Kids Can Shoot Guns, Not Vodka.

As my kids get older, my wife and I are having to adjust the topics that we discuss with children. Not too long ago, our oldest was about to watch the "Boy" film at school. In an effort to make sure my son learned what we think is appropriate, my wife decided I needed to have "the talk." My son and I did have the talk and I believe our son was appreciative of the information, but he did seem some what disgusted and wished to finish his hamburger at Red Robin.

Now we have already had the drug talk with both our kids and try to reinforce that message when we can, so the next difficult topic will undoubtedly be alcohol. This is the one I feel I will have the most trouble with because this one actually involves the law more so than the other hard topics. Yes it is illegal to buy and consume illegal drugs, but there any many where abuse is not illegal. With alcohol, all products (minus cold medicine) are illegal to buy for anyone under age 21.

I am no different than 9 out of 10 Americans in that I did consume alcohol before it was legal for me to do so (hopefully there is some sort of statute of limitations). So what do I expect of my children? Is it reasonable to think they will wait until they are 21? I doubt it. Kids explore all kinds of things and alcohol is one of those.

Time is usually not my kind of magazine, but they do have a sensible article on teen drinking. I believe parents should be able to make a choice for their kids and teach responsible habits. I know 12 year-olds that are responsible enough to use alcohol appropriately and 40 year-olds that are not. The government's age 21 threshold is non-sense. Even more non-sense are the social-host laws that are sweeping the country. These laws are putting responsible parents (and kids) in jail.

Why are these parents responsible? Because they are keeping kids in an environment where they can be supervised and kept safe while learning about the effects of alcohol. What happens as a result of social-host laws is they push teen drinking to backwoods locations where they cannot be supervised and even worse, teens have to drive.

It is time to drop the age restrictions on teenage drinking and the social-host laws. Leave it up to parents to teach responsible alcohol habits in their children, especially in their own home. It is okay for a 17 year-old to sign up for duty, but they cannot drink a beer? We will hand them a machine that can shoot 300 rounds per minute, but we won't let them drink wine with their parents at dinner? Congress needs to get smart about teenage drinking and stop parenting from DC. Currently Congress is criminalizing good parenting and responsible behavior.