Singlemommyhood.com linked to an article on the Today show about drinking parents. They asked what thoughts were about being a single parent, and drinking. I started thinking about how different my kids lives are compared to my childhood. Beyond the fact that both their mother and I are fairly non-social, we’re not anti-social, we’re just awkward, and don’t know exactly how to handle the social settings, so we tended to find things to do that usually didn’t involve large groups.
When I was a kid, we had parties, and parties meant more beverages than normal. I played waiter when I was a kid, making sure eveyone had a drink. When I was 9, I tried taking a sip or two of every drink I delivered, which resulted in a lot of humor for the guests and a lot of puking later in the night, and the next day. I remember having dreams, when my mother was pregnant with my sister, that I could hear the baby crying, because mom was drinking so much. I had no idea, being just shy of 10, that alcohol during pregancy was bad for the baby, I just didn’t think the baby would like it much, and it was in there, and there was nothing the poor little thing could do.
Parties would wind up, on those occasions when I was still awake, where the guests would all assure each other they were fine to get home. But one night, an hour or two after everyone left, the phone rang, and it was one of my dad’s coworkers, calling from jail. They wanted the hosts of the party, my parents, to come and bail him out. A whopping lapse of judgement on his part, exceeded only by my parents packing me and my baby sister up and driving the 20 miles or so to the jail he was to pick him up and drive him home. I didn’t think of the sheer stupidity of the entire situation at the time, but, really?
There would also be the occasional, or more than occasional fight that comes out when both parents are pretty hammered. I remember hearing my parents fighting, and glass breaking. I pulled the blankets up in my bed and tried not to hear. The next morning my mother’s favorite lamp was missing. She threw it at my dad.
In my teens, mom would pop open her first can of whatever beer was on sale at about 11 am. I’m not at all sure how she managed to make it all the way to dinner, and manage to actually cook something, but she did. On a night after a long day of swilling down the beer, somehow mom and I were at a neighbors, and they wound up making out, while I sat and waited for her to ride me home.
I stopped acknowldeging my mothers existence that night. I didn’t talk to her, answer her questions, or respond to her in any way. It wound up being considerably easier than dealing with her. I guess I was a stubborn kid, because this went on for months, until my dad sat me down one night and said, “you should give your mother a break…” I asked him why, and he said, “she’s been going to AA for a month, and hasn’t had anything to drink, and you haven’t even noticed.
He was right, I hadn’t noticed. I didn’t care, but somehow loving our parents is in our DNA, and I gave her a break. I never told him what happened, and I’m certain she didn’t. I’m pretty sure she didn’t remember any of it.
Which brings me back to parents and drinking. The Today show article was about baby Lisa’s mother, who admits she had more than 5, but less than 10 glasses of wine, and blacked out at some point during the night. She’s not at all certain what she did that night, but she KNOWS that she didn’t do anything bad to the baby.
If you have a glass or two of wine after you put the kids to bed, while you read your book, watch a movie, talk on the phone, or just sit in a dark room and breathe, that seems pretty reasonable to me. You’re still able to provide your full attention to your children, should something happen. If you drink enough to black out, or make out with a neighbor in front of your kid, I think maybe that’s not ok.
