Was I overreacting about teenagers without transport home after drinking!?!

[Mumsytutu]

Morning,

I wanted to gather some perspective and others thoughts on something that isn’t sitting right with me. It’s actually really upset me but unsure if my moral compass is just a bit ‘stiff’ compared to other parents.

Last night my 14 (nearly 15) year old DS had 12 friends over in the garden for a few drinks (strict rules on no excessive drinking!!) I was struggling with the drinking part in the first place truth be told, then had a good think about what I was doing at 14! Drinking in the garden is definitely a much preferable option. (This isn’t the first garden party. he’s attended others, and has always proved himself responsible).

It was both boys and girls. We know the majority of the boys parents and they’re good kids, most came along with one or 2 ciders. Fine.

Evening was good (very noisy!) but we only have 1 neighbour so I had pre warned them and it was to be finished at 10pm, they were fine about it. The kids were fine. No dramas.

My DS confiscated some vodka from the girls to adhere to the no excessive drinking rules so I was comfortable that he was being responsible. For clarity, he had 2 ciders and the boys were mainly kicking a football around and having a giggle. Girls sat gossiping, all the usual sort of behaviour.

Boys and a couple of girls were collected by parents promptly and all was well.

That left 4 girls. About 10:30pm I went out to see what was going on as the girls had congregated on my drive, turns out they were waiting for * ‘s dad to send an Uber. We live in a village so whilst Ubers are possible, they are not super easy to get. I immediately offered them a lift home.
they refused and assured me an uber was on its way. I wouldn’t get my child an Uber personally, but each to their own.

I told them to come back inside and wait here. They used the loo before all disappearing (thanking me on the way out). I assumed their Uber had arrived.

My DS then gets a call to go to them. He disappears. I give him a few minutes and follow him to see what’s going on.

The girls are sat on the side of the road with one on the phone to her Dad asking for an Uber. (Clearly Uber has not been sorted!!). Another girl is on the phone to her mum and is clearly getting quite upset. I offer again to take them home. The ‘uber girl’ refuses on behalf of them all.

At this point, and as her dad is on loud speaker (Dad is away in a different city), I put my foot down and said I wasn’t happy they were sat on the side of the road with no transport home. I insist they let me drive them home. (Dad pipes up and tells her to “just get the lift home, she was supposed to be home for 10pm”) All the girls follow me back to my house and I take them home.

It then transpires that they were not all staying at ‘uber girls’ house (as I had assumed) and 2 of them were planning to then get a bus to another location. It’s now 11:15pm- I don’t think so!! Thankfully the buses have stopped running … so they’ll walk. We’re near the city, just no!! I insist they let me drive them and they agree. It was about a 7 minute drive!

Whats not sitting right with me (in case it isn’t obvious) is that at least 2 of the girls parents involved here have no idea their girls were just wondering around hoping to get an Uber home, if they knew they were even out! I would be furious if this was my child.
Why had no one arranged a lift with a parent and why did Uber Girls parents think this was all ok? I have no idea if Uber girls Mum was even home (apparently, she doesn’t care, this is she Dad her on the phone when he asked if she’d called her Mum). I know this is really non of my business, but it kind of is as I had to sort it out as I could not in good conscience just ‘leave them to it’.

I have a DD who is 10. This has really shocked me and certainly made me think. I would never let any of my children make their own way home after a party/ drinking etc. I’m really struggling to imagine any parent would if the knew the whole story!?

Am I being over sensitive here? Should I be doing something to talk to the parents (I would want to know, although hopefully wouldn’t ever put my child in this position)- I would rather not contact the parent, but should I be?…
Or is this usual behaviour and i’m just out of touch/ overprotective? I’m completely flabbergasted to be honest.

Would appreciate other parents thoughts, the friends I have spoken to (boy mums!) are also completely shocked.

Thanks for reading.

Yes we've all been teenagers including me, I was of the variety that got pissed down the field with my mates, after using my fake I.d to buy cider from the corner shop, we had to work for our alcohol 😆. We never smashed anything up or set fire to things and if we had been offered someone's back garden, without the alcohol, to hang about in we would have happily done that too.

My kids are just about grown up now and I've had to parent this, and by far my biggest problem has been other parents having a really relaxed attitude to buying their kids alcohol and allowing them to get absolutely shitfaced. The kids who's parents let them drink from a younger age are definitely the adults who drink more and less sensibly now.

So no experience tells me it's not better to let them do it at home, it's better to offer them alternatives to drinking alcohol.

You enabled the situation. I think you really need to take some responsibility here. if something had happened to those children it would have been your fault.

I have a 14 year old, 15 in a couple of months. She is in a popular group, not a social outlier. None of them drink. The idea that she might go to a party at a friend's house and be encouraged to drink by their parents is really worrying to me

And I say this as someone who had an alcohol problem at 14 and regularly drank at school

Things arent the same as when I was young. There is much less drinking. Kids can't buy alcohol as easily. Knowing how damaging alcohol is on a developing mind, you are insane to encourage this

I started letting my children do similar to OP when they were 15 and friends were turning 16 and having parties. Before that, we allowed them to have a couple of drinks with us. We were under no illusion they would start to experiment and very much wanted it to be in the open and not something they had to lie about to us. We also wanted them to know that if they ever got into difficulties they could phone us for help (rather than getting into more difficulties because they didn’t want to admit to breaking rules!) It was def a change to how I thought I’d parent, but was an approach we decided on after a lot of consideration of how to give them freedom responsibly.
They are now 28, 23 and 21 and have grown into very responsible drinkers, all will drink socially but will also often happily drive to events/pubs and drink 0% beer. At no point did I ever not care about where they were or how they were getting home.
Of course I understand lots of people will disagree with me, but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong and they’re right. We’re all navigating parenting and making decisions we think are right for different reasons - there’s not just one way!

There is a lot of of judgment on this post about the drinking.

Here is mine- my sister who was 4 years older than me was wild. She would be drinking from a young age. Not getting hammered but she would drink with friends. And I don't mean drink vodka or thing like that.. WKD shnapps, things like that.

I was 15 and I was invited to a party. My mum asked if there was drinking I didn't lie and I said yes. My mum took me to the shop and bought me some low % something. She said I can drink that but if I get drunk I've broken her trust and I will never be aloud out again. So, I did what my mum said. And she trusted me. I think the learnt with my sister that teens will do this regardless. So if you give them the trust and freedom they won't abuse it. My sister was a 'go hard or go home' kinda girl cause she knew she would get in trouble so why not get drunk! I however, listened to my mum and I never came home drunk (until I was like 18).

But I always had a lift home. No matter the time my mum would get me. Or if it was local to my friends my dad would walk to me and walk me home.

You weren’t overreacting at all and the gathering with a couple of drinks at 14 is fine, and lovely, actually.

It never ceased to amaze me how little some parents care about their kids whereabouts. I could give loads of examples from my experience from that time (my sons are now young adults). Many times randoms slept on my sofa because their parents didn’t care and didn’t want them home (in Winter, too).

You are a great parent, OP. Just keep doing what you’re doing. Your children will turn out well.

And you think your permissive parenting means he won't get wasted in someone else's garden or field?

you seem to be suggesting the alternatives are "drink at home" or "drink in park". There is a third option of "you are 14; you are not drinking alcohol and you are not hanging round in parks at night". Yes teens lie. But if you have no idea where your 14 year old is and cannot work out that they have been drinking (yes, you might turn a blind eye to genuinely one cider) then that is appalling parenting.

I would also put money on there being more than 1 or 2 ciders drunk. The bottle of vodka confiscated was just the one that OP found before the teens no doubt got sneakier. So how is drinking at home, where the amount of drink is now unknown because the teens are probably surrepticiously pouring vodka into cider preferable?

also interesting that OP is highlighting her worries about poor parenting from other parents. OP's DC is attending parties at their houses. Are they monitoring to the level that she is? Are they even there? If OP is buying into a culture where it's ok to go to people's houses and drink at 14, she needs to think about the whole picture of what she is agreeing to.

You are a great parent, OP. Just keep doing what you’re doing. Your children will turn out well.

Blimey, if you can see into the future you should probably put a few quid on the lottery.

I think you were beyond daft to facilitate this. If anything had happened to any of those kids then your role in providing them with alcohol would be a contributing factor.
You can't stop teens drinking, but you don't have to go out of your way to help them.
It's not a binary choice between drinking in your garden and drinking in the park. For one thing, the other parents would be more likely to agree to their DC attending a party in a respectable home than just hanging round the park, so you've offered a false sense of security and provided an easy springboard for these kids to take risks.
Yes the other parents should have been more in it, but so should you. Now you've seen where this can end up, you should stop encouraging it.

https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/facts/information-about-alcohol/alcohol-and-the-law/the-law-on-alcohol-and-under-18s

Yes your mum made a decision about you, for you.

Did she allow other peoples children to drink on her property, did she supply them with alcohol?

Did you tell the parents that there would be alcohol allowed at the party? I would be absolutely furious with you - seriously. It has nothing to do with 'what was I doing at 14...getting drunk in a field etc'. I know that teenagers do all sorts when parents are not around, but if my child was going to a party in someone's house and the parents were going to be there, I would assume that I wouldn't have to worry about drink or drugs. To supply and allow it under those circumstances is irresponsible and stupid. Fine to give it to your own child at home, in fact its a good idea, but condoning/support other people's children is crossing a line.

I agree with just about everyone on here, I have no idea why you would allow 14 yos to have alcohol at a party and I also live in a rural area in the Midlands.

DD only ever had 4 or 5 friends round at the time and when alcohol became a possibility (maybe 17) I said that I would only allow it with permission from parents but none of them were fussed about it anyway. Other more sociable teenagers that I know didn't start taking alcohol to parties until at least 16 and then there was a lot of debate around it.

Living rurally meant that everyone had to sort out how to get home in advance, if you didn't you'd have at least a 5 mile walk home.

I think you all sound very lax.

I struggled with my 17 year old having some alcohol at their birthday party. I would never have allowed this at 14. You say most of the parents were aware? What about the ones that were not? I think you have been very irresponsible and that is before we get to how these potentially quite drink teenagers get home.

You and I are very much not on the same wavelength.

And all this 'theres normally 50 kids in the parties' and 'there was a field with 80 kids in the other week as a party' - at 14? WTF?

Great for the local police to try to manage

80 sets of irresponsible parents.

Are they Y10? If so, this is perfectly normal round us (city suburb). The parties really ramped up from about October. I’ve hosted and would expect everyone to have some way of getting home. I don’t let anyone leave alone, but if in a group it’s fine. Some get collected, a couple get Ubers.

My take is that I far prefer them to be having parties with adult supervision than drinking in a car park or field like we were. And I would much rather my kids talked to me about what they’re up to.

Just adding my voice to the majority of posters on this thread who totally disagree with the idea of allowing 14 year olds to have a drinking party in your garden.
It’s almost amusing that you think you’re the parent with a stiff moral compass. Almost.

I have young adult children who did the same things, so yes, I can!

OP, your other thread stating that your son is in 'constant trouble at school but good at home', is starting to make more sense now.

You should probably have mentioned on it how permissive you are at home.

It must be like chalk and cheese to him.

Assuming you've never met the OP's child and his friends, no you can't 😳

It was very good of you to drive them home. I think mistakes were made by you by not asking pre-party that parents confirmed how the kids were going to get home.

It’s quite common where we are that parents create a WhatsApp group or message the host to confirm details.

If you had taken my child home I’d be making sure I’d thank you for your kindness. I hope the parents acknowledge that you went out of your way to ensure their girls’ safety.

With permission from the majority of parents! The 5 I didn’t know the of (these girls included) I can’t speak for, but they arrived with alcohol and didn’t buy it themselves.

i expected sensible drinking and parents to collect them properly, as had been evident at other events my son had attended. (Queues of cars collecting them!). I was shocked that if they needed a taxi, one should have been booked for them so parents knew they were safely on their way home, OR arranged a lift back with me, no problem.

i did not supply any alcohol to anyone else’s children. Nor would i.

no one was drunk, no sick. No silly behaviour. They were polite kids who had a few drinks in a safe environment and thankfully stayed close to my house so I could ensure those 4 girls got home safely. Had they have wondered off …. I dread to think. No uber was coming. Nothing had been sorted.

i have messaged Uber girl via my DS and told her if she is EVER in that situation again and can’t get home, my DS and I will collect her.

Obviously, and neither can you. You must have missed the sentences in the OP about her monitoring the group and concerns about the friend’s parents not collecting them, and her offering to drive them home.