I am a bit confused.com …
SHOULD KIDS DRINK MOCKTAILS? So 6 months after I started my journey to sobriety I started this blog and my Instagram account. I thought it would be nice to share my thoughts about my newly chosen lifestyle and also to see who/what else is going on out there on the web. Now this kind of grew into a non-alcoholic drinks adventure as well. In which my daughter (now 11 yrs old) has shown a great interest, right from the start!
She wants to help tasting the drinks that we come up with, setting up the backgrounds of the photos of the non-alcoholic cocktails etc. She even insisted to be posted (here she´s standing in front of my non-alcoholic drinks trolley, her idea, she loves it) as she felt left out after I posted pics of my husband, my friends and myself but not her. I left her out on purpose though as I’ve always been sceptical about social media and posting personal photos. Especially of our kid, as whatever you put on the line stays on the line – Forever!!
Anywayzzz
I started to love blogging & being on Instagram and let the reigns go a bit with regards to putting up pictures of her. Mainly because I am genuinely very happy that she is so interested in what I am doing. I love being a sober role model for her. There is nothing better, in my opinion, then to show our next generation that fun is in people, fun is in activities, fun is within yourself – And fun is definitely not in a glass (or a bottle) of alcohol!!
So, this is where my confusion starts… Is it ok to let kids drink (and be involved in making) non-alcoholic cocktails? Or are these for us grown ups only?!
Should we let them or not let them… That´s the question
Ok, there’s no alcohol involved but the whole idea of having all these beautiful non-alcoholic options popping up everywhere is that finally us non-drinkers also get to have nice tasting, special drinkies – just like our alcohol loving friends! And that kind of all goes away if we start ordering our kids these (more often than not also quite expensive!!) concoctions as well. And besides this rather selfish point of view, ARE NON-ALCOHOLIC COCKTAILS MORALLY OK TO OFFER TO KIDS? Or will they make them start thinking about / associating them with drinking alcohol earlier in their lives than necessary?
My thoughts…
Obvs everyone should do as they please, I’m just thinking of how to tackle this myself… So after a long think I have decided to treat non-alcoholic cocktails still as a grown-up thing (alcohol or not), told my daughter the same and I will not order her these in bars/restaurants. Until she’s old enough to ´drink´, say 16? – I’m from Amsterdam, 16 seems realistic there… The age of starting to drink alcohol is a whole other subject though, I´ll get to that in a few years time.
However, until then she can be my little assistant at home, making alcohol free cocktails and trying a few sips here and there. And while we are spending time doing this together we can have (and are already having) nice conversations about life & alcohol. I think she has the right age now to start hearing about different choices she can make in life. And while you might think: “Oh wow, you’re so serious about this” – My mother was a full blown alcoholic so for me alcohol is a serious subject. I’m just trying to break the cycle by showing my daughter that she has multiple options with regards to life choices and there is not one right way. In a light and fun way 😉
The other day I read this article btw in the New York Times. It has its own look on kids / non-alcoholic cocktails. Quite interesting to read…
Tell me what you think!
I would love to hear your opinion on this… What do you think about kids and non-alcoholic beverages? Do you have kids’ Are they drinking them? Do you regard alcohol free concoctions as soft drinks? Or are they adult-only special drinks? Let me know what you think in the comments below…
