Teaching the youth to drink
I read about the recent death of a UCSC student in a drunken fall near traintracks.
Got me thinking about the way we all learn about alcohol, drugs, and everything else in life.
The law suggests that young people learn to respect alcohol by not drinking at all before age 21 and learning to drink responsibly thereafter. A little sacramental wine will have to do until you have your own insurance.
But who TF is going to teach a 21-year-old to drink responsibly?
The parents, who probably live a thousand miles away?
The kids' peers, who are both clueless and eager to prove themselves in all the ways their parents haven't allowed?
School administrators, already strapped for resources and quick to slide into the role of rejected authority figures?
Any other adult, who takes a tremendous risk by introducing young people to alcohol or even acknowledging that they may use it?
Is the 21-year-old supposed to teach him/herself, at exactly the point in life when personal responsibilty is mostly unformed and barely understood, yet also pressured like never before? Are childhood lectures alone supposed to offer guidance just as all the other rules of life are changing?
Adults who (for example) let 19-year-olds drink are breaking the law and making themselves vulnerable to legal action on a number of levels. Strong penalties against underage drinking force responsible adults to stay uninvolved, which ensures that young people learn about alcohol only from one another.
Many forms of adult experience offer similar problems: sex education, drugs, etc. The legal system controls them less by trying to control them more.
But alcohol is a special case. It's used socially and its use and limits must be taught socially - but that makes it subject to all the social limitations of American society. Young people already socialize almost entirely with one another. While younger children are more vulnerable to the physiological damage from alcohol and (we assume) less able to wisely judge its use, some laws against older teens drinking may serve only to separate the drinkers from their elders who might offer some guidance through the experience.
Got me thinking about the way we all learn about alcohol, drugs, and everything else in life.
The law suggests that young people learn to respect alcohol by not drinking at all before age 21 and learning to drink responsibly thereafter. A little sacramental wine will have to do until you have your own insurance.
But who TF is going to teach a 21-year-old to drink responsibly?
The parents, who probably live a thousand miles away?
The kids' peers, who are both clueless and eager to prove themselves in all the ways their parents haven't allowed?
School administrators, already strapped for resources and quick to slide into the role of rejected authority figures?
Any other adult, who takes a tremendous risk by introducing young people to alcohol or even acknowledging that they may use it?
Is the 21-year-old supposed to teach him/herself, at exactly the point in life when personal responsibilty is mostly unformed and barely understood, yet also pressured like never before? Are childhood lectures alone supposed to offer guidance just as all the other rules of life are changing?
Adults who (for example) let 19-year-olds drink are breaking the law and making themselves vulnerable to legal action on a number of levels. Strong penalties against underage drinking force responsible adults to stay uninvolved, which ensures that young people learn about alcohol only from one another.
Many forms of adult experience offer similar problems: sex education, drugs, etc. The legal system controls them less by trying to control them more.
But alcohol is a special case. It's used socially and its use and limits must be taught socially - but that makes it subject to all the social limitations of American society. Young people already socialize almost entirely with one another. While younger children are more vulnerable to the physiological damage from alcohol and (we assume) less able to wisely judge its use, some laws against older teens drinking may serve only to separate the drinkers from their elders who might offer some guidance through the experience.