To be fed up with friends and drinking around DCs

[tiredandemotionless]

At the risk of seeming like a killjoy, I'm gritting increasingly at get togethers with friends being full on drinking sessions, we all have primary or pre school DCs and whenever there is an opportunity to spend time together with children it's wine o'clock.

I see pics uploaded on social media of other friends necking prosecco with school mum mates on play dates, the DCs school summer BBQ (attended by parents and pupils) is a right old piss up.

I like a drink, certainly not anti alcohol, but Christ , surely we are storing up issues aplenty for kids by normalising excessive drinking (yes, us parents)?

Or is it just me...?

I won't drink around children. Then again, I'm not really too interested in alcohol. I can take it or leave it. I mostly leave it because I'm either driving, or looking after children.

I like a drink myself but have this issue within my own family. Siblings and their spouses drinking to excess at any opportunity including kids parties, Christmas etc. Father in his 70s drunk at any excuse. 2 yo nephew pointing at beer bottle and saying 'daddy's' . I think it's because we grew up seeing adults getting legless it definitely normalized it for us, to the point where I have also drunk way too much in the past myself. I've married into a family who drink but do so responsibly, glass of wine with lunch or dinner, champagne at Christmas, cocktails when out etc but without getting stupid drunk. It's been an eye opener and that is the example I'd prefer to have for my DCs as excessive alcohol has caused numerous problems in my family over the years. Divorce, fights, accidents, aggression, depression, drug abuse, health issues, barely keeping jobs due to sick days (hungover), habitual drink driving result multiple lost licenses and prison sentence. God it sounds even worse having written it down. Despite all the above no one has been accused of being an alcoholic and all come across as perfectly nice normal people. Based on my experience I'd agree with the scenarios you describe having potential for issues aplenty.

Well however you get to the hospital, really noatgerbwgat the reason, it's not going to look good turning up to a&e obviously drunk with a child.

Think my iPhones drunk :o

Whatever the reason

A bbq fine crack open the beer and wine a kids birthday party stick the kettle on its 2 hours I have not gone 21 yrs without drinking in front of my kids but I do think there can be to much emphasis on alcohol, my bil and sil were wrecked at both their kids christenings and dd 1st birthday party sil didnt even realise where her baby was for 3 hours I had fed him and put him to bed, and was looking for more milk because he was stirring, asked her oh you are fabulous and off she staggered frigin lush

I have been at family parties with young children, and some adults are staggering around and swearing. It's not pleasant, and I usually end up making an excuse, taking my dc and leaving them to it.

No problems with parents behaving like this,personal choice, I only have to watch sun, sex and suspicious parents, or see groups of young women staggering around towns to see how the children turn out.

Agree with Giles.

God knows, I love a drink. I love a drink so much that I have done my time on the brave babes battle bus and I think/worry about my drinking quite often.

But I view people getting pissed at a daytime family party as really abhorrent, tbh. I think its fairly desperate if you can't act reasonably sober around your children (note: I am not saying no drink at all whatsoever), and they will remember the embarrassments you caused them when they grow up.

Get pissed if you must. But not in front of children, of whatever age.

I don't drive nor do I own a car so according to some posters on this thread I am negligent before the bottle has even been opened. [Hmm]

Yes, play dates should not been two bottle of wine affairs, but since when does two glasses of wine with a sunday roast for example constitute bad parenting? Within walking distance of home due to non driving mentioned above.

Children are not going to be ruined for life by the sight of a tipsy adult (plus it takes more than two glasses for me to be tipsy). At worst I may be overly lenient with them and giggle at their silly jokes a bit more. I could still dial a cab and be at a hospital in 15mins.

I agree with the OP that alcohol shouldn't been seen as the norm, eg: every picnic, and also children in an adult drunken environment is wrong.

However there are a lot of twisted knickers overly perfectly normal behaviour. (We're not talking packets of crisps in parked cars fgs).

I have been really pissed twice in front of my dds once I didnt realise how strong the wine was and the other time I just got carried home away I was mortified I felt like I had let them down and embarrassed them

A family and friends BBQ or birthday party YABU.

Routinely and to excess around young children YANBU.

I recall a "playdate" (or whatever the correct terminology is ) that was arranged for 11.30am at my house with someone I'd met at a playgroup. Our kids were both under 12months. She turned up with a bottle of wine and immediately got out 2 glasses. I accepted a small glass to be polite but with a hint of "Oh...um...ok", took a few sips and left it while she polished off the rest.

I recall posting on here about it and got a resounding YABU so took it on the chin.

About a month later, same person, at a birthday party for a similar aged baby. She (and the rest) stood in the kitchen getting absolutely trollied. Her toddler was wandering everywhere in this house and I noticed his nappy was sodden as were his trousers. Told her about it and she slurred a response. Gave it 15 mins then changed him myself and put my DS's trousers on him and left. Never heard from her again. No skin of my nose, it wasn't my scene.

It depends what's defined as 'normal'. I think there are two polar opposites of opinion and normal falls anywhere in between depending on your viewpoint. I'm teetotal, have friends who like to drink.

My mum hardly ever drank and the couple of times I did see her drunk she was really drunk. I find drunkenness frightening, to be quite honest. I'm not talking 'tipsy', I'm talking staggering, falling over, loud drunkenness.

It's a question of 'birds of a feather'; you have friendships with people who like the same things as you, have the same feelings about behaviour.

I think my only bone of contention is when parents are getting drunk and still drinking a long time past an appropriately late night for the children. We went to a party a couple of months back and left last - around midnight, but the another couple left ten minutes before, very drunk, with a three year old who was pleading for bed. My friend offered to make her up somewhere in the house as the poor girl was really very tired (not to mention probably overheated) but they insisted they were leaving 'soon'. This went on for another two hours.

It was pretty awkward, everyone else was sober and the only reason they left was because we were cleaning up - they told us it was 'too early'!

I think a child staying up every once in a while is fine and exciting, but it had been a very long day in the sun and the impression was that the child was getting in the way of drinking time. That I don't like - the option for a place to let her nap was offered but declined. Drinking is fine (to me) but neglecting the needs of a child is not.

Java I was feeling the same way, as I don't own a car either...

Yes well I suppose we should never ever drink alcohol after pushing out a baby 'just on the off chance' they might need to go to hospital. Of course all posters without cars or who can't drive shame on you!

Op yes agree seriously drunk parents are not nice to see but a few glasses while your kids play is fine.

It's all in the setting/time and quantity.

If wine wasn't served at the school fetes I wouldn't bloody go that's for sure

Why would you feel 'got at' for not driving/owning a car? Surely nobody else minds if you don't do/have this?

Saying that, I often feel like an interloper if I go to a pub with my work colleagues; most are fine with me having sparkling water with ice and slice, I'm as gregarious as they are - but one of them always buys me alcohol saying that I need to 'loosen up'. If he thinks that I'll ever touch a drink he buys, he can think again. I always have the car with me and it's so irresponsible to tell somebody 'there's no alcohol' in something there plainly is. Why are some people so threatened by non-drinkers?

Why would you feel 'got at' for not driving/owning a car? Surely nobody else minds if you don't do/have this?

Because there have been other threads recently saying how bad it is and irresponsible that people don't learn to drive.

Sorry but I grew up with an alcoholic mother, and I do hold strong judgement against any parent who can't stop themselves from having one or two glasses around their children. Alcohol does alter your judgement and reactions that's why you can't drive.

I have too many memories of my mother acting like a tit, getting gobby, thinking she was funny, staggering around and the hangovers next day when we were naughty kids and she had an awful headache.

So yeah I think it's tragic that any adult has to drink to excess. I think it's a slippery slope to want to end a tough day with a glass of wine.

And no I won't relax my opinion, call me boring if you want but there's nothing more dull than hanging around a load of pissheads.

I agree with OP and all the other 'killjoys'.

It's not just issues about capability and judgement-making which are affected by alcohol, but that social occasions always involving alcohol (esp those involving children) do send out some sort of message about alcohol being necessary or important.

I expect that it probably does lead to children trying and getting into alcohol younger than they ordinarily would, because one of the things that people use to justify drinking to themselves is that 'everyone else is'.

I drink alcohol regularly btw, but really dislike it at school fetes and the like. A toast with the cutting of the cake at a child's birthday - fine. Cracking open the prosecco before the children even arrive - a bit yuk imvho.

Sorry Brittabot, was a tad rude, but it gets my goat. It's not that one term, it's pre-school, proms, baby showers and a whole load of other stuff that just sounds ridiculous in the UK. I just don't get the desperate rush to Americanise the language, but I'll just say sorry for the misplaced ire rather than distract the thread.

The American reverse-colonization is nearly complete.

I drink at stuff like this and think its fine. I never drink alone or in the house as drinking to me is a social affair. I have never personally known any alcoholics or anyone with a drink problem as we all have the ability to drink normally.

People on here that seen to have a problem with drinking at these kinds of events on past threads seem to be people who have experienced a drink problem or have family that have had drink problems so they arent really social drinkers.

We don't have a problem with drinking.

The problem lies usually with the fact there is always one who goes over board. Who expects others to sort their kid out while they get hammered. And this has no place at a childs party.

By the time your a mother you should at least know your alcohol limits, and you probably also know that you can't stop after one or two and make the sensible decision not to drink.

As adults we should be able to adjust behaviour according to the setting we are in. 90% of people myself included can enjoy a glass of wine at a party or a gathering and leave it at that. Those people are not the problem.

It's the ones who turn up and view any party as an excuse to get drunk and it's not always appropriate or the right example to set and it puts people out. Not to mention making it all about them when it should be about the birthday child.

And as a PP mentioned.

Those people who can't stop, are usually also the ones who's kids run around way after they should be in bed, while the parents enjoy the party.

Agreed a late night every now and then isn't a problem and of course no one should rush home for seven on the dot but when people stop caring about what their kids are doing and what the time is then again that's wrong IMO.