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"They Say That If You’re Too Drunk To Drive, You’re Too Drunk To Nurse"
New York, 1:58 AM
Thu Dec 10
65 posts in the last 24 hours
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"They Say That If You’re Too Drunk To Drive, You’re Too Drunk To Nurse" |
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Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
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I have a girlfriend with whom I LOVE to have a glass of wine. I have teens, she has teens and a toddler. We have a blast having 2-2 1/2 glasses once a month or so, but she has serious guilt afterwards, like everyone thinks she's a terrible mother/person because she drank a fucking glass of wine or two! It makes me insane! We had fun, kids were cared for, no harm no foul! I want to tell her to get a grip, but she's pretty sensitive, and needs her guilt, for whatever reason.
03/06/09
Also, I've never really understood the drink-until-you-pass-out mentality. I mean, for special occasions (birthdays, just-dumped, etc) it's acceptable, but every weekend? Bo-ring. But then again, I was a psychonaut in college, not a drunk.
03/06/09
My daughter loves Willie the Pimp.
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As for the actual topic of the article: I personally am tired of people automatically equating alcohol with freedom and fun and abstention with whatever the opposite of those things are. There are a lot of people who don't drink, or can't drink, or drink maybe a handful of times a year who still manage to have a hell of a lot of fun.
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Did I put her to bed to early? Should I have spent more time with her? Did she hear me say "damnit" on the phone earlier? Will she grow up to hate me? Should I go in and change her diaper? Look at this house. This place is a mess. Did I remember to have her brush her teeth? Should I wake her up to do so? Did she have a runny nose yesterday? Why is she coughing? Maybe it's the flu, there is a bug going around isn't there? I wonder if she'll sleep in tomorrow? Should I go to bed now or should I study?
Needless to say I enjoy beer. Actually, I love beer. And as soon as that monkey hits the sheets and is no longer making a peep. You betcha I'm having myself a pale ale to relax from a day full of questions and mommy guilt.
Sometimes, it just makes me feel normal.
03/06/09
Also, I have a beer can with a prescription label from the National Institutes of Health pharmacy from back in the day, so it just proves that a drop or two doesn't hurt.
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It sounds like she's over-explaining it and being a little too defensive, but remember, she's writing to American people with American attitudes.
And another point she made: being relieved that she could just quit, for the health of her baby? I can't begrudge her that. If, for health-related reasons, you had to stop smoking or drinking coffee or drinking alcohol or exercising or dieting, would you be relieved that you COULD stop? I think many of us would.
I would love to hear more Europeans chime in on their approaches to alcohol, because in general (in GENERAL) there seems to be a different cultural approach to it. It's just something you have with dinner; it's not something with which to make an ass out of yourself.
03/06/09
As I said upthread, I knew how to make my mom's cocktail of choice (Campari and vermouth) by the time I was 7 years old, and was often sent to do it (I loved it because I felt grownup, she loved it because she got to chill for a bit). I also was allowed to taste the foam off my mom or grandma's beer after they poured one (and they would always pour "badly" so that there was enough there for me to lick off).
Didn't drink *at all* until college, and never binge drank while there. Didn't even throw up or pass out from drinking until way after college, and only did it once before I learned my limits.
03/06/09
I grew up without ever seeing a drop of booze in the house. I didn't know what beer *was* until I was about nine or so--I'd seen ads for it on TV, of course, but since it came in cans and bottles like soda, I was under the impression that it was some sort of grown-up soda. I snagged a furtive sip of a family friend's (warm, flat) Coors when we visited their house and was more disappointed than you can imagine.
My parents did a damn good job of keeping me under lock and key when I was in junior high and high school, as we lived in the middle of nowhere outside a small town. They also told me on what felt like a daily basis that drinking even a little bit would promptly render me incapable of driving or maintaining my virtue around guys. They lived in absolute terror of me getting knocked up or killed in a car crash, and given how many of my classmates did either or both, I can kinda understand where they were coming from.
I went to college at a school that wasn't much on booze (but was huge on most other drugs). After turning 21, though, I went predictably assfuck crazy. I neither died in a car crash nor got dateraped, so I figured all of the other dire warnings were bogus too. To my mother's extreme dismay, I also gained 15 pounds.
Then I moved to northern Idaho. There is jack shit to do in the winter other than drink Jack and Cokes. You have not seen assfuck crazy until you have seen the results of Dollar Well Night at the Garden in Moscow.
In sum, parents should take a different approach to alcohol awareness than mine did.
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I drank a beer 3-4 nights a week while breasfeeding my son, because it boosted my milk supply.
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Said she, "I'm going to have one single dark bock beer. I'm almost due, and the MiniBabybel Tscheese within me won't mind too much."
As soon as she finished it, she went into labor with me. I was like "DAMN, mom, you guys have beer out there? LET ME OUT! I WANT SOME!"
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Not like I'd know.
In all seriousness, it sounds like she is still in the baby phase. There's a lot you get over (namely: yourself) after you've spent a couple of years as a parent. For myself, having been raised by hippies of a European stamp, drinking was never a milestone of anything. It's what you drink with dinner. Once you're done breastfeeding and your offspring sleeps through the night, frankly those 1-3 glasses of wine are even more terrific than they were when you had less to worry about. :)
In summary: yay Megan for seeing this article like it is. Anna Fricke, girlfriend, get a grip.
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