I almost titled this “A Boomer Reflects” because I know I’m being ridiculous. If you’re my age, maybe you can laugh along with me. If you’re young, don’t read this. It will just piss you off. But you know, it’s not even so much being a boomer as it is having been raised Evangelical. If you know, you know.
This past summer, my nieces came to visit. I have a bunch of nieces, but this time it was two of them plus a fiancé, in addition to the one who lives here. The one who lives here is under age, but the rest of them are all over 21, so when they came over for dinner, we offered them a beer while Doug grilled burgers.
We are not big drinkers, and our friends are not big drinkers, so usually one or two drinks per person is all we have with dinner. But for whatever reason, one or two drinks per person was not what they considered to be enough. By the end of the evening, most of our beer supply was gone (fortunately my sister was driving).
A few days later they went out to a local lake. We were going out to meet up with them later. They stopped by a convenience store on their way and loaded up. They had multiple six packs of various types of summer beverages that I didn't even know existed-- Smirnoff Ice? does it actually have vodka in it? Ranch Water? Is it malt like a Mike's hard lemonade? I have no idea.
By the time we got there, much of it was gone. But they didn't seem drunk, so in spite of my surprise-- who goes to the lake to drink a twelve-pack of White Claw (and of course, the answer is EVERYONE DOES) -- I had to let them manage it. They are 22, 23, and 25. They don't need me to babysit them. But still. I surreptitiously made them wait a couple of hours to leave so they would be OK to drive, but there really wasn't much else to be done. And to be fair, they had worked out among themselves who was OK to drive.
And they were fine. They got home without incident. They told some stories during the afternoon that made my eyebrows go all the way up my forehead, but everything was fine. I was just kind of -- I am embarrassed to admit this-- shocked.
I was raised in a house that wasn't exactly teetotaller (my parents were very clear about that--they believed in grace, not rules), but it was a technicality-- we never had alcohol in the house, and I can count on one hand the number of times I saw them with a drink in hand. If someone brought my parents a bottle of wine when they came for dinner, it would hang around in the cabinet in the laundry room until my parents could give it away.
When I left behind being an evangelical forty years ago, I thought I was being so bold and rebellious because I would go out for "a beer" with my work friends, but the operative word there is "a." I can remember the only time I had two, and I decided it wasn't worth it. ha.
Of course, this is partly because of the ever-looming possibility of a migraine (wine almost always gives me a migraine, but beer and liquor are often ok). And it's partly because I am the world's cheapest drunk. I am giggly and silly halfway through my first drink. My kids think it's hilarious. I do not require multiple drinks to get the, uh, social lubricant benefits of alcohol.
So I cannot help my instinctive reaction that OH MY GOD THEY ARE DRINKING TOO MUCH. But I have to respect that they know their own limits-- none of them live at home anymore, so they manage their own consumption all the time. (As long as they don't drive and kill themselves.)(Sorry, I can't help it.)
I've had a similar response to several popular novels I've read over the past couple of years about young people who are sleeping with anyone and everyone they can find. My adult self wants to yell at them, WE DID NOT FIGHT FOR YOUR SEXUAL FREEDOM SO THAT YOU COULD BE STUPID ABOUT SEX.
(But you know, I guess we did??) I guess we (I) thought that women (and men) would handle their freedom responsibly, not that they would believe any lie someone told them, up to and including that pulling out is enough, and don't worry I know how to do it, I've done it lots of times before. I mean, the sexual hangups of the 50s and 60s were ridiculous, totally ridiculous, but at least the social pressure to not have sex provided some protection against casual predators.
But don't we have to let them learn? I find myself practically yelling at the book, not having sex is a valid option! But in these books, it doesn't seem to be. It doesn't ever seem to be an option to decide not to, and go home and get a good night's sleep. (Of course, at least part of that is because how boring would that be? How would the story happen if she didn't get pregnant and have to figure out what to do?)
Anyway. The most recent of the ones I've read, Margo Has Money Troubles, is well written, strong voice, funny, heartbreaking, and ultimately empowering. A great book. But it just about made me sick to read the beginning. Is it better to have complete freedom and have to learn everything the hard way? Maybe it wasn't so bad to have some guardrails, some social pressure to not be stupid. Or maybe nowadays kids just have to learn every thing the hard way.
But I do wonder about young women like me (or me the way I was at that age), who are naturally not quite as adventurous, who may feel pressured to do things they don't really want to do, because "everyone else is doing it," and isn't that hilarious, because it's the same advice that would have made me furious when I was their age.
Things really do come full circle. Oh my god, this makes me feel old.
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