To think getting quite drunk with a baby is odd??

[Choccywoccydoo10]

NC as could be outing.

So we are suppose to be visiting friends this weekend. They have a 6 month old we have a toddler. They want to go out for dinner and drink then go back to theirs and pop open the champagne. Apparently they have quite a few bottles. My DP friend then said he's going to guzzle the wine and his wife will be drinking too.

Obviously most of the drinking will be when the kids are in bed but AIBU to think you wouldn't do this?? What if something happened like an emergency and you needed to go out or the baby needed something. I wouldn't want to get really drunk while caring for my D'S.

I'm all for having fun and a laugh but a glass or 2 not 3 bottles of champagne and guzzling wine!

AIBU or would other people do this?

Where else have I said that?

Are you obsessed with me being obsessed?

I'm not. Are you?

waves to the Friday Night Thread Mumsnet Redditers

Ok. So I'll say this very slowly. Give me another example of me saying you were obsessed with... anything.

If you've had too much to legally drive, you've had too much to safely be the person to care for a child if an emergency were to happen. Very simple, really.

Meanwhile here in the real world...

Are you attempting to patronise me, Bubble? Good job!

Ah ok. You can admit you mistook me for another poster if you like. That would be the adult thing to do

I didn't, though. But you're getting better at patronising! Well done

Oh dear. Yet you still can't identify a time that I called you obsessed, apart from the first on page 16? What a total waste of time.

Good grief.

Safe guarding issues aside, I hope I can raise my children to not think that drinking an excess of alcohol is just soooo fun and cool and normal and not "boring"

I see people smashed around and in front of their kids all the time through work and it's much less cool than it is pathetic really. A few drinks with your mental faculties intact okay - but several posters here obviously see no problem with drinking more than that and to me it belays either an ignorance of the risk factors or a deep state of denial.

It’s always quite interesting to see the sort of language used on this thread.

That life doesn’t stop when you have kids (implying alcohol is needed to be having a life). That people who don’t drink are boring, sanctimonious etc.

People get really, really defensive about their drinking sometimes. I must admit I’m probably biased.

I used to be a big drinker before dd and ds, A’s were/are most of my family and friends. After dc the hangovers just didn’t seem worth it, and the less the less it appealed until I eventually pretty much stopped. Rarely I’ll have a glass of something.

I was dropped by quite a few friends and am regularly picked on by family members because of it. You are probably thinking I was being ‘sanctimonious’?

Nope. In fact I didn’t even tell anyone, didn’t see the need to. I was still going out, still seeing friends, dancing etc. I just made sure to go up to the bar myself and got a coke, because I had a feeling it wouldn’t be received well (getting ‘hammered’ was the usual m.o)

It was fine and no one noticed for months until a cousin/friend came up to the bar with me and discovered it was just coke. Then all the questions and digs started. To paraphrase:

‘But why won’t you drink? Go on, don’t be boring just have some’

‘Are you saying there is something wrong with drinking. Oooo get her, too good to drink with us now’

‘We were going to invite you out for a meal but thought you probably wouldn’t want to, because we wanted to get sloshed.’

I wasn’t behaving any differently, no one noticed the months before that.

I hadn’t stopped ‘living my life’ and I wasn’t shoving the fact I wasn’t drinking down anyone’s throats. It’s almost like some of them took it as a personal insult that I was choosing not to drink.

I think it's unreasonable if both parents intend to get drunk. If it's a case of one will be remaining relatively sober then fair enough. Like you, I don't like the idea of anyone being pissed whilst responsible for a child but experience has shown me that we are in the minority there.

OP the vast majority of posters on here who don’t share your opinion are the parents who are irresponsible enough to get bladdered with children in their care. Justifying that kind of behaviour by saying ‘They won’t need to go A&E’ or ‘you can’t always live on the edge, that’s what neighbours/friends are for’😂 what ridiculous comments. A 6 month old could wake and not settle again and the parent is too impaired to care for their child properly. It’s no one else’s responsibility but the parents to look after their child. A few drinks is one thing, ‘guzzling’ champagne/wine really?!

If getting wasted is how they celebrate an occasion then arrange childcare

Once I’ve woken my neighbours in the middle of the night, only once. That’s when my entire house flooded and DP was on nights so I needed help to get the kids out of the house (two tiny babies at the time and DS1). Thankfully they came, and they’ve babysat the others on two occasions when I’ve had to do a hospital run in the middle of the night.
All these people who have never, ever had an emergency in the middle of the night are very very lucky.
My brother turned up wasted the night my mum was dying, I wanted to knock his head off for being in such a state when he knew what was coming (it was expected and he wasn’t drinking through distress, he was at a strip club don’t get me started he’s a prick). My dad was upset too.

The times they babysat it wasn’t stupid o’clock, it was between 10pm and midnight, so didn’t have to wake them.

MissMustbeaMug -

I've experienced exactly the same as you. Not with real friends but with colleagues and acquaintances. They seem to think that if you don't drink, it's their mission to force it upon you then they get nasty if you stick to it, leading to nastiness and name calling, being "boring" etc. when the way I behaved when out hadn't changed at all.

Real friends couldn't care less if my coke had rum in it or not. Why would they?

The only reason people could get nasty over someone choosing not to drink IMO is their own negative feelings about their drinking. Otherwise, why on earth would it matter to them!

I wouldn't do it as it's not worth the risk. I also feel on duty at all times with young babies around. If something did happen and both parents smelt of alcohol, professionals (NHS staff/police etc) would make instant social services referral. Not worth it in my opinion.

Blu99 totally agree with you.

MissMustbeaMug

Yes my parents have been judgey if I don't want to drink or go on their annual pub crawl. My parents also thought it was ok to go to parties or the pub and buy me at the age of 14 alcohol. I'd say when I got to 18 I had an unhealthy way with alcohol and didn't know my limits so would drink until i was absolutely wasted. So before people call us boring/having no life. There may be reasons people choose not to get drunk.

I don't judge if people want to get wasted if they have no one to worry about, but I'm sorry I do then judge if you are in sole responsibility of a minor and no one else is sober. I feel like your own needs for getting drunk are above caring for the safety of your children.

Ah, Downstairs, I'm afraid you'd lose your money.

Obviously I'm real, I am indeed a teacher, an award winning teacher. I live and teach in a very small rural Welsh village where everyone knows everyone else and all their business and I definitely do not gossip in the staff room because I can't stand it.

I do judge though. Everyone judges to some degree. I judge people who drink to excess and I judge people who call me names when I choose not to drink alcohol. And that's my prerogative.