Teenage drinking and the age of Maturity
As a coach of 12-15 year olds I know about the pressures of drinking on teenagers. Kids are exposed to so much more these days, especially when Hollywood starlets like Lindsay Lohan are queens of the bar scene at age 18 ( http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2006-07-29-lohan_x.htm ). Kids want to appear as grown up and with all of the exposure to social drinking it is hard for kids to notice the negatives of drinking. Part of the reason why drinking is so prevalent amongst the youth these days is because it is a way to rebel. Sometimes kids just want to break rules simply to rebel and getting drunk with friends is a fun and relatively consequence-free (in their minds) way to do so. Parents are VERY relaxed these days, basically giving their kids free reign over their own lives at age 12. Of the kids I coach at the rec center, only 3 or 4 of the 20+ have ever had their parents around at a game or practice for me to meet them. It is also a case of peer pressure, not in the terms of “everyone else is doing it, you’d better if you want to look cool”, but more in the terms of “I got a case of beer, come over and hang out while we drink them”.
I myself began binge drinking at age 12 and stopped by my 21st birthday due to the problems that drinking can cause (health, social, intellectual and financial) and its lack of benefits. Now I am basically a weirdo (especially since I work at an office that serves alcohol to employees every Friday at 4 and at every special event) because I don't drink much anymore. It has become so socially acceptable that people forget how much opposition there used to be against legal drinking. We learned that making drinking illegal did nothing to stop the flow of alcohol, so what about that drinking age? The main problem with the 21 drinking age is that those who are under 21 do it in unsafe settings. Case-in-point: I learned how to speak Spanish because of my desire to drink and be a cool kid in 7th and 8th grades. I’d go to the day laborers in at the hardware store in East San Mateo and say “Hola señor, mi y mis amigos queremos cerveza y vodka" and I’d hold out a $20 and we’d have at least 3 or 4 men willing to help us get alcohol. As I got older, I just had my cuter female friends charm men into buying us bottles of Vodka until I was able to (through the help of my mother, of all people) get a fake ID. Then I attended college in New Orleans, a city where it’s basically legal to drink at age 18. Being legally able to drink made it far less exciting and I was pretty much done with drinking within a year of legality.
The drinking age in this country is laughable. Why is it that a soldier could feasibly fire the shot that wins us a war, but when he comes home he’d get in trouble for drinking a glass of champagne to celebrate saving our country? We should set 18 as the age for EVERYTHING: driving, drinking, smoking, to purchase all drugs (which should also be legal and taxed), to have one’s own bank and credit card accounts and status as an adult. But in reality, some kids are ready at age 15 and some aren’t until age 24. What we really need to do is educate kids about alcohol from a very young age, long before they have any considerations of use. Just like sex, it is better to implant the ideas and the knowledge before the kids have any experience because once the kids start, they’ll rarely listen to anything an adult has to say about it. Once a teenage girl starts dating, there is almost nothing you can say that will change her opinion of who she dates until after he breaks her heart. The same goes for at-risk behavior like drinking, drugs, reckless driving, poor diet and lack of exercise.
Modern society has accelerated the amount of exposure to illicit activities that kids face without accelerating the rate at which kids mature. In fact, today's society has made achieving maturity something that usually doesn't happen until about age 30. Most people my age are still wasting their time working dead-end jobs (like bartending, waiting tables or other non-professional pursuits) and going out 3-4 nights a week. When my parents were my age, I'd be considered strange for still being single so close to my 25th birthday but times have changed. The only people my age who are married are considered unusual, ditto for those with 9-5 M-F careers. A lot of this is because of the way that parenting and childhood have shifted focus. It used to be that one would raise a child to be successful in society, now it is to raise a happy child. Parents are afraid to dictate how their children act and they lose control of them before they are teenagers. Hell, I have kids at the rec center who are always messing around by themselves and they're not even 10. Instead of parents establishing themselves as authorities, they establish themselves as financiers. Kids see their parents as obligated to buy them clothes, video games, cable television, fast food, sports equipment and everything else they want without rules. Obviously this is not how to raise a successful child, but that's how it's being done these days. Since these children cannot even see their parents as authority figures, how can they see their teachers, coaches or even law enforcers as authorities? That is why they all thumb their noses at the laws and rules, because they've been taught that they can do anything they want as long as it makes them happy.
To me the #1 dumbest thing about the drinking age being 21 is the fact that college students aren't legally allowed to drink. Isn't college the absolute best time and place to experiment with drugs, alcohol and sex? After all, college is the time when you're old enough to be on your own but still young enough to not have any real responsibilities. Go to any college campus (well, not BYU, Liberty University or other similar places) and tell me how many freshmen, sophomores and juniors you see at frat parties and other events where kegs, jungle juice and bottles of Jim Beam contribute to the inebriation of the crowd. Even before I was a college student I was able to drink on a college campus: I was 14 and visiting my sister at Penn, I drank some Schlitz and hit on some sorority girls at a frat partty. Basically, like every other prohibition (whether total or partial, partial being those that specify age or Rx) the drinking age is that way because some bad parents got upset when their failure as a parent came to light because their child drank themself to death. Anyone who has an OD on anything should blame their parents because they failed to instill the concept of moderation in their mind. Not everyone is as thoughtful as I am, (I stopped drinking because of the effects on my body and health long-term, not because of the short term effects) and cannot be trusted to be able to figure these things out before they get hurt. It shouldn't take that one night (or dozen nights) to realize the damage that alcohol can do to you. But shouldn't kids learn how to drink responsibly BEFORE they have that license to drive? I think so, and until we drop that rediculous drinking age of 21, we'll always see teenagers die from binge drinking.
I myself began binge drinking at age 12 and stopped by my 21st birthday due to the problems that drinking can cause (health, social, intellectual and financial) and its lack of benefits. Now I am basically a weirdo (especially since I work at an office that serves alcohol to employees every Friday at 4 and at every special event) because I don't drink much anymore. It has become so socially acceptable that people forget how much opposition there used to be against legal drinking. We learned that making drinking illegal did nothing to stop the flow of alcohol, so what about that drinking age? The main problem with the 21 drinking age is that those who are under 21 do it in unsafe settings. Case-in-point: I learned how to speak Spanish because of my desire to drink and be a cool kid in 7th and 8th grades. I’d go to the day laborers in at the hardware store in East San Mateo and say “Hola señor, mi y mis amigos queremos cerveza y vodka" and I’d hold out a $20 and we’d have at least 3 or 4 men willing to help us get alcohol. As I got older, I just had my cuter female friends charm men into buying us bottles of Vodka until I was able to (through the help of my mother, of all people) get a fake ID. Then I attended college in New Orleans, a city where it’s basically legal to drink at age 18. Being legally able to drink made it far less exciting and I was pretty much done with drinking within a year of legality.
The drinking age in this country is laughable. Why is it that a soldier could feasibly fire the shot that wins us a war, but when he comes home he’d get in trouble for drinking a glass of champagne to celebrate saving our country? We should set 18 as the age for EVERYTHING: driving, drinking, smoking, to purchase all drugs (which should also be legal and taxed), to have one’s own bank and credit card accounts and status as an adult. But in reality, some kids are ready at age 15 and some aren’t until age 24. What we really need to do is educate kids about alcohol from a very young age, long before they have any considerations of use. Just like sex, it is better to implant the ideas and the knowledge before the kids have any experience because once the kids start, they’ll rarely listen to anything an adult has to say about it. Once a teenage girl starts dating, there is almost nothing you can say that will change her opinion of who she dates until after he breaks her heart. The same goes for at-risk behavior like drinking, drugs, reckless driving, poor diet and lack of exercise.
Modern society has accelerated the amount of exposure to illicit activities that kids face without accelerating the rate at which kids mature. In fact, today's society has made achieving maturity something that usually doesn't happen until about age 30. Most people my age are still wasting their time working dead-end jobs (like bartending, waiting tables or other non-professional pursuits) and going out 3-4 nights a week. When my parents were my age, I'd be considered strange for still being single so close to my 25th birthday but times have changed. The only people my age who are married are considered unusual, ditto for those with 9-5 M-F careers. A lot of this is because of the way that parenting and childhood have shifted focus. It used to be that one would raise a child to be successful in society, now it is to raise a happy child. Parents are afraid to dictate how their children act and they lose control of them before they are teenagers. Hell, I have kids at the rec center who are always messing around by themselves and they're not even 10. Instead of parents establishing themselves as authorities, they establish themselves as financiers. Kids see their parents as obligated to buy them clothes, video games, cable television, fast food, sports equipment and everything else they want without rules. Obviously this is not how to raise a successful child, but that's how it's being done these days. Since these children cannot even see their parents as authority figures, how can they see their teachers, coaches or even law enforcers as authorities? That is why they all thumb their noses at the laws and rules, because they've been taught that they can do anything they want as long as it makes them happy.
To me the #1 dumbest thing about the drinking age being 21 is the fact that college students aren't legally allowed to drink. Isn't college the absolute best time and place to experiment with drugs, alcohol and sex? After all, college is the time when you're old enough to be on your own but still young enough to not have any real responsibilities. Go to any college campus (well, not BYU, Liberty University or other similar places) and tell me how many freshmen, sophomores and juniors you see at frat parties and other events where kegs, jungle juice and bottles of Jim Beam contribute to the inebriation of the crowd. Even before I was a college student I was able to drink on a college campus: I was 14 and visiting my sister at Penn, I drank some Schlitz and hit on some sorority girls at a frat partty. Basically, like every other prohibition (whether total or partial, partial being those that specify age or Rx) the drinking age is that way because some bad parents got upset when their failure as a parent came to light because their child drank themself to death. Anyone who has an OD on anything should blame their parents because they failed to instill the concept of moderation in their mind. Not everyone is as thoughtful as I am, (I stopped drinking because of the effects on my body and health long-term, not because of the short term effects) and cannot be trusted to be able to figure these things out before they get hurt. It shouldn't take that one night (or dozen nights) to realize the damage that alcohol can do to you. But shouldn't kids learn how to drink responsibly BEFORE they have that license to drive? I think so, and until we drop that rediculous drinking age of 21, we'll always see teenagers die from binge drinking.
posted by Dan Pasternack at 3:39 PM
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