Drinking Practice...for 13 Year Olds

I still remember my first(and last) drinking game. I was terrified and embarrassed and humiliated. Everything my mother said I would be...or would have said I would be if she ever would have acknowledged the presence of drinking games. (Instead we usually got the very cryptic, generalized "nothing good ever happens after midnight" speech. And if it wasn't good, we didn't need to know about it.)

I was so naive. How they ever let me into that sorority, I'll never know. And why I thought it was a good idea to attend that frat party is even a bigger mystery. Nevertheless, there I was, surrounded by a bunch of very impressive, beautiful, cool, drunkards falling all over themselves and each other with inebriation and laughter because of a question and answer game that resulted in someone--the winner, the loser, I'm still not sure--chugging a beer.

Ok, let's stop right there while I give you a bit of history. First, I HATED the taste of beer. Still do. It tastes like sweaty gym socks soaked in urine. In addition, the only experience I had had with "chugging" was downing big gulps out of the milk carton before my mom walked in the kitchen and caught me.

So I decided I just had to be part of this party game. I answered a question, everyone laughed, and before I knew it, someone was shoving a beer in my face. I chugged a can of sweaty urine and it came right back up, like a baby who sucked down his formula too fast. As if the fact that I had no idea what the game was, how it was played, how you won or how you lost was not embarrassing enough for my stupidly naive college sorority self, now I was covered in beer vomit. Soooo cool! At least I wasn't so stupid as to repeat the drinking game experience. I did have enough brain cells left to figure out that the name, rules, and winners of the game truly didn't matter. The purpose was to get drunk--that was it. Wow! How bored and pathetic must the very impressive, beautiful, cool people be if this was their idea of fun.

So here's the question. Why, if the purpose of a drinking game is to get drunk, why oh why are our middle schoolers playing non-alcoholic versions of them at parties? I was shocked the night my 8th grader came home from a birthday party at the home of a friend with the parents present, and he started describing the fun party games--various versions of Truth and Dare or Have You Ever where the party players had to drink for answering a certain way. There was also the Blink and Drink game where partiers watched Twilight and took a drink of soda every time Kristin Stewart blinked. So I asked my child what was the point of those games. His answer came with a vague, confused expression--to find a reason to take a drink.

I was shocked. Then I was mad. Then I was disgusted. Not with my child, but with the parents. Does it matter that there was no alcohol in their Red Solo Cups? Did the parents ever check on the kids? Did they not provide alternative activities that didn't involve mock drinking games? Was this the best entertainment they could come up with for a bunch of 13 year olds? What is wrong with parents who think this kind of fun is ok or even cool for our kids? For crying out loud, do we not have Google for a reason? If you can't think of something more appropriate, Google it. If nothing else, go to Laser Quest. Rent an inflatable obstacle course. Host a Nerf War. Play Dodge Ball. Surely, we can do better for our kids.

One humiliating, gross experience with a drinking game made me realize that all these cool kids weren't really cool at all and that games played for the purpose of finding a reason to take a drink were not only a waste of time, but also a poor determination of friendship. I was in college, arguable the appropriate time to become "educated" enough to make those kinds of educated decisions. And maybe I didn't need that much "education" because I had been exposed to a myriad of other kinds of fun that don't have "finding a reason to drink" as the purpose. So I guess I'm admitting that I'm glad for naivety that night. I think it gave me healthy perspective. Maybe we should give our kids a little naivety too, instead of helping them find a reason to drink. Wouldn't that be cool?

Cools Moms

On occasion I've been accused of being a cool mom. Mind you these accusations didn't come when I was caught belting Josh Groban in the car...with the windows down...at the stoplight in front of the high school. They also didn't come as I sobbed, red-nosed and wet-faced because I always forget the Kleenex, at every single show my kids performed from preschool Christmas concerts to professional Dinner Theatre. They certainly didn't come when I excitedly cheered, until my I lost my voice, for our team's goalie as she stopped shot after shot after shot...and called her by her sister's name the entire time. No, those were certainly not my Cool Mom Moments. Those blunders, however, pale to nothingness when compared to the story I read recently of a very uncool mom.

Imagine the scene: The 13 year old daughter is pumped because her mom said she could invite some girls over for a slumber party. Her mom is "cool". She knows how to have a good time. This mom's party planning goes way beyond ghost stories and gossip. So the girls come over, ready for a night no one will forget. Maybe. Or maybe most of them won't remember it. Because the mom's idea of entertainment involves beer and vodka. Lots of it. In fact, the mom is so "cool" she offered a prize of ten buck to which ever 13 or 14 year old could drink the most Vodka!

When the police crashed the party, they found six drunk teens and 70 beer bottles as well as vodka and bourbon bottles. Two of the girls were taken to the hospital. Wow! What a "Cool" mom.

I remember when I was a teenager and how "Cool" I thought the parents were who had the attitude, "They are going to drink anyway. At least if they drink at my house, I know where they are." But I was a teenager. In other words, young and naive and stupid. One would hope that as we get older, our ideas of "Cool" change.

Of course this story made the news because it is extreme. Most sane and sober parents, I hope anyway, would agree that this kind of parenting is wrong. In fact, it's illegal. It's a felony, actually. But it did get me to thinking about the other ways we indulge our children's young, naive and stupid ideas of "cool."

Do we text our kids at school, knowing they aren't supposed to use their phones but also knowing they are doing it anyway, so at least we know who they are texting? Worse, do we text our teens when we know they are behind the wheel thinking that somehow a driving text from Mom won't be as lethal as text from the boyfriend? Do we let them stay out past our community's curfew laws? Do we pay their parking or speeding tickets and increased insurance because it's convenient for us to have them taxi the younger siblings? Do we call in sick for them to the school because if they are going to play hooky anyway, at least we know where they are? Do we sneak our preteens into R-rated movies because they will probably see it at a friend's house when it comes out on video anyway?

I think you get the point. It's a slippery slope that slides faster the older they get.

I'm not sure why I sometimes get accused of being a cool mom. I hope it's because of the miniature candy bars I used to have in the car when I drove on field trips. Or the fact that I sit beside my kids while we check out their facebook page together rather than stalking them and questioning every post.

I hope it's maybe because I always want my kids to know they and their friends have an emotionally safe place in my heart and home, even when they screw up. And even when I screw up. And that's a definition of "Cool Mom" I hope never changes.