Mum drinking at pick up

[Cybertron]

After school pick up at 3.15pm a lot of us take our kids to the local park. The kids play on the playground and we sit under benches by the trees. I chat to the mums that are there and have done for a couple of years but I am not close to any of them. Today one mum was chatting to me and she reeked of booze. She told me that she had filled her water bottle with white wine and laughed saying it was the only way to get through the day. She then continued to drink the wine. Her kids are under 10. Should I say or do something or is this ok?
AIBU: leave it she deserves to unwind
YABU: drinking like that with kids is not ok

Could you explain what reasons you have for considering it ok or not concerning that someone is concealing alcohol they feel they need to drink in order to get through the day, and consuming it while responsible for children who are really too young to be left unsupervised or with their responsible caregiver intoxicated?

NOT left unsupervised - at school
Drinkin IS LEGAL

@miss79guided

U R BEING MELODRAMATIC

You writing this in capital letters feels a bit hypocritical 😬

They weren't at school, they were at a park. Where the mum was the person with responsibility for the safety of her children (including responsibility for getting them home safely after drinking what sounds like quite a bit of alcohol).

Drinking alcohol is legal for adults so long as it doesn't create a situation in which others are at risk. Depending on where this person lives and how much they drank, they could have been at risk of breaking a criminal law - eg there is legislation prohibiting being drunk in charge of a child under 7 in public. The bar for social work / child protection concerns is lower than the bar for criminal legal proceedings, too.

In addition to the concerns about the safety of the children, it's not normal or healthy to feel a need to consume alcohol covertly like this in order to get through the day. Whether or not alcohol is legal to buy and consume doesn't change that there are warning signs that this woman has an unhealthy and concerning relationship with alcohol.

Get over it - the BIGGER issue here IS more with U than anythin ELSE

WAS the safety of her children AFFECTED - but it MIGHT have been, anythin MIGHT have happened

THAT IS called life

Swings, roundabouts - what U gain somewhere - U lose somewhere else

U take risks IN everythin U do for payback somewhere else - it all balances OUT

Deal WITH the here and NOW - Put somethin IN UR pocket for the - JUST in case

I think someone else has been on the wine

@miss79guided

Do you genuinely think that someone who isn't alcoholic needs to routinely covertly drink wine in the afternoon to 'get through the day'?

What you're saying in your posts only make sense if you also have an alcohol reliance issue tbh.

To think it's in any way normal or healthy to secretly need alcohol to 'get through the day' (especially when caring for children) is absolutely batshit.

I did NOT say that it is normal, I simply said it IS acceptable - please keep up

What IS normal - different people do things in, different ways

Look at the asians what is normal to them - their culture and ways
It IS life - U just get on with it.
Living - it is better than the alternative

"The bigger issue is with U..." - with me? How? I'm not the one needing alcohol to get through the day or potentially being intoxicated in charge of children...

I'd be interested in how you consider the risks in this case to be manageable and not an issue? From what I can see, there's a risk of the mum having impaired judgement while having sole responsibility for young children in a public place (what mitigation factors do you see that make that reasonable?), and a risk that the mum's own mental and physical health may be being harmed through an unhealthy relationship with alcohol (afaik, most mums aren't having to fill drinks containers with covert alcohol to cope with parenting - so this may be a symptom as well as a cause of difficulties).

That last bit reads as a little racist. You might want to rephrase that.

Different cultures HAVE different ways
It IS simply beliefs
The end product IS the important part - however U get there

I agree with @Scirocco that this post is racist. Partly because it is completely irrelevant to a discussion about whether covert daytime drinking to cope with parenting is problematic and partly because you have reduced an enormous continent to a monolith. Asia is made up of many countries and many cultures. India alone is home to several religions, varied cuisines and many languages; there are differences in the cultures of different regions of the country.

@Cybertron what did you end up doing?

Saying "the asians" is an offensive way of speaking about the many different populations and societies across a large geographic area, and reducing those diverse groups to a single, rather dehumanised monolith. That may not have been your intention, but it is how the language you have used comes across.

@miss79guided

"The Asians"

FYI Asia includes so many different countries, cultures and customs that you using that phrase comes across as racist.

Your posts don't make any sense.

It's worse to say it's acceptable than it is to say it's normal.

You're either on a wind up or you have an issue with drinking yourself.

It's absolutely not acceptable to be secretly drinking in the afternoon while in charge of children to 'get through the day'.

The impairment of judgement caused by drinking alcohol is a medical fact. It's why there are things like drink-driving legislation, rules against pilots/surgeons/etc turning up to work under the influence, social work input if adults are found too drunk to effectively safeguard children for whom they're responsible, etc.

Risk assessing things when you have a child needs to focus on the child as the priority and potentially be more cautious/risk-averse than otherwise. If their mum is intoxicated and unable to make safe judgements on the way home, how do you propose two primary-aged children (under 10) get themselves and their mum home safely? If their mum has been covertly drinking alcohol in the park to cope, do you think there may be other issues at home to which these children are being exposed? The "end product" here is potentially going to be two children growing up in a harmful environment, witnessing and experiencing the consequences of parental alcohol dependency.

Another saying that post is indeed "misguided" and racist.

End product IS how judged
> the journey is irrelevant, it is the destination that interested in.
The points R handed out at the end - not at half time

Are you ok?

But 'the end' is a lot more likely to cause damage to children involved if 'the half time' mark involves their carer secretly drinking in the afternoon.

It's bizarre you don't seem to understand the very basic concept of risk vs reward or safeguarding.

To the point I think you might be on a wind up.

IF - This instance if NOT were true - did NOT happen
So NO harm done

This is quite difficult to make sense of, really.

Are you trying to say that it doesn't seem like the children in this situation came to harm in the situation, so there's no problem?

Would you genuinely have no concerns if you discovered a friend/acquaintance drinking alcohol covertly in order to cope with life? Or if you saw someone drinking (more than just a couple of units) of alcohol while solely responsible for children?

Do you wear a seatbelt, by the way?

Do you not strap your children into car seats @miss79guided? Do you wear a seatbelt? Do you lock your doors?

It IS the LAW to wear a seatbelt
Of course I lock my doors - so people don`t just walk in off the street

So, by the same logic, perhaps there's cause for concern about the actions of the OP's acquaintance...