Alcohol as a treat for 11yr old

[mummyflood]

Hi everyone.

I have been shopping with a friend today (supermarket) and she has frankly shocked me with something she bought, would be very interested in your opinions on this.

She has 2 DC's daughter 14 and son 11. Down the booze aisle, she suddenly said 'right, a treat for x', and picked up a 4-pack of cheap lager. X is 11yr old son. She then picked up a 2 litre bottle of cider and said 'I will share this with y', y being 14yr old daughter. I said 'are you serious, x is only 11', thinking she was winding me up, which she said in all seriousness, 'yes, I know, but he only has one once a month and it lasts ages...all night'.

How many of you think its no biggie to give an 11yr old lager as a treat, as its only about once a month, does this come into the area of introducing alcohol in the safety of your own home at this age, would it make a difference if it was made into a shandy, is it me being totally OTT or out of touch with my own kids (14 and 12) - ??!!??

TIA
xxMFxx

[VictorianSqualor]

I was surprised at how many occasions people could make about alcohol when I was with XP tbh.
I held a party for DD's third birthday at a restaurant, only for all the parents to disappear to the bar
I was talking about where I'm going to have the reception for DS2's christening with MiL (my new partner's mother, totally different values wrt alcohol) and said about a village hall that we had just found out had a bar, but if everyone was going to be driving that we may as well just get some soft drinks or something.
I had a slight chuckle to myself about how XP's family would have reacted to that!