Digital Scrapbook #2

A Drug-Free Action Alliance Program: Parents Who Host, Lose The Most: Don’t be a party to teenage drinking

In the 1980s and 1990s, many of the movies about high school shared a similar scene: the parents have gone out of town for the weekend; the teenager throws a wild party; many of the teens at the party are drinking, smoking, or using illegal drugs (or sometimes all three) with no major consequences; sometimes the parents would come home early; and sometimes the parents never find out. And certainly this type of party was not reserved just for movies, many teens hosted, and still do, parties like these all the time. But there is a new trend in teenage parties that has sparked national attention, new legislation, topics for daytime talk shows, and a new slogan: “Parents Who Host, Lose The Most: Don’t be a party to teenage drinking”. That’s right; parents have starting hosting parties where they allow the teens to drink. Some parents even supply the alcohol. According to a newsletter article from the Drug Free Action Alliance, an Ohio-based nonprofit prevention agency, the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University surveyed parents and teens and found that “one-third of teen partygoers have been to parties where teens were drinking alcohol, smoking pot, or using cocaine, Ecstasy or prescription drugs while a parent was present. By age 17, nearly half (46 percent) of teen have been at such parties where parents were present”.

Given the possibly life-threatening side-effects of drinking, especially teen drinking, some may question the parenting skills the host-parents have. But the parents who host these parties do not feel they are doing anything wrong, quite the opposite, they feel they are keeping kids safe by allowing them to drink openly and under adult supervision. Many of these parents believe that teens drink whether they allow it or not and therefore they aren’t going to stop them from drinking. In Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood, Koren’s mother has this same line of thinking. If Koren is going to get wasted, her mom would prefer she does it at home because it is safer. While I don’t agree with this parenting philosophy, I’m not the one parenting those teens. The bigger problem, however, is when parents host parties and allow other teens to drink without their parent’s knowledge, much less consent. I also strongly disagree with the theory that the teens will be safer because they are being supervised by a parent. Maybe I would buy this argument if there were no more than four or five teens at the party, but this doesn’t seem realistic to me. The number of teens at the average high school party is most likely going to exceed the number of teens one or two parents can reasonably be responsible for.

I was channel surfing one day and came across the Montel Williams Show. The topic that day happened to be “Parents Who Host”. I don’t know why I decided to stop and watch the show, I wasn’t a parent yet and I didn’t attend parties like these when I was in high school. In fact, this was the first time I had heard of these parties. The main guest was a mother who allowed her daughter to go to a party because she knew the parents were going to be home. She thought she was doing her job as a mom to confirm that the party was going to be supervised by parents. As I’m sure is true with many parents, she assumed that parents at home equates to no drinking. Sadly, this was not the case. Her daughter died that night after drinking too much. Like other parents who host teen drinking parties, the host parents felt that by allowing drinking in their home they could keep the kids safe. They couldn’t. The mother of the girl who died begged other parents who might be watching to not just confirm the presence of parents at parties but to also specifically ask if there would be alcohol available to the teens. I have not forgotten her message and either my husband or I make a phone call to parents before letting our teens go to a party.

In thinking about this issue in relation to the casual attitudes the college students had towards drinking in Spin the Bottle, I’m curious if there is any correlation to the increase in college binge drinking to the increase in parents hosting drinking parties. In hosting these parties, do parents give their kids the impression that drinking, especially underage drinking is not a big deal? That the underage drinking laws serve more like guidelines than actual laws?