Debate: Should you drink in front of your children?

Suzanne Harrington and Pat Fitzgerald debate whether or not you should drink in front of your children.

Suzanne Harrington

Statistically, one of my children could become an alcoholic but their relationship with alcohol is their own, writes Suzanne Harrington

I have never drank in front of my kids. This is because I used to drink like a fish with a drink problem, and so I always waited until they were elsewhere, being looked after by other people, before I got stuck in.

They have no memory of me being drunk, and for different reasons, neither do I.

Suzanne Harrington.

I stopped drinking completely when they were still very little, not because I was worried about how being drunk around my kids would affect them, but because of how being hungover around my kids was affecting me. Imagine it. Small kids bouncing on your head at 6am when your entire skull is made of paper thin poisoned membrane and you are five seconds from death. Something had to go, and as I couldn’t realistically get rid of the kids, I had to get rid of the hangovers instead. It really was that simple. Active addiction is just too awful to do alongside parenting.

Obviously, as an addict, I became addicted to recovery, and transformed into a teetotal vegan yoga fan. No wine in my fridge, just coconut water. This is what my kids have grown up with — sober mummy, clear eyed, emotionally present. Trotting off to 12 step meetings, hanging out with other former wrecks now living our best lives. Sickeningly healthy.

So have my children have followed suit, gravitating towards the wholesome sporty kids, hooked on health, running a mile from booze and everything else that teenagers love to experiment with, all cack-handed teenage impulsivity? Have they fuck.

As I write this — Sunday afternoon — one of them is sprawled on their bed in an evil mood, scoffing deep fried carbs, and the other one is still missing in action.

One is underage, but they all have fake ID for the dodgy off licence that sells them booze at inflated prices (tall friends with deep voices no longer cut it).

Since the other one turned 18 and no longer needs fake ID, she has been spending most of her life either in the pub, planning a trip to the pub, or recovering from the pub. She drinks everything — wine, beer, cider, prosecco, gin. Sometimes all in one sitting. Yet she’s one of the more sensible ones of her friendship group, the one who holds the hair of the puking friends.

The underage one has empty bottles of Ciroc vodka lined up in his bedroom, like trophies. He thinks they look cool. So although I have never drank in front of my kids, my kids drink in front of me. Statistically, at least one of them has an excellent chance of developing alcoholism. I tell them this on a regular basis, which, as you can imagine, they love hearing, especially the morning after the latest teenage bacchanalia, as I offer them fizzy Vitamin C and unsolicited advice.

I almost feel sorry for them, having an alcoholic parent in recovery — being sober is like having x-ray spex. I know all about booze and drugs, and can spot an altered state at a thousand paces. Bummer, kids. Not that it stops them, but at least they know that I know. Oh boy, do I know.

Essentially, as parents of teens, we are powerless. We can do or not do whatever we think is correct in front of our kids — drink in front of them, not drink in front of them, educate them about how to drink, socialise them to drink in a civilised fashion, ban drink from the house, buy drink for them, be punitive, be liberal, be a cool parent, be a draconian parent, whatever.

It makes not one tiny bit of difference. Our kids will do what they are going to do, and there is nothing we can do to stop them. Their relationship with drink — and everything else — is their own. All we can do is inform them, communicate with them, maintain dialogue, pick them up from A&E, pay their bail money, visit them in jail (the last few haven’t happened to my kids yet, but I rule nothing out).

But hey. At least I’m not navigating teen hangovers with a middle aged hangover of my own. Instead, I get to laugh at them from the infuriatingly lofty heights of my own sobriety. Suckers.

Pat Fitzpatrick

Our two kids crawled into our bed on Saturday morning and put on a little play.

“I’m cranky this morning,” said the four year old.

“Is it because you drank too much gin last night?” asked his six-year-old sister.

I was devastated. If only I had been faster with my phone, we could have had a viral YouTube hit on our hands. My wife did freak out a little bit, mainly because we decided to have that second gin last night and she had a touch of the fear.

None of this will make us stop drinking in front of the kids. My wife has said this more than once — we are better parents with few drinks in us. Let me clarify, before the Please Drink Responsibly crew arrive outside our front door in a van with blacked-out windows. We do not drink to excess in front of our kids, that often. You’re talking two, maybe three drinks on a Friday or Saturday evening, to mark the fact that it’s the weekend and you can’t be a dry-balls all your life.

Pat Fitzpatrick.

We usually get a bit foolish, throw the bluetooth speaker up on the table and stage an impromptu disco with the kids. I close the blinds for that bit because no one should have to see what I do to Uptown Funk, no matter how nosey they are. The kids love this hour of quality time, not least because we fire sugary treats at them so they can feel a bit drunk as well.

It wasn’t always like this. There was a time when we had a puritanical notion that the kids shouldn’t see us drinking, so the hard-earned weekend bevvy had to wait until the kids were in bed. That took all the fun out of it. Anyone with kids knows the 30 minutes after they go to bed is the seventh circle of hell. Will they settle? What was that? Are you just going to sit there looking at your phone and ignore this? How do mean it’s my turn?

There’s no way you can enjoy anything during that, let alone a drink. As a result we’d wait until they were definitely gone off, before lashing into the red wine to make sure we were drunk enough to laugh at the Graham Norton Show. (It doesn’t work without drink. Norton is funny all the time, but you need help when it comes to laughing at Michael Bublé.) This means we’re still drinking at 11pm, which is when hangovers get made, at least at my age.

The trick is to start our drinking at 6pm. That way, you can sail through the pain of the 30 minutes settle at 8:30pm, after they head for bed. I’d say 90% of the time, we don’t bother drinking any more after that. By then we have the munchies and feel a bit dehydrated, so we drink herbal tea and ravage a giant bag of crisps each, saying “aren’t we after getting really old.”

Just how old is clear when I wake about 3 am with a mild hangover. It’s the usual stuff, dry mouth, racing heart and elation mixed with low self-esteem, nothing that can’t be fixed by a mug of water and a drift back to sleep.

The result? I wake happy the next morning, and don’t mind the kids barrelling into bed and kneeing me in the face. (Every time.) Yes, it would be nice to sleep on for another bit, but sure that’s nothing that can’t be fixed by two hours of cartoons. (Is there anything funnier than that radio ad where the hilariously uptight posh couple are disappointed in themselves for drinking the night before, causing them to put on the kids in front of the telly rather than bringing their kids to the park at like 8:30 am? No, there isn’t.) I don’t think our weekend tippling will influence our kids one way or the other, when it comes to booze. I do think they’ll look back at Friday nights in the kitchen with their stupid dancing Dad and think, that was a bit of fun. At least I hope so.

I do think my children will look back at Friday nights in the kitchen with their stupid, dancing dad and think, that was a bit of fun. At least I hope so