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The Drinking Age

Viktyr Korimir said:
It's a parental responsibility until their children are grown. Then it's their responsibility.

We're not doing them any favors by treating them like children for several more years after they're grown.
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I'm a firm believer in the concept of parent as mentor to their adult children.

As my son goes through his teenage years, I find myself less and less the giver-of-commands and more and more the giver-of-advice-and-support. Indeed, so it was with me and my own father, though he was bossier about it than I am.

An important thing about mentoring is to remember that the mentor aids the young person in pursuing their own agenda, not the mentor's agenda... though not without some guidance on what that agenda should be.

Every young adult 18-25 needs an older person to talk to, bounce ideas off of, get advice from, and just generally learn about life from. It might be your father, mother, uncle, older brother or cousin, or just some other person you've grown up knowing well... but young adults really do need someone to help them along and remind them not to go off the guard rails. If it is someone they value enough that the mentor can get away with putting a boot in their ass once in a while when they need it, so much the better.

Heck, I'm 46 and I wish my father was still around to talk to. He certainly had a measure of wisdom and I deeply miss being able to bend his ear about difficult decisions and other troublesome things.

It's not even a new concept really. Most tribal cultures have some kind of Council of Elders, part of whose job is to keep the young warriors from going off the rails and doing something stupid.
 
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Pinkie said:
I can answer "why". So can anyone else on this thread.

But I think you respect and honor your children when you provide that data...and I applaud you for it.
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We werent real big on the "thou shalt not" type of parenting...we were big on here is the instance these are the consequences, we will ALWAYS love you but we wont take away the consequences. Choose" kind of parents. None of my kids made the kind of choices I did growing up and for that I am eternally thankful!
 
in turkey ,drinking age was increased to 21 ,but these youngsters still can marry :shock:,there is an interesting contradiction.because brain cells of politicians are in their asses.

I usually drink near my daddy ,but i never smoked ..
 
Viktyr Korimir said:
It's a parental responsibility until their children are grown. Then it's their responsibility.

We're not doing them any favors by treating them like children for several more years after they're grown.
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You consider a 14 year old grown?
 
Goshin said:
An important thing about mentoring is to remember that the mentor aids the young person in pursuing their own agenda, not the mentor's agenda... though not without some guidance on what that agenda should be.
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Someone needs to explain that to Tigger.

Pinkie said:
You consider a 14 year old grown?
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Yes, I do.
 
Viktyr Korimir said:
Someone needs to explain that to Tigger.



Yes, I do.
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i think you mean parents should help them experience drinking at that age so that they can realize this habit is not relevant to growing
 
America is far to strict on drinking! My parents introduced to booze when I was about 11-12, the odd glass of wine with dinner etc. As I got older my dad would buy me the odd pint of beer at football matches and then I was allowed to buy beer at 15 as long as I drank it in the house. I think it helped me appreciate it more and I didnt go crazy when I was legal!
 
Goshin said:
And some, like many UK cities, have serious problems with public drunkenness and related violence.

I am not a huge fan of alcohol, it does a lot of harm when misused, and it is misused a LOT.

OTOH, for the sake of consistency.... if you can contract at 18, join the military at 18, vote at 18, buy a gun at 18, marry at 18..... well then by golly the drinking age ought to be the same thing, 18, to be consistent.

After all, if you're going to marry at 18 you're probably going to NEED a drink....
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we would figt on a saturday night in the UK even if we didnt have booze, it just in our nature unfourtuntly
 
Medusa said:
i think you mean parents should help them experience drinking at that age so that they can realize this habit is not relevant to growing
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No, I mean a fourteen year old is grown, or damned close, and that they're mature enough to be expected to act like adults.
 
Viktyr Korimir said:
No, I mean a fourteen year old is grown, or damned close, and that they're mature enough to be expected to act like adults.
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damm right, less than 100 years ago 12 years old were down the mines
 
Viktyr Korimir said:
No, I mean a fourteen year old is grown, or damned close, and that they're mature enough to be expected to act like adults.
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A 14yo is typically physically mature, but not intellectually and emotionally. Even in ancient cultures where 14 or 15 was adulthood, typically the young adult was still under the guidance or rule of his parents or other adults (the trade-guild master he was apprenticed to, or his centurion/military superiors, etc).

I agree that 14yo's are capable of much more than our modern society often asks of them, but I don't think they're ready to be turned loose to make all their own decisions yet.
 
Viktyr Korimir said:
No, I mean a fourteen year old is grown, or damned close, and that they're mature enough to be expected to act like adults.
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I dont agree with you ,a child being 14 cant make up his mind about anything which will affect his life in the future.
 
Grad school was easy because I was sober through highschool.
 
A 14yo is typically physically mature
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a fourteen year old is grown
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A 14 year old may have begun puberty but is most certainly not finished with it.
 
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DashingAmerican said:
I made this so myself and a couple others would quit hijacking a thread. You know who you are. :)

I personally don't think there should be a drinking age at all. Plenty of other countries have either no age limit or it is at a lower age and the have half of the alcohol related issues.
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No one under the age of 70 should be allowed to purchase alcohol.

That way, anyone younger than that would have to wait outside the store, and offer any seasoned citizen they see going into the store money to buy alcohol for them. Since there would be a lot more people under 70 than over going in the store, the astute senior could get the buyers to bid up the price.

It would be a great supplement to Social Security and 401 K.
 
MaggieD said:
Posted by someone not old enough to drink.

It's bad enough that kids in their early 20's don't know how to drink responsibly. You think 15-year-olds ought to be able to walk into a liquor store and buy a litre...or three?

I'm not just talking about having too much to drink. I'm talking about the main purpose of going out for the night is to get wasted. I'm talking about doing 21 shots on one's 21st birthday. Drinking to the point of blacking out. Having so damn much fun they end up in the hospital with alcohol poisoning. Feeling so invincible that they get behind the wheels of their cars and kill themselves and others. Fry their livers before they're 30.

Nope. 21. Hopefully by that time, some will have more sense than others. Seventeen? Nobody has any sense. ;)
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I'm plenty old enough to drink. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA :lamo
 
I'm fine with either 19 or 21.
 
It's not really her fault, you have a boy-anime avatar. How many grown men are into that?
 
ecofarm said:
It's not really her fault, you have a boy-anime avatar. How many grown men are into that?
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Looks can be deceiving and more than you might think.

Besides, we all know what assuming does.
 
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Ok, first, I'm not into the deceiving thing; it doesn't impress me. While one cannot judge a book by its cover, one can see the cost. Second, one chooses their avatar; presumably, one makes that choice based on something to do with oneself. One cannot, then, complain that their own self-chosen avatar portrays something they don't like. If you are not one of those anime-loving man-boys, then do something else with your advertisement space. If you wanna keep it, don't be shocked when people think you're a kid.

Just sayin'
 
ecofarm said:
Ok, first, I'm not into the deceiving thing; it doesn't impress me. While one cannot judge a book by its cover, one can see the cost. Second, one chooses their avatar; presumably, one makes that choice based on something to do with oneself. One cannot, then, complain that their own self-chosen avatar portrays something they don't like. If you are not one of those anime-loving man-boys, then do something else with your advertisement space. If you wanna keep it, don't be shocked when people think you're a kid.

Just sayin'
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No, it does pretty much exactly what I want it to and I wasn't complaining. I was correcting her. There is a difference.
 
New avatar is better.
 
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