Anonymous wrote:I guess this depends on your commitment to sit down for a family meal regularly. If you’re relying on Uber Eats or DoorDash to feed your family you can just move along from here.

We pair a bottle of wine with our family dinners. Allowing our teens to enjoy wine with their meal serves to demystify alcohol. It has served us and them well.

We have always eaten family dinners together, and as the kids activities kept them busy, we adjusted. Maybe it's only 3 or 4 nights per week while they are in season, but alcohol was never available to our teens, amd never allowed at all until they were 21. It has served us and them well.

Anonymous wrote:We don’t offer alcohol to underaged kids.

Spouse’s father died from alcohol induced cirrhosis in his 60s.

We both enjoy wine - weekends. Cocktails at parties/dinner. Never drive after even 1.

But we know that the earlier kids taste alcohol, the more likely they are to later develop alcohol use disorder.

My rising college sophomore is an athlete and doesn’t drink at all.

You honestly can’t know if your kid drinks at college.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We're French, and had our kids taste wine and other alcohols when they pretty young, because in many French families, this is what happens. They didn't like it. So now they're young adults and older teens, we drink extremely rarely (a couple of times a year, maybe), and the children don't usually join us, even though we'd have no problems if they did. I think we all lack the gene that makes humans like alcohol. It does nothing for us. We would definitely NOT be fine with frequent drinking. As PP said, it's not good for your health.

France has a huge problem with binge drinking and teenagers. Definitely not a culture to emulate. Europeans in general are lushes — ever see the Brits? And like 3/4 of Russians show signs of fetal alcohol syndrome in their faces.

Did you forget the Irish?

Anonymous wrote:We're French, and had our kids taste wine and other alcohols when they pretty young, because in many French families, this is what happens. They didn't like it. So now they're young adults and older teens, we drink extremely rarely (a couple of times a year, maybe), and the children don't usually join us, even though we'd have no problems if they did. I think we all lack the gene that makes humans like alcohol. It does nothing for us. We would definitely NOT be fine with frequent drinking. As PP said, it's not good for your health.

Teens in France binge drink a lot more than American teens. Most European countries are the same.

My mother from Canada, a French Canadian, didn’t bring a wine habit with her move to the US.

All the strong reactions against alcohol makes me think of the Temperance movement and Prohibition. People drank A LOT prior to that. Apparently the bar tab during the Constitutional Convention was pretty high per night. One could chalk it up to lack of potable water back then. Up until Prohibition some men were routinely showing up to work drunk and staying drunk which is why the Temperance movement was also part of the Women's Suffrage movement - the men drinking was bad for family life.
And during Prohibition, there was a special back door at the US Capitol where liquor was delivered to our statesmen.
One just has to watch Mad Men to understand how much drinking went on as a routine part of everyday life up into the 60s. My in-laws, who came of age during Mad Men era, their house has alcohol practically in every room with some bottles dating back to the 1980s.
Compared to the past, we're pretty tepid about alcohol today. I guess most Americans found other vices.

Anonymous wrote:My rising college sophomore is an athlete and doesn’t drink at all.

College athletes are worse than frat bros and sorority lushes. Women’s lacrosse is essentially Girls Gone Wild: The College Years.

I don't drink at home except for maybe on holidays or other social occasions, so no nightly wine with dinner here.

I think a little wine with Christmas dinner is fine for anyone over 18, but other than that, we weren't plying our kids with liquor.

Anonymous wrote:We have takeout once a week, so I’m banned from the thread.

Can we reply if we use DoorDash but it’s for wine delivery?

We have takeout once a week, so I’m banned from the thread.

This prohibitionist is over-caffeinated it appears.

OP is an alcoholic who uses her kids, giving them wine to make her feel better about her over-consumption.

No, I am not encouraging underage drinking.

My kid doesn’t even like carbonated drinks, so they won’t even like beer.

They will have plenty of time to drink when they are 21.

We don’t offer alcohol to underaged kids.

Spouse’s father died from alcohol induced cirrhosis in his 60s.

We both enjoy wine - weekends. Cocktails at parties/dinner. Never drive after even 1.

But we know that the earlier kids taste alcohol, the more likely they are to later develop alcohol use disorder.

My rising college sophomore is an athlete and doesn’t drink at all.

Hell no

Plus- they have sports practice at 8:30pm…and they drive there

Anonymous wrote:NFW. They can drink wine with us at 21 when they are legal.

Look up the laws. You will probably be surprised.