Throwing a few drinks back every other day doesn’t make parents hip. Apparently many young parents believe this is in fact the case. It is a problem of identity as much as addiction. Limiting your grasp on the pre-parent identity in fact creates a less hospitable environment for parents and children. In many parents there is still a wild side refusing to be lost by the crush of childbearing through PTA meetings, birthday parties and play dates.

This sassy mom culture is splashed across magazine covers and the blogsphere. A big reason behind sassy parenting is the growing number of older parents who often hold on tighter to their pre-breeding selves, which often means fewer walls between adult time and child time.

In 2001, 10% of the children in the U.S. lived in homes where at least one of the parents was addicted to drugs and alcohol.

Alcoholic parents are nothing new. Stay-at-home parents drank in quiet desperation for generations, and there isn’t evidence that more drink today. Plenty of parents can sip a single glass of wine or a beer at a play date. But alcohol appears more pervasive in the day-to-day grind of 2007 parenting, partly because once rigid barriers are falling. Parents are looking for and craving the opportunity to reconnect with their friends socially. Sometimes all parents are doing for themselves is drinking.

However a lot of family time can be positive. Statistics say that families that spend a lot of time together are healthier.

Having alcoholic parents must be a very hard thing for kids, and 10% is a big number, that can emotionally affect the kids in a way they will carry a trauma for the rest of their lives sometimes, very bad!

Well here's evidence that getting old isn't equal to growing up. At what age are parents supposed to realize that their drinking behavior would affect the child, it may not manifest early, it might even be hard to notice but there will be effects on the child. I hope they'd only drink a shot or two of healthy red wine during PTA

I remember in high school when some of my friends would describe their parents. Saying things like :oh I got drunk with my dad the other day, or my mom handed me a bag of weed it was crazy". I used to think "Damn they're lycky". They could basically do and get away with everything they wanted because their parents didn't care much. But now that I think of it I so prefer having my parents who were super strict about everything. They care for me enough to do everything they did. And now even though I'm 21 they still pay for so many things of mine, the friends in high school who had those "wonderful, careless" parents, all moved out. They live on their own. Work so much that they can't go to school. And their relationship with their parents is horrible!

Yah I've met a lot of people that you're describing.  Some of my best friends were like that and they would even get weed from their parents, or their parents would ask them to supply their weed.  It's an unhealthy relationship in the end.  But there is a such thing as helicopter parents, when they're too goody two shoe and shelter their kids from it.  There has to be a balance, but getting drunk with your kids makes no sense at all!

bcoolio said: Yah I've met a lot of people that you're describing.  Some of my best friends were like that and they would even get weed from their parents, or their parents would ask them to supply their weed.  It's an unhealthy relationship in the end.  But there is a such thing as helicopter parents, when they're too goody two shoe and shelter their kids from it.  There has to be a balance, but getting drunk with your kids makes no sense at all!

I think parents should be free to talk to their kids about this stuff, not like scary talks. But normal talks like they would their friends. That causes a balance and the parents are not sheltering their kids but they're not out there doing drugs and supplying their kids with drugs.

I think parents should be allowed to drink and get drunk every once in a while but never in front of their kids. My friends mom was a perfect mother, a soccer mother, always cooked dinner and lunch was never late to pick them up and was good at everything. Her kids would trust her with so much and they were good kids also. But every once in a while like a month or 2 she would go out with her friends and drink and have fun but her kids never saw that. I think that is a good way for a parent to be.

I have never seen my mom drink and it's been a good impact on my life.  My dad on the other hand was an extreme alcoholic, so I saw how much my dads life got messed up.  I think it's up to the parent to teach responsible drinking.. and especially for the dads also.  Like always have at least one parent completely sober so that the kids don't think that buzzed driving is okay. 

I had a friend whos parents were both very succesful. They used to throw a lot of family gatherings at their house and the dad would drink only during those. He was a funny drunk and we would laugh with him all the time. But her mother was always, always sober. I thought that was perfectly fine. The dad only drank during celebrations but the mother was still sober and keeping him on his feet and making sure everything still goes smoothly. But it wouold've been better if the kids were sheltered from both parents drinking. I have never seen either of my parents drunk, I kind of have a lot of respect for them because of that. It also prevents me from drinking because I'm scared of what they would do to me if I was drinking and they dont even drink.