Mama Needs Some Wine

How Will Gen Z React To Toxic Drinking Culture?

Last night, as I snuggled with my youngest before bed, he asked me "why does dad drink alcohol but you don't?"

It was out of nowhere. I don't talk much about alcohol with my kids. They are still young, and a few years away from the inevitable pressures to drink, smoke and do drugs that almost every single teen and even pre-teen experiences in the modern age.

But even our little ones see our societal obsession with alcohol. And those tiny wheels in their head are already turning — forming neuropathways for how they will think and act well into the future.

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"Daddy likes to have a beer or glass of wine every so often, but I don't drink alcohol because it's not good for our bodies and I don't like how it makes me feel."

My son seemed appeased by my answer and drifted off to sleep shortly thereafter, but I couldn't help but dwell on how much is noticed by our children.

They are watching everything we do. Everything we say. What we eat, what we drink, how we treat each other, the waiter, the cashier...

A friend sent me this picture she took at her local Target yesterday -- the very same day my little one asked me about alcohol. The shirt says "Mama needs some wine". My friend saw it in the juniors section. Yes, the JUNIORS section.

Perhaps teens are in on the joke. Mommy needs wine. It's so ingrained in our parenting vernacular, it's cliche as can be. Wine is called "mommy juice," for peet’s sake.  And the kids who were born when the 'mommy needs wine' memes and jokes started going viral a dozen or so years ago? Well, guess what... they're teenagers now.

They know "kids are the reason mommy drinks." (I've seen that on a shirt too). They've heard the joke.

Our kids are watching. They are listening. They are very, very soon going to be off on their own in this world probably mirroring a lot of what they grew up around socially.

I hope our kids learn the truth about alcohol. That it is a group one carcinogen. It is ethanol, and it is literally diluted poison that has low to moderate health risks when drunk at a minimum, but fatal consequences when drunk to excess.

They will not learn that from a t-shirt at Target. They will not learn it surfing social media. 

They will learn it from us. Their parents.

It is up to us to teach them the truth about alcohol. Because the media, big alcohol, and the social environment we've built over many years will not.

I cringe now for all the times I shared or wrote a meme tying parenting to alcohol consumption in the past. Because the next generation? They were watching. They were listening. And now? They're buying the t-shirt. 

Have you bought my book, It’s Not About the Wine: The Loaded Truth Behind Mommy Wine Culture? Buy it here. And please leave a review on Amazon when you’re finished!

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