Editorial, Opinion

EDITORIAL: Making changes in drinking culture

As college students, it’s almost inevitable that we will be exposed to drinking. We see our parents drink all our lives, but most of us are told to keep our hands off the alcohol. We never have a glass of wine at dinner or a beer at a cookout, and somehow we end up at home after our first night out of freshman year dazed, confused and sick.

Wyoming couple Joseph and Paulette Richardson had different plans for their 16-year-old son. On Wednesday, the couple was charged with involuntary manslaughter for his death after they forced him to drink so heavily that his blood alcohol content topped off at 0.587 percent.

Paulette Richardson was worried her son might develop alcoholism, as his biological father was an alcoholic. She wanted to teach him a “lesson” so that he “wouldn’t turn out the same way,” Jezebel reported. He reportedly only drank for a total of two hours.

Paulette Richardson’s idea of alcohol education is truly scary, but she and her husband aren’t alone — many parents might have done the same thing, just not to this much of an extreme. Obviously, the Richardsons’ behavior is tragic and inexcusable, and they deserve punishment. But weren’t they trying to do right by their child?

Herein lies the issue. Rather than educating their child throughout his life about alcohol, they chose to put him through the ringer for one night only. If the boy’s parents had instead offered him a drink at dinner once per week, perhaps the situation would have ended differently. Not to mention that Paulette Richardson had an entirely backwards idea about alcoholism. If she were truly worried about her child’s potential descent into the disease, she could have better educated him by giving him permission to drink, but by also telling him the warning signs of addiction and keeping a close eye on his activity. Parents like the Richardsons so desperately try to control the environment in which they bring up their kids that they end up making scary and stupid decisions out of little else but fear.

But this way of thinking is taboo in our culture — only “cool parents” let their kids drink at dinner parties or while watching a movie at home with their friends. In actuality, this mindset is very European. In most countries across the pond, the drinking age is 18. Children are encouraged to join their parents in having a glass of wine at dinner from the moment they hit puberty, and by doing so, kids become more comfortable around the drinks we are told so adamantly to stay away from.

Because our parents fight so hard to keep us away from alcohol, we only grow more curious. It’s simple psychology — we want what we can’t have. All our lives we’ve been told not to drink, and when we come to college we are faced with a whole new world. What was once far out of reach is now readily available to us, and the idea of breaking a few rules doesn’t seem to deter the desire to party. Restricting our access to alcohol isn’t going to stop us from drinking — it’s forcing us behind closed doors and into dangerous situations.

Drinking culture needs to change. By making it easier for young adults to introduce themselves to alcohol, we shut down the stigma. Alcohol becomes a part of everyday life, rather than an escape on the weekends. If students can order a beer at dinner during the week, maybe they won’t be so desperate come the random frat party with the dangerous, unmeasured concoction of jungle juice that hasn’t been monitored and is stirred in a bathtub. A great majority of our European peers know what they like to drink, how much of it they should drink and how much it costs to drink it. Students in the U.S. spend the least amount of money on the cheapest handle they can get, because liquor gets you drunker quicker. But if we primed teens to enjoy responsible use rather than resent total abstinence (parallel intended), perhaps they would be more inclined to purchase a six-pack of beer instead of a handle of vodka that they will finish in one night.

Is lowering the drinking age the answer? It would certainly help the economy — after all, instead of buying cheap alcohol and sharing at parties, students will be going to bars and restaurants that will benefit from their business. It seems like a win-win, and it would certainly give some parents more peace of mind. In many ways, a bar is a safer place to drink. There are policemen and security present most of the time, and students won’t be forced into attending sketchy parties full of people they don’t know and shouldn’t trust. Maybe we could even prevent cases of sexual assault, which are often committed under the influence. And we could most definitely avoid alcohol-related transports, sickness and tragedies like this one.

Education is the most important aspect of this process, and the first step to de-stigmatizing alcohol is to create an open relationship between parents and kids. If our parents had heart-to-heart, informative conversations with us about alcohol when we were 16 or 17 years old, maybe we wouldn’t be so eager to get out from under our parents roofs and party. We need to teach kids about drinking instead of just telling them not to do it, or forcing them into a drunken sickness from which they can’t recover. We have to find a solution to this madness — maybe lowering the drinking age is the answer, but the answer may simply lie in trust and common ground.

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One Comment

  1. There is more going on here than just drinking. All the children of this couple have suffered from neglect since they were babies. They all suffered from speech impairment due to not being taught how to speak. Most of their time was spent in their bedroom that only had mattresses on the floor.