Modelling Society's Future Alcohol Consumers

"Kids model parental behaviour."
"Parents who drink in front of youngsters make drinking a norm."
Richard Mattick, National Drug & Alcohol Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

"Limited cross-sectional studies have indicated that young children have some knowledge of the type of situations in which adults usually consume alcohol. However, it is unclear when and how this knowledge develops over time. This study tests the hypothesis that between the ages of 4 and 8, children become more knowledgeable about common drinking situations (e.g. ‘partying’) and uncommon situations (e.g. ‘driving’)".
"Children aged 4–8 become increasingly knowledgeable about drinking norms in specific situations which implies that they know in what kind of situation alcohol consumption is a common human behavior. This knowledge may put them at risk for early alcohol initiation and frequent drinking later in life."
Study authors: Carmen Voogt, Koen Smit, Marloes Kleinjan, Roy Otten, Tessa Scheffers, Emmanuel Kuntsche, Netherlands Institute of Mental Health and Addiction, Utrecht

A family meal, and a toast with adults drinking spirits and children fruit juice.  Getty Images

A Dutch study published in December of 2019 in the journal Alcohol and Alcoholism, reached the conclusion that any individual of average intelligence who has children of their own, might have arrived at, given the nature of children's curiosity about anything and everything and their propensity to model themselves after the adults of most importance in their lives, their parents. The study doesn't exactly break new ground in that children who come from families where drinking alcohol is part of daily routines, tend themselves to gravitate to that very same habitual use of spirits.

However, since the conclusion derives from an academic study whose main author has conducted many previous studies revolving around similar situations and circumstances, the findings have the added weight not only of common sense, direct observation and logical conclusion, but that of scientific affirmation. Researchers involved in the study enquired of 75 fathers and 83 mothers their opinion of routine situations where adults take alcohol in a series of situations such as during a party, at work, while watching television or while driving.

Following which 359 unrelated children between the ages of four to eight were asked to identify which situations they might feel it to be commonplace or appropriate for adults to indulge in consuming alcohol. The researchers reported that as children aged they became ever more aware of the social normative around alcohol consumption. They have learned from observation when drinking is appropriate and the number of drinks that seem permissible, resulting from noting how the adults in their lives behave.

A take-away for the researchers, as a result of this study, is that familiarity with alcohol may lead children to be likelier to begin drinking earlier in life, or lead additionally to a casual attitude of more frequent alcohol consumption, included as part of everyday living. The study identified that fathers tend to drink greater amounts of alcohol than mothers, with men consuming roughly 8.6 standardized alcohol units weekly, as compared to 4.4 for women.

One unit, comprised of 10 grams of ethanol or pure alcohol could be seen as the equivalent of one to three drinks relative to the alcohol content in each beverage. Most frequently, drinking by parents was perceived to be common at social events such as parties, at holiday dinners, during dinners taken at restaurants, or home barbecues. Fewer parents described drinking as being common to everyday dinners, while at a picnic, or while watching television, and while driving drinking was seen to be an uncommon event.

According to the parents responding to the study, fewer regarded drinking to be common while reading, working or eating lunch. It was the observation of children, on the other  hand who found drinking more common while watching television or while attending parties. And, similar to the adults in the study, children found drinking to be uncommon while reading, eating lunch or working at an office. Adults, according to children, consumed more alcohol in common situations, leading the study authors to the conclusion that children are learning drinking behaviour from their close observations of adults.

The study authors acknowledged that their study was comprised of a small sample of participants, since very few parents and children agreed to participate in the study when invited to do so. And due to its limited participants the study may not accurately reflect attitudes prevalent in a representative total of Dutch families. Their findings, however, suggest children are aware of social norms respecting alcohol consumption from an early age.

And what is troubling about that is the reality that most Dutch youth begin a lifetime of drinking while in their adolescent years; familiarity through familial exposure having assured the youth that alcohol consumption is a normal component of everyday life. And while in the Netherlands many prevention efforts place their focus on this age demographic, the timing may be too late to be effective in turning young people away from alcohol consumption.

The Family Unit and Marriage

"A 2018 survey of 1,520 Canadians by the Angus Reid Institute asked 'When two people plan to spend the rest of their lives together, how important is it to you that they legally marry, meaning exchange vows in a public ceremony, whether civil or religious?' Fifty-three per cent said it wasn’t important. According to the pollster, this means a majority of Canadians now think 'marriage is simply not necessary'."
"Evidence that the institution of marriage is in decline hardly counts as news anymore. Marriage rates have been sliding for decades. In 1981, over 60 per cent of Canadians above the age of 15 were married; today that’s fallen to 45 per cent as cohabitating couples and lone parent households rise in step. The fact a majority of Canadians now think legal marriage is obsolete looks to be the logical conclusion of this long-term trend."

"In the U.S., where the relative success of racial groups is an area of intense focus, research by the Brookings Institution points to the 'success sequence' as a key factor in avoiding poverty. This refers to a multi-stage process of finishing high school, getting a job, getting married and then having children. Do these steps in this order and your chances of entering the middle class or higher rise dramatically, regardless of race."
"Recent work by the Institute for Family Studies shows that among Americans aged 28 to 34 who failed to complete the sequence in order, 53 per cent were poor. By comparison, those who followed the traditional path to adulthood had a 90 per cent change of being middle class or above. Marriage is the central aspect of this sequence; and as a defense against poverty it is an option available to all in a way that a college education – another indicator of future success – may not be. (Although children from married homes are more likely to graduate college.) Being married combines 'sex, parenthood, economic cooperation and emotional intimacy into a permanent union', observes Bradford Wilcox, a University of Virginia sociologist and co-author of the above report. It also makes you happy."
Peter Shawn Taylor, Macleans Magazine

A new poll suggests nearly half of Canadians aren't interested in getting married.  Getty Images

So there's all of that information, data, speculation on marriage, and why the younger generation shrugs its collective shoulder at the venerable institution of marriage, the marriage vows and the marriage covenant as irrelevant to their personal, intimate lives which value more casual relationships or intimate relationships unburdened by society's and religions' compacts and strictures on sexual intimacy and partnerships.

It is not only generational differences that will predict how people will react to the institution of traditional marriage, versus simply living together as in common-law relationships.

Recently, the Institute for Family Studies launched a study and its conclusion, perhaps unsurprisingly, is that conservatives and liberals regard the institution of marriage and all its traditions differently, with 62 percent of conservatives taking marriage vows, while 29 percent of liberals feel it necessary to, along with 46 percent of 'moderates', neither conservative nor liberal, but somewhere in between. Conservatives were observed to be likelier to marry, even controlling for factors such as age.

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Social scientists have long pointed out the equally obvious, that sharing life with someone else has its bonuses. People managing to live together in harmony, sharing common values and priorities find greater pleasure in life. Within a stable marriage people are generally healthier, and certainly more satisfied with life. That, apart from the fact that with a shared partnership, raising children is easier with two people to share the burden, responsibility and happiness that is generated within an intact family group.

And then there is the purely practical "social insurance" of being able to rely on someone emotionally close to you, when you're depressed, feeling ill, facing poor health outcomes, lose employment, even the elemental sharing of child-centered tasks when one parent is called away, leaving the other to take sole charge temporarily. There is no over-estimating the emotional security in knowing that someone is deeply concerned about your welfare, and is there to prop you up when needed by circumstances. The comfort inherent in knowing love and returning it makes for a happier person.

Conservatives, according to the IFS study simply value marriage more than do moderates or liberals to the point where 80 percent feel marriage is critical to the creation of strong families, whereas among liberals the figure descends to 33 percent who feel similarly. Greater numbers of conservatives commit to marriage simply because they feel marriage is an important part of one's life, and all the more so before children are born.

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This results in 52 percent of conservatives claiming to be completely satisfied with their family lives in comparison to 41 percent of liberals and moderates. The social sciences tend to agree with this generalized conservative tendency to value marriage and practise what they value in greater numbers than their liberal counterparts. Marriage is recognized as vitally critical to individual and societal health altogether. Research has verified that married people tend to live longer, happier and more prosperous lives.

Benefits to children within a family situation where two parents are equally engaged in child care and support, are innumerable and irreplaceable. With the attention of two parents focusing attention and emotional and practical resources on a child's needs, a more structured, healthier situation results, both for the parents and for their offspring. A study of economic mobility concluded that one of the most reliable predictors of income mobility was to grow up within a neighbourhood of majority two-parent families, irrespective of a child being raised by a single parent.

In light of which, the fact that an estimated 40 percent of children are born in the current generation outside marriage to parents who largely feel that it is preferential to bypass marriage, when studies and actual outcomes reflect otherwise, is troubling.

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