Michele;
Yes, you can have a good time at the party without getting drunk. Or falling in bed with anyone. Or bumping and grinding. In fact, you can have an incredible amount of fun just playing the word game Taboo. Or even Bible Study. A whole bunch of us at a campout (about 60-odd, I’d say) spent the whole night around the campfire doing nothing but charades and singing contemporary Christian songs. It was incredibly fun. No doubt about that.
But please don’t equate ‘drinking alcohol’ with ‘getting drunk’. And please have due care with your generalisations. Should I serve alcohol to minors (and currently it’s legal where I am), you bet I’d be ensuring that they don’t have complete and utter access to my whole collection of fermented beverages. You bet I’d be strictly monitoring things. And you can be sure I’d ensure they drink to a prescribed MAXIMUM. And no more. And if they didn’t want to drink, that would just fine.
Which is why I said to throw the books at these particular parents in these particular cases – because they did not fulfill their duties as parents.
Dave in Texas – without your permission, I won’t. Maybe half a glass of wine or some shandy, but that would be it. And probably not even that – what if your kid’s allergic or something?
BTW, don’t you find it strange that kids have ‘sex education’ but not ‘alcohol education’ or ‘firearms education’? I woulda thought (for guys, anyways) the urge to drink or blow stuff up is at least as strong as the urge to screw. And if they’re leaving it to the parents to edumacate them young’uns this way, why not about sex as well?
I think it would be awesome if schools had compulsory courses on alcohol appreciation and firearms training. In the proper context, of course.
