Another day another DEMOS

Well it's silly season again as far as the alcohol world is concerned. We are going to have a raft of studies flying at us over the next few months all trying to hit the headlines. Today's comes from the Think Tank DEMOS

It claims that parenting influences drinking habits and that poor parenting around the ages of 5, 10 and 16 will lead to bad drinking habits between the ages of 16 to 34.

My son has a phrase for this and excuse my language but he would say "No shit Sherlock!"

Stating the obvious in a study is neither driving the argument forward nor enhancing the debate it is merely showboating.

What the study doesn't do is look at the knowledge that parents had in regard to alcohol. A parent can only parent given the influences that they have had and role models they have perceived as they were learning to be parents. It's the hardest job in the world raising children, particularly in a fast moving world that we have today,. I know I am the father to 3 natural and 2 step-children (whom I hasten to add I have always regarded as my own children and have not been treated with any difference). It has been a very tough job and at times absolutely impossible.

My role models were poor. My parents did their best, the realistic situation however was that I had a mother hooked on anti depressants and a father who was an alcoholic (see earlier parts of this blog) I was an only child and heavily influenced by my Grandfather who in many ways instilled in me my compass for life in teaching me compassion, integrity and the need to put others first. The latter sometimes compromising the former two.

When it came to alcohol therefor I grew up thinking that one went to bed at 7pm and drank copious amounts of whisky until one was blotto. At 14 I felt this experience for the first time myself when my so called mates decided it would be funny to spike my Ben Shaw's shandy with whisky. I still remember the feeling of walking along the kerb all the way home and skulking off to the bathroom to render new decor to the toilet bowl. It was an experience that I did not enjoy.

Yet with all the alcohol floating about there was no talk about it. Everything was brushed under the carpet and it was down to me to find out what was actually going on. I was never educated by my parents, in fact I don't know any of my school friends who were, nor do I know any of my children's friends who were educated either, interestingly enough.

I was accused recently in some feedback about my style of education that I am a very nice man with great integrity but sometimes I'm in Neverland. I took that as some of my ideas were too outrageous to ever be contemplated. Isn't that what they said about people who wanted to travel to the stars?

If we really seek to change the drinking pattern of our nation then we must seek to educate. Parents cannot educate their children and cannot be expected to educate their children if they have no clue themselves. If it is away with the fairies to think that is possible then section me now because I will just keep coming back at you.

Educate now, educate well, and make sure the educators are in full knowledge themselves. Stick that one in your Think Tank!