April, 2006
Ignorance Ain't Bliss
My 12-year-old daughter wrote the following letter to
the editor of our local paper after a real hand-wringer of a guest
opinion appeared. This local mom had decided that teen drinking was so
bad that she was going to get rid of all the booze in her house and quit
drinking, because it was so hypocritical, and drinking was so dangerous,
and it was all so...so...so. Unprompted, Nora wrote this,
and sent it to the paper (She's quite disdainful of the way her DARE
instructor overstates things: "One shot will make you a raving
maniac!" And evidently kids in her class are getting all kinds of
weird stuff from their parents: "If you drink a shot of liquor, it
will KILL YOU!!!"). They declined to print it -- actually,
they ignored it, which really peeves me -- so I told her I'd put it up
here. So I did.
What
you don’t know can kill you
by Nora Bryson
Kids die from
alcohol-related accidents every year. But it’s not really the
alcohol that’s killing them. It’s not their driving skills either. It’s
ignorance.
People say they are taking
steps to educate us about safe drinking habits, and yet children still
die. We are taught that drinking is bad, and that we should not do
it. We are not taught how to drink safely, just that it is bad for
us. Then when we reach twenty-one, we have no idea what to do and
no idea how much we can drink and not intoxicate ourselves.
Children do not need to be
scared out of their skins about alcohol; they just need to know the
facts. Yes, if you drink too much at a time you will get drunk. But if parents
teach their kids safe drinking habits before they can legally drink,
this is less likely to happen. Yes, if you drink excessively, it
will damage your organs. But liver damage only occurs when you drink too
much, too often, over years and years. If you have a glass of wine or a
glass of beer at dinner, every now and then, it does not cause liver
damage.
My parents taught me at a
young age what would happen to me if I drank too much, and I never
intend to drink over my limit. Many parents are not very comfortable about
talking to their kids about these issues. But please, do it for them. It’s
a matter of life or death.
