Don’t you just love it when a group of scientists in a faraway country make you feel so much better about your worldview and decision-making processes? Well, I do. Especially when they’re the scientists from the University of South Wales who, after a six-year study into the behaviour of nearly 2,000 12 to 18-year-olds, concluded that giving kids alcohol at the dinner table was not a good thing.
Quite the opposite. They found that contrary to received wisdom (“A little drop, surely, will do them no harm?!”), the likelihood of binge-drinking and alcohol-use disorders was far higher in the children who had been introduced to booze by their parents. In short, giving your kids booze, as decided by experienced scientists who know stuff, is a bad thing.
Did you hear that noise? It’s a long and sibilant hiss, the result of me punching the air in triumph and saying the word “Yessssss!” for approximately half an hour. Because I’ve been caught on the horns of this particular stress dilemma for years. To give or not to give? This is the question. My policy so far for my three children has been not to give.
All the social signs are saying “give’’, and all the parental peers are very much agreeing (“It’s so nice just to give the little ones a small diluted glass of red at Sunday lunch — it means that they’re not being left out!”). But something inside me, ineffable, inexplicable, just can’t go there. And while we’re at it, who said that leaving a child out of an adult ritual is somehow detrimental to their sense of self? I don’t ask to play with their Lego; they shouldn’t be chugging down my pinot noir!
I understand the temptation, though. Every weekend, as the only boozer in the clan, I sit at the table, cradling a bottle of red to myself, look down at their big, innocent eyes and think: “You know what would make this scene even better? If we were all getting hammered together!” But, naturally, I resist.
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Then there’s the taste. When you’re a child alcohol tastes rubbish. When you’re an adult, in fact, if you’re honest, most alcohol tastes rubbish too. Oh come on, we all know why we drink alcohol and why we’ve created an entire class of glass-sniffing spoofers who like to talk about tannin levels and distinctive fruit-forward reds with a subtle note of dandelion. It’s because it feels good.
Offer someone a non-alcoholic beer, and when they shake their head and do a “yuck” face, what they really mean is: “Why would I drink something as disgusting as alcohol without getting the mood-altering benefits?”
Equally, why would I offer my children a drink that I know is hugely unappealing, even in its watered-down state, and when I’m aware that they won’t be able to feel its physiological and emotional effects? It’s like asking them to eat the wrapping from a Mars bar. The only point, it would seem, is to prepare them for a future life of alcohol consumption and, quite possibly, according to the scientists, binge-drinking and alcohol-use disorders. Did you hear that? Another “Yesss!” I’m so right.
There is, however, one autobiographical fly in the scientific chardonnay here. I drank from the age of 14. I did binge-drinking, black-outs, alcohol poisoning, the works. I even once woke up at the side of a busy road, in the small hours of the morning, with my bicycle between my legs — I had passed out mid-journey.
And here’s the twist: I was never once given a drop of alcohol, in any form, at the table by my parents. Which just goes to show that scientists don’t always have the answer to everything, and that there isn’t a universal rule book for parenting. And that sometimes, very occasionally, even I can be wrong.
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The May Ball’s nuts, I gather
Double, double, toil and trouble, it’s all kicking off at Cambridge University, where a practising, ahem, Wiccan is protesting the allegedly “offensive” decision by student organisers to hold this year’s May Ball on the eve of the summer solstice, which is a sacred day for contemporary druids and pagans.
The protest, posted online, began: “I’m a Wiccan . . .” But, alas, she lost me after that. I simply couldn’t read any more because I had fallen off my chair in hysterics of laughter. The Wiccan, however, was not the only one with some spiritually sensitive, and profoundly naff, mud in her eye.
The party organisers’ response to her protest was equally, well, earnest. “We recognise the importance of the summer and winter solstice to the Wiccan community,” it began. Again, alas, I could not get any further. This time I was face down on the floor, lost in all-consuming and propulsive fits of giggles.
Wiccans, eh? You’ve got to love them. Or else, I suppose, they’ll put a curse on you?
The show that must not go on
“It’s everything you ever want!” So sings Hugh Jackman, with baffling optimism, at the start of The Greatest Showman, a bum-numbing vanity project labelled “a turkey” by critics everywhere (including me — I gave it a one-star review).
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But what’s this? After an initially modest box-office performance, the Showman has found its voice as a sing-along smash. Yep, cinemas in the US, and now in the UK, are showing the movie, with lyrics supplied, and encouraging audiences to dress up and have the, oh God, night of their lives.
Naturally, I can only think of one thing worse than having to sit through that monstrosity again. (“It’s everything you ever want!” No, it’s not! Go away!) And that’s having to sit through it and sing. Somebody, make it stop.
