However, the condoning of minor (in the grand scheme of life) infractions does bother me, as it calls into question the integrity of the person willing to condone that behavior. I'd rather someone say that the behavior is inappropriate but that they do not see how they personally can be responsible for the behavior or the correction of the behavior.
I condone the serving of alcohol to children and teenagers. Moreover I (in a purely theoretical sense, as my own kids are probably too young for this to apply) regard serving alcohol to children and teens as a parental duty.
There's alcohol in the world. It feels good. It often tastes good. It has vast cultural significance, and it's fun to make and bottle and collect. Appreciating its finer forms is a valuable social skill, in a variety of social strata. And people who do appreciate it tend to want to enjoy it when they are using it.
I don't know about you, but hanging on to the carpet for dear life because the world won't stop spinning, while covered in one's own vomit, is not my idea of an enjoyable experience. However, to many of my peers, that scenario was what alcohol was about until their bodies started seriously rebelling as the thirtieth or so birthday loomed, or until they got into serious legal, medical, or other trouble because of it.
Now why on earth would someone want to do that to themselves in the name of fun? Oh, maybe because their first experiences with alcohol were with being lil' badass teens, breaking rules and being stupid, and being egged on by other kids who are either dumb or acting dumb because of the aforementioned rule-breaking teen badassery. I think it's a great idea to make sure that the most likely way kids will experience alcohol is as a badass, peer-induced act of risk-taking and rule-breaking. And then, just when they've really got the whole alcohol-is-funriskybadass! thing really entrenched, it become legal. Right when they're often living on their own, for the first time. Oh no, wait, not living on their own. Almost invariably living with other 21-year-olds. With cars and cash and their bodies and rights have finally caught up with their brains' convictions that they're invincible.
Gee, I wonder why colleges have problems with binge drinking, and its attendant rapes, fatal car crashes, alcohol poisoning, and poor class attendance.
Sorry, no. I think parents have a moral duty to refuse to participate in such a stupid, misguided, dangerous law. I think parents have a duty to teach their kids about alcohol. And the best way to learn about a benign, socially acceptable and important mind-altering substance is by experiencing it.
I'm told that my siblings and I, with the exception of the pre-term born one, tasted wine on our first sabbath. Our first experiences with intoxication were all on passover, when we figured out, around the ages of eight or nine or ten, that if we wanted to be awake and still feeling ok by the time the fun part of the passover seder rolled around (which was, in our family, the songs, at the very, very end of the whole shindig), we should probably start mixing in the proffered grape juice long about the second of the four cups of wine that are a part of the seder. Teenage boys experiment with getting drunk on purim, the holiday of drunkenness (for men, anyway). Most of the realize that the smell of red wine vomit is pretty gross and tends to linger, and learned to moderate their consumption somewhat. And they do this on a very publicly celebratory festival, with parents or teachers and the general community close at hand, generally doing a half-way decent job of keeping the rapes, fatal car crashes, alcohol poisoning, and poor school attendance the next day to a minimum. Now, I personally think that the drinking in a Jewish community on Purim is a bit over the top, and in kind of poor taste, and a bit dangerous. But it doesn't come close to the over-the-top poor taste and danger of your average frat party.
There's a whole lot about Judaism that I positively loathe, but I find the approach to alcohol remarkably sensible. (With the notable exception of some hassidic sects that have incorporated too much of the Russian attitude towards vodka into their own micro-cultures.) Having alcohol around from a young age doesn't guarantee that the kids won't turn into addicts and destroy their lives. There's no power in the 'verse can do that. And some cultures--Russian and Irish come to mind--there seems to be a level of nihilism and negativity associated with alcohol that can perhaps provide a push to negative use alcohol. So it's not about just having alcohol around. My parents--somehow, in the midst of some monumentally messed-up parenting tendencies--did a bunch of stuff right. Letting alcohol be a positive thing, a celebratory thing, potentially a sacred thing--is right up there in the top twenty or so things my parents did right, thus the anecdotal experience to round out the common sense.
So, I regard furnishing alcohol to minors as a sensible and advisable course of action. And I regard it as my moral duty to be sensible when it comes to parenting one's children. And my integrity is expressed by how well I balance my various moral duties and the practical exigencies of life.
So there!
!
