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Smoke and Mirrors
There are definitely a lot of different philosophies on child rearing especially when it comes to alcohol and drug use. Now, believe me, I was far from an angel when I was in high school and college. I did my share of partying..probably did a little of your share too. But at some point, trying to be somewhat athletic or even climbing a set of stairs conflicted with my smoking ways. I also was never a big fan of drinking to puke-dom.After I graduated, I stopped the smoking. A decade or so later, my drinking has slowly diminished. I am now a teetotaler. I started working out..and that became quite the obsession.
Now, having impressionable kids, they know I'm not much at parties. If they see me with a beer in my hand they're somewhat shocked. They have never seen me drunk (I save those rare occasions for my luckiest and closest of friends). They know I don't approve of drugs and I've voiced my concern about excessive drinking. Yes, Dad's boring..but "I'd rather be known as a boring person, an athlete, a scholar than a druggie or an alcoholic." My kids have heard it all.
Do they know of my previous, hallucinogenic life? Absolutely not! I am from the school of don't tell your kids anything they can use against you. How can you tell someone "Yes, I smoke pot, I drank to oblivion, so I know it's not good for you." That gives them the idea that "hey, if my Dad did it, and is still a successful upstanding citizen, I can do it too and turn out OK." Nah -uh..I'm not gonna do that - give them a reason to try.
My kid was doing a report on smoking:
"I need to interview someone who has smoked, who has tried smoking" (cigarette smoking). "Have you tried it?" he asks.
"Me?" Gulp. "No. I've never tried it. But ask Uncle Pete. In his day, they didn't realize that smoking was dangerous, could kill you. That's why he stopped." I said.
Other parents believe that you should prepare your child for adulthood: let him see people drinking to demonstrate responsible drinking. Allow them to try alcohol under your supervision, even if they're under-aged. What's a sip of beer going to do to a 13 year old anyway? They say that they set an example of adults who can do these things intelligently.
Me? I think it's more intelligent to lie.
5 comments:
I do not agree.
I personally prefer to tell the truth, or at least part of it.
Your children should trust you and being a father does not imply having been an angel at university.
I also prefer to have children seeing me drinking a beer and learnig how to enjoy this without any need of getting drunk.
But who knows what is the right way??
I'm with anon 2:28, to a point. It would be better to tell your kids the truth -- including telling them that you came to realize that the tobacco was a bad choice.
Of course, now that you have rewritten your history to expunge the smoking part, you're sort of stuck. It would have been no great disgrace for you to have admitted smoking THEN, but it would diminish your standing in their eyes NOW if they find out that not only did you smoke, but you lied to them about it. So probably best to just stick with the sanitized history.
Admittedly, this is easy for me because I was never wasted in my youth. I had one drink of champagne when I was a pre-teen. I didn't like it. Have never been interested since then; even less as I see what fools people make of themselves as they imbibe too much. So many people lose their ability to know when they are getting close to "too much." I thought it best to avoid the intoxication altogether.
There are so many wonderful things in life, I see no need to rely on the crutch of booze. I taught my kids to avoid it like the plague. Amazingly enough, it worked. All of them are T-totalers like me now that they are grown up; all have good jobs or are doing well in school.
I believe in letting kids know about the consequences of bad choices from an early age. I told my kids about my grandfather's cousin who, even though he had every advantage in life, was addicted to liquor. It destroyed his health and he died at age 37, penniless and friendless.
It helped also to have the bad example of my own brother in law who drank himself to a gruesome death. He didn't even make it to age 60. None of my kids want to end up like that, so they refuse to take even the first step on that road.
In short, you should be the good example. But you should also help your kids learn from the bad examples, whether in your own past or someone else's.
I'm in that age where I party and do all that young'un stuff and I don't have children so I won't presume to have the slightest inclination of what I would do if I had impressionable children.
I thought I would share about my family though. My grandfather and dad went through their crazy phase of drinking. And also my brother who was in fraternity like me. The similarity between all three of them is that none of them pretty much touches the stuff...I'm approaching that time to be honest where I go weeks without a drink though I used to drink almost every day amongt other drugs...
The one vice my dad never gave up was smoking and he started when was 13. My mom never touched the stuff or maybe she's just lying like you are...hmmmm, interesting...
My parents never told me or explained anything to me about it, just "don't do it." I ended up doing it anyways but I'm not a complete fuck up, I'd like to think so anyways, haha.
If your family follows like my family or yourself, no matter what you tell them, they'll probably go on doing it without your knowledge until they themselves just learn to sober up.
just another rung on the long ladder of lies that is your life...
I guess the lies continue... better that way you dont want to be a honest man in front of your children
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