“You’ve changed”. If someone says something like that to you, it rarely feels like a compliment. Rather, there’s an insinuation that you’re somehow not being true to yourself, take a winners-only approach to supporting a football team or have had a complete and total ideological shift that the sharer of the observation does not approve of.
Sometimes, you get context beyond the two-word sentence.
Sometimes, your working-class roots can make you more sensitive to any suggestion of change.
Sometimes, being a Liverpool fan isn’t as much craic as it was last year.
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And, sometimes, your kids just want to guilt trip you into giving in to something you’d have agreed to in the past.
And they’d be right. I have changed. I’ve changed my stance on some things as more information came my way. What’s the point in living and learning if you never put the learning to good use? When I was pregnant with my first child, my doctor said it was okay to have the odd glass of wine, but I couldn’t have nuts. A couple of pregnancies later that advice had changed, no wine was allowed but monkey nuts at Halloween were back on the table.
So when a parent recently reached out asking if I had come across a situation where parents were not only allowing their teenagers to drink but openly facilitating it for their teens and their friends, I found myself reflecting on how normal a practice this has become in Ireland.
So normal that we don’t talk about it enough. A bit like vapes and nicotine pouches (affectionately called snus) openly and widely used by teenagers or how it is that they’re so accessible to children.
But more on that later.
Anyway, back to alcohol. I suspect few enough of us reached 18 before having our first alcoholic drink. Many of us may even have been offered have that “first” drink at home in our mid-teens so our parents could see how we reacted to it. “I’d rather them do it here than in the fields” being the argument. “At least I can see how they react/keep them safe at home” was the justification. And look, it’s an understandable position. I even bought into it myself at one stage.
Parents do it with the best of intentions, in the hope ultimately of protecting their children. So it was no surprise to me that when I asked a group of parents about their approach to teens and alcohol, that so many kind, caring parents who are wholly invested in their children’s wellbeing shared that they had introduced alcohol to their mid-teens children at home. In fact this was the position of the vast majority of respondents.
But with research pointing to the harm alcohol does to the developing adolescent brain, and to their overall health and wellbeing, not to mention the potential for addiction, it’s a position that can no longer be justified.
Yet, here we are in the age of prinks where parents facilitate teenage pre-night-out drinks at their house. Or parties where parents send their child with two cans and a promise to have no more. And, of course, legend has it that a child who has consumed alcohol is best placed to make excellent decisions such as keeping that promise, and more.
Still, at least we’re having these conversations, albeit too irregularly. Whereas the conversations around childhood vapes and snus use are not happening as they should. Partly because parents don’t always know it’s an issue. Or, as I discovered when speaking to parents, in plenty of cases, haven’t even heard of the latter.
As mentioned snus is the term colloquially give to nicotine pouches that sit under the lip and against the gum – and are therefore far less detectable by teachers at school. And, like vapes, they’ll probably serve the tobacco industry well as our children become hooked on nicotine, with all it’s wonderful withdrawal effects.
If you want to know how big an issue it is in their peer group, ask your teens. And prepare to have your eyes opened (or be lied to. Who can tell?).
“I just asked them, and they said ‘yeah’, like I was thick as a plank”, one parent replied having put the snus question to her children. “Jen, what the f**k?!” she said, horrified by her obliviousness. She was far from alone. In fact, it appeared a national “what the f**k?” was taking place in my Instagram messages as parent after parent messaged having learned from their teens that, yes indeed, this was an issue in their peer group.
So yes, I’ve changed. I’ve changed my old stance on teens and alcohol. But I can make my peace with that one. Now if only we could open some eyes to quite how serious an issue vaping and snus is.
Because children’s health is far too important to be swept under the carpet.
