In the continuing saga of Mir Gives Out Advice On The Internet Like She Knows Stuff Or Something, today at Alpha Mom I’m tackling the question of how to handle kids and parties where there may be drinking and/or drugs.
Spoiler alert: I am not the Cool Mom.
Also, I’ll offer this addendum: These days I have to talk more often and more in depth with my kids about how to narc without being found out, as both of them have attained Snitch: Expert Level. While their friends are good kids and there’s not a lot I worry about, I worry more about one of them being taken to task for narcing than I am about them drinking. So there’s that. At the same time, none of our kids are immune, so it’s worth discussing, and by that I mean an ongoing discussion.
… even if that discussion always ends with, “I’m the reason you drink, right, Mom?” (Yes, honey.)
Wonder what conversation Malia’s parents had with her when she came home from her college visit……….
HA! I remember asking my mom to please say no to things that I didn’t want to go to. Later, I gave her a list of boys I was “in” for or not on the phone! She’s the best mom, played along great!
I told my kids to blame everything on me – “mean mom!” I told them I could take anything anyone could dish out and would be willing to “forbid” them to do anything they didn’t want to do or knew they shouldn’t. I never had to bail anyone out of jail so I call success.
This is one of my biggest parenting fears, mostly because my parents did not handle the subject well and I was one of the kids your child would probably narc on. I am really loving these posts.
Can someone define narc? The definitions I’m getting don’t make sense
Sorry for the confusion, Elizabeth—narc refers to a kid “on the inside†(part of the group) who rats out the misbehavers without the group knowing who told. (I believe the term comes from the practice of having undercover cops infiltrate drug rings to ultimately bust them. Narc = you work for Narcotics, though now it has a broader meaning to basically equate to tattletale, but on the sly.)