November 5, 2003. ש Laws on Children Drinking Wine with Parents.

Here is an issue that illustrates several interesting conflicts within conservatism: the morality of drinking wine, the role of the family versus the state, the role of the federal versus state government, and whether the ends justify the means. In brief: should people under age 21 be allowed to drink wine with their parents or spouses at restaurants? This is reported in The American Spectator.

It�s amazing the hoops states will jump through if you threaten to withhold federal funds. In 1984, Elizabeth Dole, then Secretary of Transportation, promised to do just that. While she had no direct control over the legislation of the 50 states, she said she would yank highway dollars unless the local legislatures raised the drinking age to 21. Most states quickly fell into line.
Wisconsin was one of the last to knuckle under, and passed the statute only grudgingly, with loopholes. In the Cheesehead state, it is still perfectly legal for those under the age of 21 to drink. As long as you are with your parents or your over-21 spouse, you can order a beer, a glass of wine, or any other alcoholic concoction, and consume it on the premises.
Unless state representative John Ainsworth gets his way, that is. Under the current version of the Republican lawmaker�s proposed legislation, Bill 72, the law would be changed to allow only those who have reached that magical age of 18 to have a drink with their parents outside the home. An earlier version of the bill was even more restrictive -- it would have criminalized parent-supervised under aged drinking at home, raising questions of how deeply the government should entangle itself in private life.

I find these issues easy. Mrs. Dole (and Mr. Reagan) should not have used the threat of withholding federal funds to make states pass laws on subjects on which the U.S. Constitution forbids federal laws. And the current Wisconsin law, which allows children to drink with their parents and spouses, is completely correct. Drinking is not bad in itself; only when abused. The judgement of children is not good enough, on average, to allow them to make the decision (though I do think 18-21-year-olds should be allowed to drink beer), but we have no reason to think that parents cannot make it better than the state, and we do have reason to think that sometimes children should be allowed to drink, for the same reasons we think adults should be allowed to drink. In fact, there is a stronger case for the Wisconsin policy than for letting the adults themselves drink. There are plenty of adults who really should not be allowed to drink, because they will drink too much to gratify their immediate selfish desires, but who can be trusted to decide whether their children should drink, because it is easier to preach abstinence to someone other than oneself. There is the occasional parent who thinks it funny to get his six-year-old drunk, but we have different laws to deal with that kind of parent-- the laws which remove a child from someone's care if that person is too irresponsible with them. Getting your six-year-old drunk is no different in principle than letting him play with Drano, read porno magazines, climb on the roof, and other things that are not in themselves criminal but will alert the state department of child welfare.

And there is a huge potential benefit, I think, counter to what some newspapers say. Again, from the Spectator:

To judge by the editorial pages of the state, parental privileges are beside the point. The Wausau Daily Herald, for instance, wrote that "parents who take children out drinking aren�t responsible and do need common sense transfusions." So, never mind them. There is no reason that children should learn to drink responsibly now; they can wait until college to learn how to binge drink.
While vilifying the "grape and grain" industry, the local guardians of taste and good sense have been quick to dismiss concerns that this legislation would simply drive underage drinking underground. The Stevens Point Journal discounted the argument thus: "Translation: Drinking in bars is good for kids because it teaches them how."

Yes-- kids do need to learn how to drink in bars. It is a parental duty to show them how, or to teach them never to do it. One important skill, for example, is how to do the following:

Go into a bar.
Order a drink.
Drink it slowly.
Leave, even if you feel like having another drink.

There is a second advantage. A big problem in modern society is that parents and children part ways when it comes to their social lives. I would like to see more children at adult parties and outings--- children are likely to learn better behavior from adults than from other children, and to behave better when supervised than when on their own. And adults might behave better too, if they knew they had to be examples for the children around them.

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