it’s another to dismiss research that might help you make an informed decision. I’ve no doubt some smokers were similarly inclined to stick their fingers in their ears and intone ‘busybody busybody busybody’ when it was pointed out to them thirty years ago that smoking around their children made their children more likely to smoke, but surely no-one would look back now and say that advice should never have been given? It’s part of the reason that today’s children are less likely to smoke than their parents and grandparents.

G.O.

As an “excessive drinker” myself I was defending excessive drinking as a perfectly healthy choice and a social behaviour that some parents want to pass on to their children so as to ensure their children have a similarly healthy life. (Healthy being a more holistic term than just lack of physical impairment).

Derby County fans feel thir fandom enriches their lives – so they pass it on to their kids.

Practicing muslims feel their religion enriches their lives – so they pass it on to their kids.

People feel drinking heavilly enriches their lives. That’s why people who are not addicts do it. Be it a way of coping with the monotony of life, a release from social awkwardness, the sociable nature of communal consmption, or whatever – it is a choice taken to enrich one’s life.

Like Derby County and Islam, it is not a choice that would enrich every life. Like Derby County and Islam it is a choice with negatives and positives that people understand perfectly well. Bt like Derby County and Islam, the benefits outweigh the negatives for some people, and they thus benefit from that choice.

And those it work’s for tend to pass their cultural and social wisdom on to their kids.

The dictatorial streak that would have many have to tell us who to pray to, what team to support and what we can and can’t consume – tends to find a vapid credence in “health”

To claim something is bad for one’s “health” seems to justify dictatorship these days. But I fear that is only becase some people have a rather unhealthy obsession with health – and with the presmption that living long is better than living well.

The british public are more sophisticated than such people. Hence they drink heavilly for all the millions of combinations of reasons that they do – and they enrich their lives by doing so.

ps

sorry for the long post – this is a particular bugbear of mine. I do hate our society’s use of “health” to over-ride liberty and freedom – and I hate all the more the short-sighted nature of dismissing alcoholism as a social ill without looking into the social benefits it may result in.

FAAAAAAACCCCCCKKKKKK off
I am taking Dougal with me to the caravan

Derby County fans feel thir fandom enriches their lives – so they pass it on to their kids.
You’re kidding

I actually agree with you Margin.
My father died this year and some my best memories were sharing a pint with him.

Guttman

I know – sad isn’t it. But it could be worse. I know a Bradford City fan.

And yep, i would bet many a young man holds those memories close. I do.

Margin4error

Well, OK. Some people think anorexia is a healthy, positive, life-enriching choice too; it takes all sorts. Does the mere existence of such minority ‘pro-anorexia’ views, akin to your own ‘pro-alcoholism’ view, mean there’s no place for advice or research on how parental behaviour around food and dieting (say) might be related to the development of anorexia in their children?

Surely not. (In fact I’d expect pro-ana/pro-alco (?) campaigners to welcome such advice as offering handy tips on how to cultivate habits of insufficient eating/excessive drinking in their children.)

G.O.

Lots of parents encourage their children (and particularly daughters) to be thin –
conversely many parents encourage their kids to grow big. Both can enrich a person’s life and everyone decides which works for them.

Both are a little different to alcohol as both tend to be things parents actively do to their kids. One feeds one’s own five year old – One rarely tells one’s five year old to down nine pints of beer on a friday night after a hard week at school.

But the similarity is very much that one passes one’s life experiences and ideals on to one’s children. So be it not eating much, eating lots, worshiping god, worshiping Derby County, or drinking a lot of beer – what enriches the parent’s life will often enrich their children’s lives.

I don’t know much about anorexia itself. But as I understand it it is a medical condition rather than a lifestyle choice. As such it is rather different to attending the mosque, attending the County Ground, or attending the pub.

Sp you have effectively asked me whether it would be right for a parent with tuberculosis to see that as life enriching and so encourage his or her son or daughter to have tuberculosis.

Which is patently absurd.

And again – only a conceited presumption can arrive at such a patently absurd suggestion.

So lets address the conceited presumption.

Why do you think heavy drinking is bad?

Margin4error

Let me tidy up this analogy a bit, using the phrase ‘light eating’ by analogy with ‘heavy drinking’.

I take the following view of light eating: up to a certain point – the point at which it becomes ‘excessive’ – it can be seen as a healthy lifestyle choice. Past that point, it can’t. (That’s pretty much what ‘excessive’ means here.) People who take light eating to extremes, who feel they can enrich their lives/find fulfilment/achieve happiness by eating excessively little are best thought of as suffering from a disorder of some sort. Some of those people we diagnose as ‘anorexics’.

Some people – ‘pro-ana’ campaigners – take a different view. They don’t think there’s anything ‘disordered’ or unhealthy (in your broad sense) about excessively light eating; they think it’s a legitimate lifestyle choice made by people seeking to enrich their lives and find happiness and fulfilment.

Similarly, I take the following view of heavy drinking: up to a certain point – the point at which it becomes ‘excessive’ – it can be seen as a healthy lifestyle choice. Past that point, it can’t. (That’s pretty much what ‘excessive’ means here.) People who take heavy drinking to extremes, who feel they can enrich their lives/find fulfilment/achieve happiness by drinking excessively are best thought of as suffering from a disorder of some sort. Some of those people we diagnose as ‘alcoholics’.

Some people – you, for one – take a different view. They don’t think there’s anything ‘disordered’ or unhealthy (in your broad sense) about excessively heavy drinking; they think it’s a legitimate lifestyle choice made by people seeking to enrich their lives and find happiness and fulfilment.

If you can appreciate why it would feel odd to you to be asked why you think excessive undereating is bad, hopefully you can appreciate why it feels odd to me to be asked why I think (excessive) heavy drinking is bad. Wouldn’t you just want to say ‘what, apart from the fact that it damages your (narrow-sense) health, can lead to compulsive behaviour that damages relationships, etc.’? Wouldn’t a pro-ana campaigner’s defence of excessive undereating as a positive thing that enriches her life strike you as unpersuasive, self-deceived, irrational, given the damage we all know it does? That’s basically how I feel. I could tell you about the role excessive drinking played in the shitty lives of various friends and acquaintances – a beaten wife, an abandoned child, an alcoholic depression sufferer, a raped schoolgirl – but it’s all so obvious it doesn’t need saying. Regardless, you’re just going to say something like ‘yes, but look how happy it makes me and my friends and lots of other people’, and I’m going to find that answer every bit as persuasive as you’d find the same answer coming from a pro-ana campaigner.

Anyway, it’s kind of beside the point whether you’re right about drink and the pro-ana campaigner is wrong about food, or vice-versa, or whatever. The point is: these are only points of view, and the mere fact that you have those points of view (right or wrong) doesn’t detract from the legitimacy of research or advice that presupposes an opposing point of view.

G.O

but now you have gone full circle because my post was a criticism of the shoddy research.

The children of practicing muslims are not more likely to go to mosques because they saw their parents go – nor are the children of Derby County fans more likely to go to Derby County games because they saw their parents do so.

So maybe children of excessive drinkers don’t drink excessively because they saw their parents drink excessively, but because their parents pass their wisdom down to their kids to enrich their lives. (ie – their children drinking is not a failure, but an enrichment of their life)

It was the shoddy research itself – and its shockingly weak extrapolations that thus led me to point out the conceited presumption that motivates such shoddy work – an assumption that in your words:

“Excessive drinking – that’s *excessive* drinking folks, not all drinking – is a Bad Thing that does untold damage to individuals, families and society as a whole.”

It is this concieted presumption that no one researches at all.

After all – to use the language of those who see alcoholism as a weakness – if one takes away the coping mechanism (alcoholism) that people use to get through their careers and their stressful lives or with their social awkwardness or whatever – in the first instant you simply leave people with no capacity to cope.

What they thus replace alcohol with is crucial to understanding whether their alcoholism is a good choice for them. They could choose random violence, self harm, risky sexual behaviour, gambling, heroin, writing poetry, suicide, watching gore films, eating excessively, eating nothing, religion, political extremism, watching reality tv, etc.

millions of parents seem to think alcoholism works pretty well – so they encourage their kids, quite sensibly, to use it.

the research starts with the assumption that this is a mistake – but offers no explanation of that mistake.

btw

without wanting to go all Bill Hicks about this – I drink a lot. Yet I’ve never raped anyone, killed anyone, attacked anyone, abused a spouse, lost a job, suffered depression, or destroyed a relationship.

So my parents seem to have judged right in encouraging me to se alcohol liberally.

Margin4error

“my post was a criticism of the shoddy research.”

If I’m understanding you correctly, you think the research was shoddy in two ways:

1 – “the research starts with the assumption that [encouraging one's children to become alcoholics] is a mistake – but offers no explanation of that mistake.”

What I was trying to do by drawing an analogy between pro-alcoholism and pro-anorexia views was make you see that the onus is not on those who take the consensus view – that encouraging your children to seek happiness and fulfilment through excessive drinking or excessive undereating would be a bad thing – to defend that view; rather, it is on those who take very eccentric-looking pro-anorexia or pro-alcoholism views to undermine that consensus.

2 – “The children of practicing muslims are not more likely to go to mosques because they saw their parents go – nor are the children of Derby County fans more likely to go to Derby County games because they saw their parents do so.

So maybe children of excessive drinkers don’t drink excessively because they saw their parents drink excessively, but because their parents pass their wisdom down to their kids to enrich their lives.”

What you seem to be suggesting here is that parents don’t pass on their wisdom by modelling certain behaviour, but by (presumably?) sharing it verbally. I just don’t see why we should think so. Don’t actions speak louder than words? It seems wildy implausible to me that children of Derby County fans don’t become Derby County fans because they see their dad wearing the scarf, chanting on the terrace, celebrating with other fans etc. (and share those experiences with him), but because he sometimes sits them down and drily informs them that he derives happiness from supporting Derby County.

How is it that you think “millions of parents” typically “encourage their kids, quite sensibly, to use [alcoholism]“? Not, surely, by sitting them down and explicitly urging them to become alcoholics. If they do so at all, surely they do so by modelling alcoholic behaviour – letting their kids see how excessive drinking helps them unwind, enjoy themselves, cope with the stresses of everyday life, etc.?

“I drink a lot. Yet I’ve never raped anyone, killed anyone, attacked anyone, abused a spouse, lost a job, suffered depression, or destroyed a relationship.

So my parents seem to have judged right in encouraging me to se alcohol liberally.”

Great. Glad that worked out for them, and you. Does that mean parents who *don’t* want their children to grow up drinking excessively shouldn’t have access to advice on how they can model what *they* see as a healthy relationship with alcohol? You’re perfectly free to ignore such advice, or to do precisely what you’re advised not to do (because you *want* to encourage your children to drink excessively).

“For example, findings from our recent research by Ipsos MORI indicate that the odds of a teenager getting drunk double if they have seen their parents drunk (even if only a few times) compared with teenagers who have never seen their parents drunk. ”

Meh. You’re more likely to be the sort of person who’s inclined to get drunk if your parents are the sort of people who are inclined to get drunk, for both genetic and social reasons. And if your parents are inclined to get drunk then you’re more likely to have seen them drunk.

It’s possible that the actual act of witnessing your parents intoxicated makes you more likely to drink excessively, but the statistic you refer to doesn’t do anything to demonstrate that.