Now all we have to do is put this story together with the one below about arresting women for drinking or doing drugs while pregnant, and we'll have the next big right-wing cause:

Make drinking illegal for women during pregnancy and the following 18 years!

Ann - Great post.

It's amazing. It's as though the media finds every opportunity it can to turn women against each other.

This is an example, to me, of women being just as much a stumbling block to equality as men.

What about the dads that drink around their kids?

How irritating.It's normal for dad to swill beer (on countless tv shows) while in charge of their offspring, but for a woman?

I'm so glad that you guys posted about this. I've been reading about it on other sites and it fucking pisses me off.
Seriously! The whole mommy wars bullshit...but this really takes it to a new level. Even the women I know who are in really traditional relationships have a drink at playdates or birthday parties now and again. Guess what, both they and their husbands (fuck, even their kids' grandparents) are comletely fine with it.

Exactly, it's totally normal to see dad sitting, having a beer in the evening, watching the kids play that no one thinks twice about it.
Of all the stupid inconsequential things to needle women about...grr.

Thanks for this post. I HATE this contrived bullshit. I wonder what that psychologist would think about the parties my parents would take me to as a child, where one mom stayed sober to watch all the kids while the rest of the adults got shitfaced. Funnest nights of my life, I kid you not...

I agree that there's this insinuation that women can't control themselves, and that they're barely holding it together... if they have one drink, pretty soon the demure little mommy is doing a keg stand!

EG - perfect link with the pregnancy and drinking story. Perhaps the reason people don't like women drinking is because they might be more inclined to speak their mind whilst "a few sheets to the wind". Or perhaps it sullies in the mind the vision of mothers as pure beacons of morality. Fun is only for the sluts apparently... another example of the conscriptive roles for women:

Choose 1 of the following:
a) single drunken slut

b) married virtuous martyr

Maybe they didn't know that McSweeney's is a humor magazine. Baby, be of use!

"There are safety issues to consider. Who would drive to the hospital if a child were hurt?"

An ambulance? A taxi? Gee, my mom didn't even own a car. I guess that means that she didn't have my best interests at heart.

Heh. I've also heard rumors that some completely irresponsible unfit mothers actually go to sleep while their children are in the house! What if before falling asleep, she had closed the door of her bedroom in order to disguise the fact that she was having horrible disgusting sex? What are they thinking? What if the child woke up in the middle of the night, went to the bathroom, slipped and fell and was too far away for its cries to awaken its heartless, sleeping mother?

Clearly we shouldn't let mothers sleep either. Or contract the flu, or food poisoning, as that might inhibit her ability to drive as well. What if she loses her glasses? What if she never learned how to drive? Oh my God, the possibilities for disaster are endless! When will women accept that upon bearing children they give up the right to be individual human beings!

This shit is ridiculous. My dad would take me to the bar with him when I was 9 years old. I don't know if I would advocate that, but at least in my case, I was never traumatized by being around alcohol consumption. As for safety? Pffhh! I think almost anyone can have 1-2 drinks and be just fine to drive, watch over kids, etc.

Maybe they're worried that kids that grow up around the sight of drinking will become teenage binge drinkers? It certainly didn't happen in my case...I didn't have more than a sip of alcohol till I was 20, and have never been passed-out-drunk.

Idiotic puritans. Take this to Italy, Ireland, Germany. Gadzooks - a glass of wine? Another reason why I am glad I have a job, rather than being home around the potential broadcast of this sorry crap.

I wonder what they would think if they knew I liked to smoke a joint before looking after my children. Idiot puritans is a complete understatement.

I am dismayed that we're still dealing with this crap. I'm also confused by Meredith Viera. She blew it here.

Not that everyone needs to drink alcohol but it seems to me that not allowing children to be "exposed" to their parents drinking alcohol is a recipe for binge drinking in high school/college, as they have had no role model for how to form a healthy, adult relationship with alcohol. I think it's MUCH healthier to first be exposed to alcohol by people enjoying it responsibly than to first be exposed to it during late adolescence as something that is soley there for the purpose of getting you f**ked up.

I've been following the Momtini controversy since NYT covered it back in November. See link: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/09/fashion/09drink.html?ex=1320728400&en=1c85cc99a77eff3c&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

I agree that the questions posed to Melissa Summers were inherently biassed. No body accuses a man of being an alcoholic or endangering children when he has a beer. Alcohol can be consumed in a benign manner. And mothers should be permitted to indulge in benign pleasure.

That said, I think the blogosphere has gone positively nuclear over the Today Show appearance. But if it helps change public perception, I suppose that's a good thing.

Parenthetically, I was just asked to do an online survey for NBC news. NOT the Today show, the nightly news! It was full of questions about what "segments," I'd like to see, with examples like "Boomers." I wrote in comments, why don't you show us less silly fluffy "segments" and more freaking news?

Here's the kicker--the second part of the survey was obviously aimed at advertisers. The product? ALCOHOL! What brands I liked, what drinks I associated with "parties with friends" and the like. (No specific question about what beverage I prefered for playdates though.)

NBC: OK for them to take $$$ from liquor companies, but it's NOT ok for their (female) viewers to drink. Hmmm.

There's a separate issue here regarding the fact that maybe, just maybe, treating alcohol around the house like it is just another part of life, rather than as OMG Teh! Destroyer! of! Worldz! is a good thing, and will lead to kids who don't go apeshit at their first teenage kegger because they just have to find out what all this fuss is about.

Like many folks have mentioned here, I, too, had a father who would pop the occasional beer while watching TV after work; what's more, he'd let me have a sip or two if I wanted. One time, when he had to leave the room for a while (Household emergency? Trip to the store? All I remember is, I was left alone with a big ol' can of Planters peanuts, a cold glass of some domestic crap beer, and the Indy 500 on TV) I sipped enough sips to detect the first effects of alcohol on my metabolism — the beginnings of a buzz.

The upshot of all this is that when I got to High School and College — this was back when the drinking age was 18, which is another rant — and everyone was going crazy, I was like "WTF? It's only beer, dudes."

That segment on Today was just the latest in a long series of similarly eye-rolling bits of stupidity that the various morning programs seem terribly in love with these days, ginning up new trends — usually involving children, or women, or both — to swoon over and cluck disapprovingly at.

We've had constant national attacks of the vapours about idiotic trivia in the past; what's new is that we've also achieved the attention spans of gnats in doing so, and seemingly must find some new activity or behavior to frown upon every few days now.

My mom is one of the few people that benefit from having a glass of wine everyday. Something with the blood, I think. My dad hardly drinks, but that's because a lot of his family are substance abusers. But, had the circumstances been different, he would be drinking conservatively (I can't think of the word, but you guys understand, right?). I honestly don't understand all the hyoe. Maybe it has something to do with my parents raising me to think for myself and not be so impressionable and ignorant and such.

In response to:
"Make drinking illegal for women during pregnancy and the following 18 years!"
Don't forget about the importance of pre-pregnancy health. The uterus (our only valuable asset, obviously) must be protected at all costs, so no alcohol ever.

Lately it seems there are an awful lot of people around who'd probably consider The Handmaid's Tale a veritable goldmine of brilliant ideas.

WTF?

EG,
Love it. My mom didn't own a car either. She didn't drink that I know of, but DAD TOOK THE CAR TO WORK! OH MY GOD, how did I survive?