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Parents are protectors, not party planners. We’re supposed to nurture our children’s success, not nudge them closer to failure. The teen years exist as our chance to get it right. The closer they get to adulthood, the more poignant our influence must be. Temptation is high and bad influence is there, but so are we. And while we’re there, we must supervise, influence and inspire. Life has given us this critical opportunity to help them get it right. The law is on our side. Home sanctions can still be applied with force. If we stand our ground, if we discourage not just the excess, but also the antecedent causes of excess, we can instill a value system that will serve them and their families well for decades – maybe generations.

The most important theme, however, the most powerful and decisive catalyst to change, exists within those of us who have allowed ourselves to become silenced. In the absence of light, dark shall reign supreme. If you keep your healthy values walled up behind that pretty front door, you will soon find yourself eating dinner with the enemy. For while you are quietly at work trying to raise your child right, the advertising, the media, and the peer pressure are relentlessly pounding away at them. Your front porch is not the final frontier, your community, and ultimately your country is. Help us take them back. Not for power or prestige, but for posterity. The future is right now in the making. Imagine what it will become if left to the current group of architects.

After reading this article, push yourself to do something. Commit yourself to action. Ally yourself with the good guys and make your stance known. Join an anti-drug alliance. Volunteer for an pro-sobriety organization. Speak up at a PTO meeting. Let your values be displayed not just in your children, but on your social networking posts. Be the lighthouse that beckons the lost sailors. It’s the right thing to do, and it’s contagious. You’ll see. Most parents are looking for someone like you to lead the way. You’re not imposing your will, your exposing theirs. As Ghandi once said, “Be the change that you want to see in this world.”

Get out there and do something about it.

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1. Grunbaum, J.A.; Kann, L.; Kinchen, S.A.; et al. Youth risk behavior surveillance: United States, 2001. MMWR: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 51(SS0 4): 1–62, 2002. AND Young, S.E.; Corley, R.P.; Stallings, M.C.; et al. Substance use, abuse and dependence in adolescence: Prevalence, symptom profiles and correlates. Drug and Alcohol Dependence 68(3):309–322, 2002.
2. The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (2009); Columbia University. National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse XIV: Teens and Parents. NY, NY.
3. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Results from the 2002 National Survey on Drug Use and Health: National Findings. NHSDA Series H–22, DHHS Pub. No. SMA 03–3836. Rockville, MD: SAMHSA, Office of Applied Studies, 2003. Available online at: http://www.oas.samhsa.gov/nhsda/2k2nsduh/Results/2k2Results.htm.)
4. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Surgeon General’s Call to Action To Prevent and Reduce Underage Drinking. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Surgeon General, 2007.
5. Abbey, A.; Zawacki, T.; Buck, P.O.; et al. Alcohol and sexual assault. Alcohol Research & Health 25(1):43–51, 2001. AND Abbey, A. Alcohol–related sexual assault: A common problem among college students. Journal of Studies on Alcohol (Suppl. 14):118–128, 2002. AND Sen, G. Does alcohol increase the risk of sexual intercourse among adolescents? Evidence from the NLSY97. Journal of Health Economics 21: 1085–1093, 2002.
6. Grant BF, Dawson DA: Age at onset of alcohol use and its association with DSM-IV alcohol abuse and dependence: results from the National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiological Survey. J Subst Abuse 1997; :103–11010.
7. Weschler, Henry & Nelson, Toben F. “What We Have Learned from the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study: Focusing Attention on College Student Alcohol Consumption and the Environmental Conditions That Promote It.” Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs 69: 481-490. 2008
8. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, April 9, 2002, Task Force on College Drinking
9. Hingson, R. et al. Magnitude of Alcohol-Related Mortality and Morbidity Among U.S. College Students Ages 18-24: Changes from 1998 to 2001. Annual Review of Public Health. 26: 259-79; 2005

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In fact, we are the Dumb ones. We, the ones who’ve read the studies. The one’s who’ve seen the results in the news. The one’s who’ve doggedly hung on to our protective parental instincts throughout these trying adolescent years. The ones who shiver at the thought of our teenage kids gallivanting off to the city or shore house for a poorly supervised, alcohol laden, after-party. We are the Dumb ones, and it’s time to take ownership of it.

By now I hope you’ve realized that I don’t mean dumb as “stupid”, but rather as “mute”. But don’t be relieved by that distinction though, because either way the connotation can no longer be something that you are willing to accept for yourself. It’s time to acknowledge that by remaining mute, you sentence yourself, your child, your fellow parents and your future generations to a naiveté that will, in fact, cost lives. Innocent lives. Lives that are full of potential. Lives which depend upon us to maintain a healthy guiding role for them. By remaining mute under these circumstances, you perpetuate an atmosphere where family based reason and logic are overpowered by some warped allegiance to the pop-culture norms portrayed on reality TV.

“All that is necessary for evil to triumph. Is that good men and women do nothing.” -Edmund Burke

Few of us would instinctively choose to speak up about these things. In fact, dozens of parents have told me that they are embarrassed, even intimidated, into not voicing their legitimate concerns on this issue. They fear being labeled or taunted. They worry for the social life of their child if they were to advocate more healthy alternatives. But it is because of these worries that you have no choice but to speak up. I challenge you to embrace that. Silence, in this case, is the greater evil. It’s the equivalent of seeing smoke billowing out of your neighbors house, but deciding not to wake them.

As a parent, the moment at which you realize that it is “unpopular” to protect your child, is precisely the moment at which you need to stop caring about being “popular”. To remain Dumb, is to endorse the fact that your child must drink or get high to fit in; it is to accept that your dignity as a parent can only be maintained by sacrificing your own well-grounded judgment; it is to agree that your status in the community is contingent upon you thumbing your nose at the law, closing your eyes to the research and turning your back on the few people who are actually fighting to make a difference for these kids. Who amongst us can accept these terms, and continue to believe in ourselves as parents?

Forget any image you have of a preacher at a pulpit. You don’t need to scream anything from the rooftop in order to relieve yourself of this Dumbness. Just come out of hiding. Truth can penetrate any darkness, if only given the gift of a match. Edmund Burke once wrote “All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is that good men do nothing.” Truer words have never been uttered. Stop doing nothing. In small places and large, be the representative of reason. If you can’t speak, write. If you can’t write, let your actions be your expression. Values are like fingerprints, we leave them on everything that we do. Let people see that. Protect your children, and stand conspicuously behind those who are willing to fight for them. Reason is on your side. Don’t hide in the corner.

The funny thing here is that the misinformed have not actually consciously chosen to be so. You might be surprised to know that the party parents are not against you. They have merely been rendered Deaf and Blind. Sure, there are a few bad examples, and some have been skewed by their own past. But for most of them, there was simply a point in their parenthood when they confronted the prospect of teen drinking. At that time, they sought out parental perspective and found the wrong one. For lack of a clear and credible voice of reason, they were wooed by the popular notions displayed in the media. They took comfort in the blasé and seemingly consequent-free environment endorsed by the status hungry people of the world. In remaining quiet, we must accept responsibility for this circumstance.

Ironically, if people like us had been more identifiable, the party parents may never have become so. If you talk to these parents in private, they typically lament their situation. When you explore their frustration, they inevitably fall back on some variation of the main three arguments, either “You can’t stop them from drinking”, “It’s just beer”, or “You’ve got to prepare them to party.” So lets look at these perspectives a little closer.

Argument #1: “You Can’t Stop Them From Drinking”

Can you imagine a parent ever saying “You can’t stop them from running out into traffic.” Or “Eventually, their going to stick their tongue into a socket. You’ve just got to hope for the best.” As absurd as these statements sound, they are equivalent to the “You can’t stop them from drinking” argument. You can stop them. In fact, it’s your job to do so. Why feel powerless when all the power is actually on your side? Underage drinking is against the law. Home testing is cheap. The car is in your name. You pay the phone bill. You are the main source of guidance and authority in their life. You’ve got all you need; except maybe courage. So take this chance to reclaim it. The key point is to avoid confusing your child’s change of age, with a change of family roles. You’re still the parent. You’re still the protector. Own that role and be proud of it. Don’t hand it off to some crazy world that seeks only to profit off of your loved one’s mistakes. And definitely don’t loan it to some other group of parents or kids that care very little for your child. The power is at your fingertips. The tools are there. The choice is yours. In the end, the sad fact is that substance abuse may still take your children from you, but don’t hand them over. For God’s sake, go down swinging!

Argument #2: “It’s Just Beer”

You’ll never catch a medical examiner or prison warden saying “It’s just beer.” It is a cold hard fact that alcohol kills more teens and young adults than all other drugs combined. (1) The United States Surgeon General has named alcohol as a major contributor to the 200% increase in mortality rates witnessed amongst American teens. (4) Kids who drink are significantly more likely to suffer from traumatic injury. They also have elevated rates of teen pregnancies and STD’s. (5) Underage drinkers are 9.5 times more likely to drive drunk when older, 5 times more likely to develop a criminal record and twice as likely to have a C+ or lower average at college. (3) There were over a half million emergency room visits associated with alcohol last year and alcohol plays a role in over 60% of our crime. Alcohol also holds the distinction of being the world’s preeminent gateway drug. Teen drinkers are 18 times more likely to try marijuana and almost 9 times more likely to develop serious substance abuse problems in their life. (2)(3) “Just beer?” Now that’s Dumb. Spread the word! (These facts are cited at the end the end of the article.)

Argument #3: “You’ve Got To Prepare Them To Party.”

Can you imagine sitting your 15 year old in the car and saying, “You’re going to be driving soon, so I want you to practice speeding and running red lights.” How about telling your hungry kid that they can go sit in the ice cream shop, as long as they don’t eat anything? Parents who mistakenly think that exposing their kids to alcohol will better prepare them for the alcohol laden college environments are tragically uninformed. It shouldn’t surprise most of us to learn that this behavior increases the rate of abusive drinking amongst college-aged kids. 40% of kids who use alcohol before the age of 15 will go on to become alcoholics by the time they are 25. (6) This number decreases incrementally with each year that a child abstains from alcohol use. Those who abstain from alcohol into their twenties, exhibit almost no incidence of alcoholism later in life. Conversely, college students who report getting drunk at least once prior to the age of 19 are more likely drive while drunk, ride in a car driven by a drunk driver and suffer a traumatic injury associated with alcohol. (7) Alcohol is a factor in over 500,000 traumatic injuries to college students per year (8), and is involved in almost 700,000 assaults upon college students each year. (9) It also plays a leading role in the fact that only 33% of those kids who go off to college, will actually graduate in four years. This is hardly the environment that we should be “training” our kids for. We need to help them avoid, deter and disapprove of this behavior. That lesson isn’t taught by a little “show”, “tell” and “try” before they go away. It’s taught by respecting the law, supporting sobriety and endorsing responsible drinking. Stick with a clear, firm and responsible message, not a confusing blend of “it’s ok, but it’s not.”

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