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Originally Posted by Lucifer
I used to live in Portugal (and we should get Little_Tippler to comment on this as well) and I'm not sure if there was a legal age to drink or not, but teenagers used to have beer in the cafes and there wasn't as much of a binge sort of mentality amonst the teenagers as there is in North America. The bar I used to work in, would get little kids coming in at night, trying to get a drink at the bar, but the bartender would just give the kid a swat and send him back out into the night. When they got older (pre-teen) and young teen age, they would graduate to a drink called a "Christo" which was cherry syrup and beer. I used to see quite young children at dinners in restaurants with their family having a glass of wine with their meals. I believed then, as I still do now, that there is nothing wrong with giving children a introduction into drinking. Better to instill your values about drinking with your children as they grow up then to have them come up with their own at some 'teenage beer drinking party.'
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I don't remember much about this topic with regards to my own childhood actually. I do know that I don't usually see
little kids being given wine at meals here in public. It's not that common, but I guess people let their kids have sips at home. I remember I didn't like wine (or thought I didn't) when I was little and my father would offer it to me on occasion, just for a taste. I only properly tried wine when I was about 15, because I hade refused to taste up until then. I thought it smelled yucky.
From 16 onwards I was having drinks out occasionally with friends - beer, shots, cocktails. It didn't do me any harm. I'm pretty sure that if we weren't allowed it would have been worse, as in we'd make it a point to be able to get a drink any way we could. Like smoking up was a much bigger deal then, drinks, eeh. In this way, since nobody was controlling it, it was just something natural, that you can have or not, depending on what you're in the mood for. Of course there's always bingers, but it's not a big thing.
Nowadays I hardly drink, only when I go out with friends, and usually only one or two drinks. Sometimes none at all.
I don't see why kids shouldn't be able to taste it early on. As long as it's supervised and they are taught about its dangers. If it's forbidden, it will become an objective, for sure. I don't think, however, that people become alcoholics because they were denied booze at an early age. To me alcoholism has to do more with a particular mindset more than anything else.