Moms Talk Q&A: Spring Break and Drinking

Soon college students will return home for Spring Break. It's no secret many underage students drink socially while away at school. What happens when they return home?

This week, we ask our parenting council: "Should parents allow underage students to drink alcohol while home from college?"

Pamela Debandt

As a parent of a college-age minor, this is a no-brainer for me.  The law states that the legal drinking age is 21, and I am a rule-follower.  That said, I am not naive enough to believe that my very social son is imbibing while away at school.

While I cannot control what my son does when he is on campus, it is my job as a parent to enforce the law while he is in my home. Not only do I refuse to serve alcohol to minors in my home, I don't allow it to be brought on my property.

That means no one brings purses, backpacks or their own beverages. Mean? Maybe, but I won't be responsible for underage drinking and the potential outcomes.  Parents who allow underage drinking are not only breaking the law, but they are sending kids the message that the rules don't always apply and it's okay to break them when convenient.

Cindy Bambini

The legal drinking age in Missouri is 21, which of course means it is illegal for anyone under that age to drink alcohol. We have many laws in our society that are designed to minimize loss - this is one of them. In Missouri, the law is 21. In Mexico, the law is 18.  In many places globally, there are no age laws. I can only assume that these laws have come to equate to an acceptable level of loss for these societies.

It is not my business if  a parent chooses, for whatever reason, to break the law with respect to their own minor children in their home. It becomes my businesses if that minor (or that parent for that matter) leaves their home, under the influence, and hurts another person's property or God forbid, another person.  The loss of human life, I believe, is the loss the law was designed to minimize. The bottom line for me is that I don't think there is anything universially magical about the age of 21 when it comes to responsible drinking - but it is our law and therefore my first thought would be to respect it.

Colleen Mehan

We’ve had plenty of heated discussions surrounding this topic in our home. For the most part, there weren’t discussions about why we didn’t allow underage drinking in our home, they were about other parents who did allow underage drinking in their homes without our consent.

One prominent high school family in particular (a family of premier athletes, team captains and class presidents) thought it was perfectly fine to let their own sons and their friends drink in their home as long as all car keys were collected and kept until the following morning. This was not their decision to make for children other than their own, and they knew it wasn’t the standing practice in the homes of the children to whom they served alcohol. Not only were their actions illegal, they blatantly disregarded how their guests’ parents would feel and handle the situation in their own homes.

Though we’re not so naive to think that our teenage children aren’t curious, interested and trying things they shouldn’t, we’re not as interested in being their drinking buddies as we are in being parents who raise responsible children. Underage drinking is against the law. It’s as simple as that. When you set the precedent that law breaking is okay, what law do you decide to break together next?