Jayne Dowle: Message in a bottle tells parents to grow up

I think it was Jack’s homework that did it to me. Now, if you know anything about my son, then you would imagine that his homework would have the opposite effect to moderation. If anything was going to send me spiralling into a drink-fuelled haze, it would be sweating our way through his literacy exercises. But he came home a few months ago with “sentences”, which he had to compose using colourful adjectives. I think it was the words, “My mum likes red wine”, which he had so carefully composed, which made me stop and put the bottle down. Do I really want my son to characterise me in terms of alcohol, and do I really want his teacher, who I happen to respect a lot, to think that I am an old soak?

The answer to both these questions was clearly, no. So I made a silent resolution to cut down on drinking in front of him, and made a mental note to refrain from making alcohol sound too amusing or exciting. Although, it has to be said, the story of me tripping up on my friend’s wooden deck (it had been raining) with a glass of rosé in my hand, falling flat on my face but keeping the glass upright and intact, never fails to make the children laugh out loud.

But making them laugh out loud is very different from making them into potential alcoholics. And new research from the respected Joseph Rowntree Foundation suggests that children who regularly see their parents drink are twice as likely to binge on alcohol themselves - at last, proof that those people who fritter away their state benefits on extra-strong lager are breeding the next generation of alkies. But before you judge and nod smugly, it puts a very interesting slant on that long-established middle-class practice of allowing “a little wine with water” at dinner to introduce the children to responsible drinking habits. Would it have been better, after all, to banish the kids to the playroom and keep all the Rioja for yourself?

It is probably true to say that alcohol is the one thing that reverses the law of parenting; the law that says that kids will generally prefer to do the absolute opposite of whatever it is you prefer to do. I can hear my teenage self having this debate: Hoovering? Tidying bedrooms? Neat hair? What’s the point? But having a drink, now that’s something I could see the point of.

I can’t blame my parents, who still like a drink in moderation. Or even my dear old granddad. He believed a tot of sherry every morning was good for his health, and thought nothing of offering a sip to me, from the age of about five if I remember. But no way was he a binge-drinker and it was nearly 40 years ago, and we have learnt a lot more about how habits are formed and how parental behaviour influences children since then. In fact, as this new research proves, we have never been as well-informed.

One drink, two, three if you can handle it. Fine. I won’t judge, and I might join you if I’m not driving. But why, when we know so much about the dangers of alcohol abuse, do so many parents think it’s perfectly OK to get legless in front of their kids? Sorry to put it so bluntly, but that’s what I see almost every time I go to one of those “family pubs” on a weekend, or to a barbeque, or to any kind of gathering which involves alcohol and multi-generational socialising. Personally, I wouldn’t want to get so drunk I forgot I had children, but all too often kids run wild while their parents get another round in.

And what about the bottles and cans that are casually consumed at home? When Dad gets home from work? When Mum has had a bad day? What kind of message does that send out to their children? Let’s not pretend it’s happening somewhere else, in some other society, because you know that it happens everywhere. My granddad’s tot of sherry doesn’t even compare.

I have a little theory, and it’s along the lines of parents not being parents any more. They never want to grow up, to take responsibility and to make it clear there are certain boundaries between being an adult and a child. Alcohol is the perfect way to blur those boundaries. So put down that bottle and remember, bed-time was invented for a reason.