Sometimes North American society confuses me; well, actually, most of the time. Case in point, our expectations and understanding of the younger generations. There seems to be something about “the adults” that they forget how it was when they were children, teenagers, and young adults. The worst seems to be how many adults see older teenagers and twenty-somethings as somehow unable to make real decisions about their lives.
Somehow we expect children and teens to make life decisions about education and career (I’m 40 and I’m still not sure what I want to do when I grow up), but when it comes to everyday things like what items they will consume or their sexuality, we somehow as a society seem to think that teenagers and young adults are unable to make good, well-informed decisions.
For example, today in the Winnipeg Free Press (and the Brandon Sun), there was an article about how the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse (CCSA) was urging the province of Manitoba to consider raising the age of alcohol consumption to 19 years of age from the current 18 years. A government spokesperson responded, “We are not planning to raise the drinking age, which is 18 and the age of majority in all other respects.”
That is the correct response.
I do not like the actions of “helicopter parents” as it is. That is, those parents that have to be involved in, and have a say in, every aspect of their child’s life, even when that “child” is legally an adult. What I hate even more is when the helicopters start hovering over other people’s children and young adults. Raising the drinking age to 19 would be a nanny state imposing its will on citizens and voters that in every other way are considered adults. It is often said that if someone is old enough to join the army then they are old enough to have a beer. I happen to agree.
Yes, I know that anecdotal evidence should be taken with a grain of salt, but I do recall being a teenager and a young adult. What I remember is this. Those that had unreasonable curfews and rules set upon them tended to rebel the most against those rules and curfews. Those who were banned from any alcohol whatsoever tended to be the worst for using alcohol in irresponsible ways. Those of us who had no curfew and whose parents would say, “If you want a beer, have it with us,” we tended not drink very much and often got home at a reasonable time. Our parents expected us to have some responsibility and we met that challenge by actually acting responsible.
That’s the thing. Many would think that my parents set a low expectation by not putting those limits on me, but it was actually the opposite. They expected me to rise to the occasion and make decisions that were in my best interest. The other side of that was that when I made a questionable decision, it was my problem to deal with the consequences. If I got home at three o’clock in the morning on Friday night it was my problem if I had to get up at 4:30 to help milk the cows on our farm, not theirs. One soon learned to get home earlier.
This is the problem I see with raising the drinking age to 19 or to 21. It tells young adults that we do not trust them to be responsible with alcohol. When we set such low expectations, we should not be surprised when they meet them. The fact that Saskatchewan’s eighteen year olds come to Manitoba or Alberta to drink and then drive home is not Manitoba’s or Alberta’s fault. If Saskatchewan treated these adults as adults, then they would not have to leave their own town to begin with, and would not be as prone to binge drink when they were elsewhere.
Personally, despite the fact that I rarely drink, I think that our liquor laws and attitudes in North America towards alcohol are too restrictive. We treat alcohol as a forbidden fruit and then act surprised when people binge drink or abuse it in other ways. My personal opinion is that we need to teach more about responsible alcohol consumption and from an earlier age. For instance, it should not be seen as socially unacceptable or even illegal for a teen to have a glass of wine with their parents at a licensed restaurant.
Teach responsibility… it’s a lesson that can be carried throughout life.
