So, catching up on my NYTimes this morning, I came across this bit in the Dear FloFab column, and thought it posed an interesting quandary:
Quote:
Wine has always been an important part of my life. My dad was a oenophile and amassed an amazing collection that my mother still has, and food and drink is my life and my work. My brother, on the other hand, is a Muslim and strictly adheres to his faith, which I respect even if I don’t understand it. Whenever I visit my mom, my brother is lovely enough to visit as well, bringing his 7-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter. He’s long requested that I abstain from drinking wine in front of the children. But we recently had a blow-up because I’m sick of not drinking when the children are around. I know this shouldn’t be a big deal, but we have a wine cellar going to waste because I’m the only drinker in the family now that my dad’s been gone for seven years. I also think my brother is doing a poor job preparing his children for the real world, and that I shouldn’t have to change my style in order to “compromise,” as he puts it. My mother says I should drink in my room. How depressing is that? I love my brother but I think his request is disrespectful to me and my profession. What does the logical FloFab have to say?
A.
First of all, the idea of drinking in your room or in any other hidden fashion is insulting. I agree with you that your brother should find some way to discuss with his children the fact that different people have different beliefs and different observances, and that yours do not agree with his. The children should be able to understand this. It should not be a subject of ridicule or tension, it’s just a difference, and in a loving family differences should be accepted. My brother was kosher and I am not. I was accommodating to him when he was in my home but when we went out to a restaurant, he would not object to my ordering something with pork or bacon even though he wouldn’t touch it.
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My family has had to deal with this recently, as one of my husband's uncles had to abstain from drinking over the holidays due to a medication he was on. Despite his insistence that he would be fine with other people drinking at holiday affairs, my mother-in-law, her mother, and her sister-in-law (the uncle's wife) all abstained from drinking too, trying to be "considerate." The problem with this was that they made the people who did choose to drink feel out of place and bad about the whole thing.
If there are non-drinkers present at a function, should people who do drink abstain from drinking? These questions are posed with the frame of American culture, by the way--I understand that other cultures have other views about drinking, i.e. the Muslim culture represented by the brother in the dilemma posted above. I welcome other responses with the frames of other cultures, but be aware my response is set in the culture I live in.
Personally, I don't think so. It might be the European in me, but I think too often Americans think that drinking is "bad". Drinking in moderation is fine. By trying to sweep drinking under the rug in our culture, so to speak, I think we encourage irresponsible behavior when it comes to drinking.
So what do you think?