To drink alcohol when my daughter doesn't like me to.

[AnonymousMum37]

Hi, I wanted to ask some advice anonymously.

My 9 year old daughter hates anything she sees as bad for you e.g. alcohol, smoking, tattoos, piercings... . She is autistic and very black and white about what she sees as good and bad.

I have 3 small tattoos (from before she was born), pierced ears, and I enjoy a moderate amount of alcohol (a glass or two of wine with dinner 2/3 nights a week and go out to the pub with friends maybe once a month).

I have never smoked or vaped, but I have some friends who do.

Her reactions are getting unbearable.

She growls at any of my friends who smoke or vape and has decided they are bad people, even if they don't do this near her she knows they do and she therefore hates them. I don't like it either so I can understand but they are not bad people.

She begs me at the supermarket not to buy wine, loudly making a scene as though I'm a raging alcoholic, so I can no longer buy it with the weekly shop as it is mortifying.

She refuses to do her chores unless I promise not to drink anymore. I stupidly relented recently and said that I would not have a drink for a few weeks and then last night I had had a long day and had 2 small glasses of wine with dinner and at bedtime she was screaming and crying saying she can't trust me and I am a liar and I'm not ever allowed to drink again.

I know this sounds awful, and when she's saying it I start feeling like I must be an awful parent..

I do so much for her and she already controls so much of family life. I don't like her feeling she can control what I do when it doesn't even affect her.

She is adamant I should not get any more tattoos when I was thinking about one recently. I feel like I'm the rebellious child and she's the strict parent.

It's very hard to argue with her because of course she is right in a way, alcohol, smoking, tattoos, none of these things are good for us, but at the same time I would like her to be tolerant of people's rights to make their own choices and see that we are not good or bad people but unique and complex combinations. I have tried comparing it to her choosing to eat sweets sometimes which is not great for you but fine in moderation but she can't make that link.

Am I being unreasonable to say I am allowed to drink alcohol?

But nothing the OP has written indicates any drinking problem, never getting drunk in the house, nothing inappropriate. Your post was totally irrelevant to the situation and does nothing more than attempt to judge the OP for having 2 or 3 glasses of wine a week. Her daughter has problems; that’s what the replies should be about. Not the OP buying a bottle of wine.

She refuses to make the link with sweets, does she? 😁

My son is autistic and I could've written this post a year or so ago lol. I have one glass of cider a month, his dad might have a beer a week and neither of us drink in front of him but the way my son used to talk you'd think we were both Oliver Reed!

A conversation about how what other people do is none of his business (as long as it's legal and not hurting him obvs) and redirecting his focus onto something else worked a treat.

Far too much fannying around with autistic kids sometimes. They're not stupid. They need people to talk to them in a way they understand and they need boundaries, not people telling them everything they say and do is right. One of our boundaries is that DS is not allowed to dictate to other people what they can and can't do. Funnily enough he gets that.

Listen to the child. Understand what she's worried about. Validate those worries, explain why she doesn't need to worry. And possibly make a plan that both are happy with.

Is she worried about health issues? Explain in age appropriate ways that people do unhealthy things in moderate ways and come to no harm.

Is she worried by how Mum acts when drinking? I'd ask more about how mum's actions feel worrying? Is she worried Mum won't be able to read her a story? Is she worried because she doesn't understand that alcohol can make Mums voice sound funny/slurred?

There's a million things here, but it's about validation and then explaining. Maybe making a plan so that she feels safer (that does not need to be mum not drinking).

It matters in the OPs case that she's previously made a plan with her daughter and is now disregarding it. That might be because it was an ill-conceived safety plan in the first place (if the initial levels of drinking didn't impact the child, but a disproportionate plan was put in place not to drink). It means child is less likely to believe any future plans. The cynic in me might read between the lines and think that we're only getting half a story from the OP tho. Most moderate drinkers wouldn't occur to them to need a drinking agreement with their child. Yet these sorts of agreements / safety plans are common place in families with drinking or substance misuse issues. I wonder if the OP isn't being as open here as she could be, and discussion of previous agreements around drinking is a hint towards that.

What I wouldn't be doing is telling the child to (effectively) put up and shut up. I also wouldn't necessarily be telling mum to not drink. I'd be listening to both.

Fucking hell 🤦‍♀️

Seriously? I like a couple of glasses of wine a week. I drink less than the recommended number of units. No child will dictate to me whether or not I can have them. There is no evidence from OP that she has a drinking problem and that the child is at any risk . OP needs advice here on how to explain this to her DD in a way that she can understand.

Have you tried explaining the black-and-white thinking trait to her? I have an autistic DC who is very much like this and gets frantic every time she sees me have a sip of wine (which is about twice a bloody year!) As part of talking to her about her autism, I have explained that one trait she and I share with a lot of other autistic people is a tendency to think in a black-and-white, all-or-nothing way. I’ve told her that, while this means we often have a strong sense of what’s right and wrong (a good thing) it can also mean we can sometimes label people as “good” or “bad” too easily, when the reality is usually far more complex. We’ve done a lot of work with her about how two apparently conflicting things can be true at the same time (eg someone can give a lot to charity but can treat their family badly, or someone can be a kind person whose circumstances drive them to steal, for example). Thinking with nuance and criticality is a skill that many people would benefit from learning more about early on, regardless of autism.

The way she sees it is it is hurting yourself. Her description of piercings and tattoos is "paying someone to stab you" and with tattoos there's the added "injecting poison into your skin". I have tried explaining the ink isn't poisonous but she says "why can't I put pens in my mouth then?". I have tried many ways of explaining but she has an answer to everything! I just say "if you don't like them, you don't get them" but she is clear in her disapproval.

Agreed. A 9 year old should absolutely not be dictating anything you do or don't do.

Yes voice is important, but the reasons adults drink and vape and get tattoos are nuanced (what's wrong with piercings!) and aren't deciding factors in whether someone is a good or bad person. If I listened to my six years old voice all the time she'd have sweets for dinner everyday, no bedtime and friends over for sleepovers everyday. There is a reason children don't make these kinds of decisions on behalf of adults.

You don't have to mean it but it shows that at 18 they are an adult and legally are not the parents responsibility anymore. They can make their own decisions. The op is allowing her daughter to tell her what to do it's unheard-of. When her daughter gets to 18 she'll be planning her escape for freedom away from the op.

Does your behaviour change when you drink?

I remember being very uncomfortable around my mum when she'd had a few glasses of wine as she got louder and her behaviour wasn't what I was used to. I'm also autistic and it just made me feel like something wasn't quite right.

No more explanations she is the child you are the adult. She thinks you and her are the same age and you're not. You are her mother.

@LittleHangleton
Your drinking really matters to your daughter. So do the substances your friends use. You need to listen to that and not minimise or disregarded.

And then do what about it?

Is it possible she’s seen upsetting things on YouTube or in books OP?

When I was little, a friend of my Mum’s was travelling so we stored a load of her books at our house. I was looking through them one day and found a book called The Bottle, which was (obviously in retrospect) a Victorian moralistic cautionary tale about the evils of alcohol. It was basically a cartoon book, showing a loving happy family at Christmas, with the father opening a bottle of wine. Within a few pages he’d become a destitute violent alcoholic, and he’d murdered the mother. He was locked in an asylum looking crazy. The daughter had become a prostitute and the son a petty criminal. And the final sentence was something like “lives destroyed, and all because of The Bottle”.

As a young child I took this literally, and actually believed that if my parents drank a single glass of wine our lives would be destroyed. I lived in constant fear of it for years. Even now at 57, despite drinking like a typical student and 20-something in my youth, I’m still scared of alcohol. I don’t drink at all, and I find drunk people frightening and unnerving . When DS (age 19) gets drunk I can’t be in the same room as him.

It’s frightening how much we’re influenced by things we see as kids. So maybe it’s worth checking if your daughter has a reason for this anxiety.

No child will dictate to me whether or not I can have them

The voice of privilege.

FYI, safety plans, where the needs of the child are given higher priority than the desires of the parent, are commonplace in families who live with domestic abuse, serious violence, alcoholism and drug use.

Validate. Understand. Discuss. Explain. Educate. Sometimes compromise, make a plan. That doesn't necessarily mean mum not drinking. It also doesn't mean completely disregarding thre child's voice.

So genuinely, what do you think the outcome should be? Should the 9yr old dictate? Should there be lots of explaining that a glass of wine is normal and won't hurt?
Of course children's voices need to be heard but- on a school visit my mum was shown my little brother's work. This was a picture of my grandmother (who lived with us) drinking and captioned, 'My grandmother likes to sit and drink whisky'.
This was a house where alcohol was a glass of sherry on New Year's Eve. Goodness knows where he got the idea but it was completely made up.

NB. I'd not be dictated to by a 9 yr old.

@LittleHangleton what exactly are you saying ? That Op should go tee total and get rid of her mate who vape ?

No social worker in the land will waste precious resources on the op.

No. Please read my other posts.

Allowing an autistic kid to rule the roost is a common thing believe it or not. They're extremely demanding in their needs that must be met at all cost. It's just easier in a way. I've only one at home now and he tries to dictate to me but I don't allow it. Once you start it just gets more often and for more things until you're on eggshells.

Stop trying to reason with her. You can't reason or make her see any other view point than her own.

OFGS

Are you bored?

This is really outing but...

Some autistic children have such high anxiety they become extremely controlling. One of my own children insisted everyone call me David (I'm his mum, a woman in her thirties) for absolutely no reason. He screamed and screamed if anyone called me something else.

He also has raging OCD and learning disabilities and has meltdowns if I say certain words or phrases such as 'right', 'oh I see', 'so' or 'that'.

So yes, 'voice of the child' is important but mothers parents are human beings. This is (unless massive backstory / drip feed incoming) not a fucking safeguarding risk. Don't make a mum trying her best feel even shitter and frightened for no reason.

OP needs to kindly and appropriately make sure her 9 year old does not dictate her life. OP - it's going to take a lot of consistency which will be hard. I totally get why you made that promise (and broke it) but try not to do that again. Is DD mainstream ability? That might change your approach.

Just stop drinking. If you can’t, that shows you have a problem. You’ll lose weight, you’ll save money, you’ll set a good example for your daughter.

I think I would try to understand her worries and address them. Maybe she thinks that everyone who drinks is an alcoholic. Maybe she thinks everyone who smokes or is near someone who smokes is going to die of cancer. She needs to understand people are capable of doing things in moderation and that things like smoking and drinking can be forms of relaxtion for adults, and that adults do understand these are not always the healthiest forms of relaxation, but sometimes it's all that time and money allows.

For tattoos/piercings etc, explain to her that maybe she doesn't understand them, but people have choice as to what to do with their bodies and no one is entitled judge what kind of person they are because of them. Maybe she's seen films/kids shows in which people like that are 'baddies' (it's a trope I always hated, even when I was a kid) and that's led to some judgement. She may need help understanding that just because someone does something you would consider painful, or you don't like how it looks, it's their choice and should be respected.