Bad Parent: Booze Clues
Why I let my kids drink.
by Gretchen Roberts
April 30, 2008
I may be a renegade in the United States, but many European parents share my philosophy. In France and Italy, most notably, children are brought up in a food-and-wine culture, taught to appreciate the pleasures of the table in many forms. The French writer Colette wrote in Earthly Paradise:
At an age when I could still scarcely read, I was spelling out, drop by drop, old light clarets and dazzling Yquems. Champagne appeared in its turn, a murmur of foam, leaping pearls of air providing an accompaniment to Birthday and First Communion banquets . . . Good lessons, from which I graduated to a familiar and discreet use of wine, not gulped down greedily but measured out into narrow glasses, assimilated mouthful by spaced out meditative mouthful.
Colette captures the key to growing up with wine: in moderation.
Many European parents share my philosophy.
Just as my five-year-old understands that an occasional cookie is fine for a treat but an entire package in one sitting is not, she also understands that a glass of wine (or in her case, a taste) is a present to be unwrapped slowly and with savor, not an excuse to binge.
In choosing the middle path between teetotalers and heavy drinkers, I walk a fine line. By making the choice to expose my children early on to the pleasures of drinking wine with meals, I'm making the commitment to lead by example, to walk that line of wine-as-a-food and not cross it.
When I was a teenager and a curious cook, I once sampled my mother's sherry, hidden away in the top cupboard above the stove. It was cooking sherry, cheap and salty, and years of absorbing the heat of the stove hadn't improved it one bit. When caught, I was duly punished. Like my friend Amy, my mother didn't believe in children drinking, so I satisfied my curiosity in secret.
It's true that I'm addicted to wine: its culture, science, philosophy. I compulsively seek out the variety, the vintage, the vintner. The nuances of the bottle are endlessly fascinating to me, and I hope to impart some of that pleasure onto my kids, just as I hope to instill other precious values into their characters. So I raise my glass to the pleasure of wine: wine at the table, wine as a food, and wine as a family.
Photo by Reza Mazaheri
©2008 Gretchen Roberts and Nerve Media
About the Author
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Gretchen Roberts writes about food and wine for Wine Enthusiast, Cooking Light, Better Homes and Gardens, and Health. Visit her website at www.gretchenroberts.net. |
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