what is with parents serving alcohol at parties for kids who are 15 and 16?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is just not a big deal to me since my kid is going to college in about 75 days. I don’t serve alcohol to high school kids, but my DC has been to about 7 grad parties in the last week and all had bartenders serving the kids. Literally EVERY ONE. Everyone takes Ubers. I don’t think this is strictly a private school thing. Our neighbors send their kids to the local public school and hosted a grad party last weekend. Parents were mingling with kids - all drinking.

It is a big deal. Try being a parent instead of their friend. Going to college in 2.5 months isn't an excuse for your lack of judgment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have two kids at two different Big3 schools.
This past week (end of year parties and grad parties) each of my kids has been invited to KID ONLY parties
where the parents bought alcohol. The kids at one party were 15-16. The other ones were grad parties so the kids were 17-18.
The parents bought the alcohol (not the kids sneaking in). The parents had ice buckets of ice seltzer, etc for age 15+ kids.
They're not tiny parties either (like just the popular or wild kids or anything like that).
It's a normal cross section of the classes.

Am I hopelessly out of touch? My kids say "it's a private school thing mom. All the parents do it."
Is this true?
I am not judging (well I guess I am) but I'm still sending my kids to these things so I guess I'm not really judging.

And if you say "this never happens", I'd encourage you to dig deeper.
My daughter was at a 10th grade girls-only pool party yesterday afternoon and I thought I knew the mom.
I never would have even thought to ask my kid "was there alcohol at this girls-only (no boys were there) afternoon pool party?
I mean, huh?
And yet there was!! She served the kids hard seltzer.

What have you seen? Appreciate any perspectives.
Thanks you much.

You are giving very identifying information so low class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is just not a big deal to me since my kid is going to college in about 75 days. I don’t serve alcohol to high school kids, but my DC has been to about 7 grad parties in the last week and all had bartenders serving the kids. Literally EVERY ONE. Everyone takes Ubers. I don’t think this is strictly a private school thing. Our neighbors send their kids to the local public school and hosted a grad party last weekend. Parents were mingling with kids - all drinking.

It is a big deal. Try being a parent instead of their friend. Going to college in 2.5 months isn't an excuse for your lack of judgment.

This has been eye opening to me. Parents buying and providing alcohol and encouraging it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have two kids at two different Big3 schools.
This past week (end of year parties and grad parties) each of my kids has been invited to KID ONLY parties
where the parents bought alcohol. The kids at one party were 15-16. The other ones were grad parties so the kids were 17-18.
The parents bought the alcohol (not the kids sneaking in). The parents had ice buckets of ice seltzer, etc for age 15+ kids.
They're not tiny parties either (like just the popular or wild kids or anything like that).
It's a normal cross section of the classes.

Am I hopelessly out of touch? My kids say "it's a private school thing mom. All the parents do it."
Is this true?
I am not judging (well I guess I am) but I'm still sending my kids to these things so I guess I'm not really judging.

And if you say "this never happens", I'd encourage you to dig deeper.
My daughter was at a 10th grade girls-only pool party yesterday afternoon and I thought I knew the mom.
I never would have even thought to ask my kid "was there alcohol at this girls-only (no boys were there) afternoon pool party?
I mean, huh?
And yet there was!! She served the kids hard seltzer.

What have you seen? Appreciate any perspectives.
Thanks you much.

You are giving very identifying information so low class.

And your skewed sense of morality is the problem here. Whats low class is serving teenagers alcohol. It’s not about keeping up with the Joneses or having your kids friends think you’re cool it’s about what’s doing right and protecting them as others have stated. Grow up pp

[Anonymous]

I am not terribly conservative, but would absolutely not hesitate to call the police on idiots that did this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are the parents present at these parties? Just from a liability perspective, I'm flabbergasted. Especially with so many of the parents being lawyers. I know these parties do exist and it makes me sad. Why on earth are people encouraging their much to young teenagers to be drinking? Study after study shows how dangerous drinking in highschool is both in the short and long term.

Is this born out of a need for the parents to feel cool? Parents who provide alcohol to minors please explain your though process. I'm a parent who will call the cops on one of these parties. It's just fundamentally wrong on so many levels to be serving 14 to 18 year old alcohol.

OP here.
YES!!! They are hosting the parties, with ice buckets on the patio and are handing the kids drinks.
This is not basement drinking or the sort.
None of these families are Europeans so please don't derail the thread with that line of thinking. Ironically, if anyone is a "European" I am (immigrated as a very young child).

The pool party yesterday was for 10th grade girls. The mom served 16 year old girls hard seltzer from the side of their pool.

I wouldn't serve teens alcohol at a party. However, if I were going to, I would definitely be the one who handed it out. That way I could control how many are served to any one kid, and keep an eye to make sure no one is (overly) intoxicated.

[Anonymous]

Maybe private school parents know that their kids have trust funds and so are set for life, and therefore who cares about killing brain cells?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parents who were dorks in high school and want their kids to be the "cool kids."

And parents who were “cool kids” in HS try to re-capture their glory days through their kids. Takes all kinds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are the parents present at these parties? Just from a liability perspective, I'm flabbergasted. Especially with so many of the parents being lawyers. I know these parties do exist and it makes me sad. Why on earth are people encouraging their much to young teenagers to be drinking? Study after study shows how dangerous drinking in highschool is both in the short and long term.

Is this born out of a need for the parents to feel cool? Parents who provide alcohol to minors please explain your though process. I'm a parent who will call the cops on one of these parties. It's just fundamentally wrong on so many levels to be serving 14 to 18 year old alcohol.

OP here.
YES!!! They are hosting the parties, with ice buckets on the patio and are handing the kids drinks.
This is not basement drinking or the sort.
None of these families are Europeans so please don't derail the thread with that line of thinking. Ironically, if anyone is a "European" I am (immigrated as a very young child).

The pool party yesterday was for 10th grade girls. The mom served 16 year old girls hard seltzer from the side of their pool.

Alcohol + teenagers + a pool + driving? Wow. That’s stupid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Private schools tend to draw a more cosmopolitan, international crowd that understands there’s nothing wrong with teenagers drinking like they do abroad.

Actually,any of us understand brain development and KNOW there is something very wrong with a developing teenagers brain on alcohol. I mean if you want to stunt your kids' brains, more opportunities for mine in the future, I suppose. Yeah, there is something wrong with this. Plus my kids, also at Big 3, see this and opt out. Mine are in the smart nerdy goody two shoes crowd. They see this around them and usually end up at my house, not drinking. Yeah, I allow that safe place and don't minds tons of kids here having good old fashioned clean fun.

[Anonymous]

I have no insight to make the broad generalizations about other kids, schools and families occurring throughout this post.

But I can say that my private school senior kid doesn’t drink and we had a grad party where kids were not drinking. So it does happen. These kids tend to do other things (hike, bike, golf, swim, cook, see movies etc).

My spouse and I aren’t big drinkers though either. I definitely like a good glass of wine on the weekends but we don’t make a habit of drinking on the weeknights unless we have an event to attend. And, we generally don’t drink to the point of hangovers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not just the private schools, OP. There are families in public schools who allow this, also. The alcohol is in the basement parties, much like decades prior.

I was coming on here to say the exact same thing. I have been to grad parties in N Arlington and alcohol is served openly to teens.

I am from Europe (my kids are first generation) and I would never serve alcohol to minors at our home. If my kids were to ever have friends over where alcohol was snuck in and I caught them I would call each parent and have them come pick up their child. We also never leave our kids alone if we go out of town.

According to our kids, we are "the only parents who are so strict." First of all, I know that's not true and second of all I don't give a flying ****.

I have been doing a lot of reading on drug/alcohol abuse by teens and there is research out there that if kids use alcohol to numb their pain when experiencing discomfort they will never mature past the age when they started drinking heavily. We talk to our kids about drugs/alcohol all the time and talk about it in terms of safety and brain development.

[Anonymous]

My parents condoned (hosted parties & provided alcohol) for my older sister when she was 14-18, as well as subsidized her smoking habits. I had no interest in drinking at all until my mid-20s.

I truly believe my parents’ attitude toward my sister severely stunted her brain development. She has unfortunately made some poor, life-changing decisions & does not function at an adult level.

[Anonymous]

This has been going on for years. Some parents feel that they will do it anyway and they prefer the kids to be supervised.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here.
For what it's worth, the host families at these things (I'm thinking of 6 families) are all very white-bread Americans.

My DC experienced this at a St. Andrew's party.