Glug Glug
I was born and raised in Taylorsville, NC, and that’s currently where I’m staying until I move to NY. Unfortunately, Taylorsville is not a town. Taylorsville is a Super Wal-Mart with a few Chinese restaurants in its orbit. And kudzu, lots of kudzu. So, if you want to do anything you have to go to Hickory. Which is almost unbearably sad if you’ve ever set foot in Hickory. Anyway, so I always go to this one Subway in Hickory while I’m there to get my requisite Tuna Wrap and eat it there so I don’t have to eat at the mall and witness the things that are at malls. Now, I like to read while I eat, but inexplicably, this Subway only has this gay-ass weekly called Sophie:For Ladies of All Ages as far as free reading materials go. But despite the embarrassment of reading about teething tips in public, I soldier on because otherwise you might have to talk to or look at someone.
So, there’s this article - TIPS for Talking to Your Kids about Alcohol. I can’t really really represent the title accurately here b/c they used 10 different fonts for some reason. And TIPS in all caps suggests an awful acronym that they (sadly) never deliver. But I digress. In one section, they talk about tailoring your message to the age of your child. Fair enough. Here’s the quote though:
Your conversation shouldn’t be too old or too young for your child’s age. Use words your child will understand. For a 6 or 7 year old, talk to her while she is brushing her teeth. You can say, "We do things like brushing our teeth to stay healthy. But there are things we shouldn’t do that us like drinking alcohol."
What fucking retard wrote that? You might as well say "Hey, Junior, check out this shiny, delicious, forbidden apple that just for adults. Ok, now don’t ever touch it. Mommy’s going to go set it on this shelf that’s just out of your reach. Unless you like get a chair or something."
Then, to compound their crime, they offer this gem immediately after:
Repeat. Don’t give them the "alcohol chat" just once. Repeating it over and over again is the best way to help your kids make good decisions about alcohol.
So, not only do you blindside your child with this ham-handed segue about drinking while they’re trying to brush their teeth - you do it again and again and again. So, from an early age, you’re repeatedly making the connection that drinking alcohol is like the opposite of brushing your teeth. And we know how much kids love brushing their teeth. Follow that advice, and I guarantee that poor little fucker will be doing keg stands by the time he’s 10 years old.
If you really want to keep your kids from drinking, just let them have a drink. There is nothing in the world more disgusting than alcohol to someone who’s never had it. Liquor tastes like gasoline, and beer tastes like chilled piss. It’s a testament to our innate desire to get fucked up that we keep drinking the stuff until it becomes palatable. Exhibit Me: When I was about 5, my parents were having a few friends over, and little Joseph had already been tucked into bed. But being the curious rapscallion (and glutton for adult attention) that I was, there was nothing they could do to get me to sleep. So, inevitably, I see a plastic cup and take a swig. "Ewww, this Pepsi’s gone bad" I say, and proceed to wash my mouth out for 10 minutes while the adults laugh and laugh and laugh. Later, they tell me it was Budweiser, and so now alcohol is linked in my little head to 1) almost incomprehensibly bad taste and 2) public humiliation. Because of that, I didn’t start drinking until way too late at 16. I still blame my parents for those unbearably dull and sober years of junior high.
