Do parents drink at your tween’s sporting events?

[Anonymous]

What percentage of parents drinking at youth sports are also anti-vaxxers / anti-maskers?

Ugh. You are a sanctimonious putz.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

What percentage of parents drinking at youth sports are also anti-vaxxers / anti-maskers?

Ugh. You are a sanctimonious putz.

Got it. I see you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

What percentage of parents drinking at youth sports are also anti-vaxxers / anti-maskers?

Ugh. You are a sanctimonious putz.

Ugh- don’t start please with the vax stuff. This thread is about DRINKING! 🤣

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand. A game is a couple of hours, you can’t last through that without a drink at a children’s event?

Or if you have a series of games, you should be hydrating because you will be outside for a long time and driving frequently.

That’s what I was thinking. I can imagine having some parents / players over after a game or tournament- but not being able to make it 2-3 hours without alcohol? That shocks me. I sure as heck wouldn’t be carpooling with those parents.

Do they think it’s cute or funny? It makes me think they are alcoholics.

Where do you get that people "can't make it" 2-3 hours? without alcohol? That's a massive and unsupported inference.

Do you drink while you run errands? At work? While doing yard work?
I also like to have a beer on a nice spring or summer afternoon, but I do it after we get home from activities.
If you need to drink alcohol during a practice or a game, maybe you have a problem.

Again, the "need" you have grafted into this paradigm is complete speculation on your part. Where do you get that?

"I am going to assume that you need a drink, rather than just feel like having one, based on absolutely nothing at all. And if you need a drink, you have a problem. Therefore, it is unequivocally established that you have a problem."

Do you really not see how flawed that is?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand. A game is a couple of hours, you can’t last through that without a drink at a children’s event?

Or if you have a series of games, you should be hydrating because you will be outside for a long time and driving frequently.

That’s what I was thinking. I can imagine having some parents / players over after a game or tournament- but not being able to make it 2-3 hours without alcohol? That shocks me. I sure as heck wouldn’t be carpooling with those parents.

Do they think it’s cute or funny? It makes me think they are alcoholics.

Where do you get that people "can't make it" 2-3 hours? without alcohol? That's a massive and unsupported inference.

Do you drink while you run errands? At work? While doing yard work?
I also like to have a beer on a nice spring or summer afternoon, but I do it after we get home from activities.
If you need to drink alcohol during a practice or a game, maybe you have a problem.

Again, the "need" you have grafted into this paradigm is complete speculation on your part. Where do you get that?

"I am going to assume that you need a drink, rather than just feel like having one, based on absolutely nothing at all. And if you need a drink, you have a problem. Therefore, it is unequivocally established that you have a problem."

Do you really not see how flawed that is?

Hit a bit too close to home for you?

DP, but agree with PP re the "need."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

What percentage of parents drinking at youth sports are also anti-vaxxers / anti-maskers?

Ugh. You are a sanctimonious putz.

Ugh- don’t start please with the vax stuff. This thread is about DRINKING! 🤣

I think there was a lot of overlap between the two groups. They needed masks off to drink.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:JFC this board is so ridiculous.

Normal - wine / cider / seltzer at an afternoon game
Not normal - getting bombed / hard alcohol / 9 am drinking

NP. The word "normal" is doing a lot of work there.

I think it's probably not-uncommon, depending on your social circle.

Normal? That's another question. Normalized, I guess.

A lot of people are saying we don't NEED it, we just LIKE to do it, we are just CHOOSING to do it. But when you choose to do something that has to be concealed (when it does run afoul of a rule)-- whether or not you think it should have to be concealed-- you are betraying either a need or a very strong desire that overrides a rule that at least has some logic behind it.

I am not a teetotaler BTW. I'm actually someone who struggles with problem drinking, though a lot of people would probably think I don't drink that much because the amount and occasions upon which I drink are "normalized!" Even before I had what I consider a problem-- when I'd drink a half bottle or maybe one bottle of wine over an entire week, not even every week, and no more than 1-2 glasses at a time-- I would happily have partaken in something like this. Because it's just social, or makes things more enjoyable, or whatever. Right?

But IME MOST people who do this don't just do it occasionally. They may not feel they are heavy drinkers, but if you drink even 1-2 drinks at every game, that's unlikely to be the only time you drink, or only one of 2 times a week, or whatever. It's unlikely that you're counting a 7.5% beer as 1.5 drinks, which it is. And so on. I posted here before about how many drinks I witnessed fellow PTA board members drinking on a Tuesday night-- just an observation-- and was told I "obviously have a drinking problem" (yes? I said that?) if I was counting every drink other people had. Defensive? Maybe a little. It was easy to count up however many bottles of wine/beer it was... I can't remember, but something like an average of 3-4 drinks per person on a Tuesday for a PTA meeting. Which is not horrifying at all (everyone walked), and not even problematic in a vacuum. It's just that it's not in a vacuum. But lots of people like to pretend it is. *shrug* (And no, I'm not implying everyone there drinks 3-4 drinks every night, or that if they drink that much on a Tuesday night at a PTA meeting, they must get blackout drunk on weekends. But yeah, of course, it still adds up for most people.)

I think it's interesting that the PP I'm responding to said that 9 am/hard liquor/getting wasted are problematic, but not wine/beer/etc. in the afternoon.

The only thing on either of those lists that's obviously problematic is "getting bombed."

But there's no difference in terms of kind of alcohol or time of day except social conventions. So all PP is really saying is that as long as you're following social conventions, you're fine, right? Except that every culture and microculture has its own social conventions, and what might be acceptable to one might be extreme to another, in either direction. But none of them have anything to do with health, safety, psychological welfare or anything even a little more objective. Smoking only on weekends, or smoking a pack a week, used to be a completely moderate thing to do. Now it's not at all considered extreme to literally never smoke a cigarette. Nothing actually changed. Just social conventions. Social conventions as affected by scientific understanding? Sure. Partly. But social conventions, just the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:JFC this board is so ridiculous.

Normal - wine / cider / seltzer at an afternoon game
Not normal - getting bombed / hard alcohol / 9 am drinking

NP. The word "normal" is doing a lot of work there.

I think it's probably not-uncommon, depending on your social circle.

Normal? That's another question. Normalized, I guess.

A lot of people are saying we don't NEED it, we just LIKE to do it, we are just CHOOSING to do it. But when you choose to do something that has to be concealed (when it does run afoul of a rule)-- whether or not you think it should have to be concealed-- you are betraying either a need or a very strong desire that overrides a rule that at least has some logic behind it.

I am not a teetotaler BTW. I'm actually someone who struggles with problem drinking, though a lot of people would probably think I don't drink that much because the amount and occasions upon which I drink are "normalized!" Even before I had what I consider a problem-- when I'd drink a half bottle or maybe one bottle of wine over an entire week, not even every week, and no more than 1-2 glasses at a time-- I would happily have partaken in something like this. Because it's just social, or makes things more enjoyable, or whatever. Right?

But IME MOST people who do this don't just do it occasionally. They may not feel they are heavy drinkers, but if you drink even 1-2 drinks at every game, that's unlikely to be the only time you drink, or only one of 2 times a week, or whatever. It's unlikely that you're counting a 7.5% beer as 1.5 drinks, which it is. And so on. I posted here before about how many drinks I witnessed fellow PTA board members drinking on a Tuesday night-- just an observation-- and was told I "obviously have a drinking problem" (yes? I said that?) if I was counting every drink other people had. Defensive? Maybe a little. It was easy to count up however many bottles of wine/beer it was... I can't remember, but something like an average of 3-4 drinks per person on a Tuesday for a PTA meeting. Which is not horrifying at all (everyone walked), and not even problematic in a vacuum. It's just that it's not in a vacuum. But lots of people like to pretend it is. *shrug* (And no, I'm not implying everyone there drinks 3-4 drinks every night, or that if they drink that much on a Tuesday night at a PTA meeting, they must get blackout drunk on weekends. But yeah, of course, it still adds up for most people.)

I think it's interesting that the PP I'm responding to said that 9 am/hard liquor/getting wasted are problematic, but not wine/beer/etc. in the afternoon.

The only thing on either of those lists that's obviously problematic is "getting bombed."

But there's no difference in terms of kind of alcohol or time of day except social conventions. So all PP is really saying is that as long as you're following social conventions, you're fine, right? Except that every culture and microculture has its own social conventions, and what might be acceptable to one might be extreme to another, in either direction. But none of them have anything to do with health, safety, psychological welfare or anything even a little more objective. Smoking only on weekends, or smoking a pack a week, used to be a completely moderate thing to do. Now it's not at all considered extreme to literally never smoke a cigarette. Nothing actually changed. Just social conventions. Social conventions as affected by scientific understanding? Sure. Partly. But social conventions, just the same.

Thank you for this. I grew up around several "functional" alcoholics among whom several weren't so functional later in life. There seems to be an abundance of them around the DMV and at youth sports. I agree with PP with social conventions changing. When I started working hard liquor was on the table at all-hands meetings. Then they became Kegs and Questions (no hard liquor). Liquor at parks, but this isn't the 1970s and almost all public parks prohibit alcohol and some do not even allow for permitting of it.

It is amazing to me how many parents here seem to have the "if we don't get caught drinking, we're not really breaking any rules" mindset. However, consider that if you do get caught, you do hurt the whole team. For example,

https://bombsquadbaseball.com/baseball-tournament-rules/ "There will be a “zero tolerance” policy for any alcohol or tobacco anywhere within the confines of the tournament venues. The Manager will be ejected from the game(s) if his team’s fans bring alcohol onto the event premises, including the parking lot.

Little League Parent Code of Conduct https://www.littleleague.org/downloads/parent-code-conduct/ "I will demand a sports environment for my child that is free from drugs, tobacco, and alcohol and I will refrain from their use at all sports events."

FCPS fields -- https://www.fcps.edu/resources/community-use-school-facilities "Community users are prohibited from having the following activities in Fairfax County Public Schools to include in school buildings, on playgrounds and on fields: ...
Alcoholic Beverages..."

You can jeopadarize your league's permits not just get asked to leave.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

What percentage of parents drinking at youth sports are also anti-vaxxers / anti-maskers?

Ugh. You are a sanctimonious putz.

Ugh- don’t start please with the vax stuff. This thread is about DRINKING! 🤣

I think there was a lot of overlap between the two groups. They needed masks off to drink.

If it helps, my experience is that I don't know a single antivaxxer or antimasker IRL and quite a few functioning alcoholics. All very eager to get the shot. I do have some friends on socials who are antimask/vaxx and teetotalers but that might be more because of their religious bent.

[Anonymous]

If you're white in the City of Alexandria theres a 95% chance you're vaccinated and about 65% of these folks drink at kids sports.

[Anonymous]

I have multiple kids playing multiple sports and I see drinking mainly at hockey and lacrosse ---

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Alexandria Little League parent here. If I see you with a travel mug, hydroflask, opaque Nalgene or some other container I know it's either a mixed drink or wine, especially if it's a night game.

That is ridiculous. DC travel parent here and we all have yetis/hydroflasks and no one has alcohol in them. You know how I know why, because our daughters ALWAYS run out of water and end up taking the half full hydroflasks to drink and share with their teammates. No one has ever said their kid couldn't have their drink.

What's ridiculous is your kid "ALWAYS" runs out of water and you're too stupid to learn to give her more the next time.

And sharing drinks is gross af. None of my kid's want my backwash. Your kids sound like dogs.

It sounds more like they're not willing to be a nag to the preteens and teens, but they're also not willing to let their kids get sick with dehydration.

[Anonymous]

When I coached NVSL swimming 15-16 years ago there were several moms who brought 32 oz. Nalgenes full of gin or vodka drinks to meets. All part of the same crowd known for hosting raging parties where all the parents got blackout drunk. Yes, I believe they had a problem.

[Anonymous]

I might go ahead and crack open a cold one tonight at my kid's baseball game to celebrate not having to wear a mask!

[Anonymous]

Why did it never occur to me to bring alcohol to B meets? This is genius.