Honey, Is the Baby Dry?

Spending time with my nephew, The Baby, has gotten me started thinking about what having kids of my own would be like. Unsurprisingly, I've conjured up a host of worries, none of which even remotely resembles what I would call a normal worry, like, will my kid grow up to be a serial killer, will my kid even grow up at all what with this "epidemic" of child killings that Fox News keeps warning me about, will I be able to pay for college.

No. Oh, if only.

My biggest worry right now is that, in our Puritanical society, I will not be able to raise a child with the sort of liberal, for-lack-of-a-better-word-let's-say-European attitude towards alcohol that I have. After all, it certainly took me years of reading about the rich history and culture of those two most venerated beverages, Beer and Wine, to repeal the severe, "DRINKING WILL KILL YOU!!!!" messages that so bombarded me throughout all 12 years of my public education.

Specifically, I'm paralyzed by an image of my future child's future teacher standing at the blackboard, on which she's written the abovementioned, multi-exclamation-pointed phrase, and saying in a vapid, singsongy voice, "Now, boys and girls, I want you to go home and look around your house really well, and if you find any bad stuff I want you to pour it all down the drain."

And then there will go my carefully cultivated collection of fruit wines, microbrews, and impulsively-bought novelty liqueurs (well, they can dispose of the Rock and Rye. Ugh.)

Now I'm sure someone out there is thinking, "oh my God, she's advocating for underage drinking!!!!" Umm, no. What bugs me is that in all the years we got the "don't drink" message, there was never, ever any discussion of moderation. My alcohol education was "abstinence only," which -- and I don't understand why some people don't realize this -- just turns the thing you're supposed to be abstaining from into a forbidden vice.

Then again, I've been out of school for a while now. Maybe things have changed.