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+--- Thread: Giving my kids wine (/thread-2933.html)
- Blue - 12-08-2000
Is is legal in the US for me to give my kids a glass of wine in my house? What about to let them sip from my glass in a restaurant? What about to order a glass of wine for them?
Zeez Americain lows aar vayree confusing too a good french boy like me.
NJ
- Drew - 12-08-2000
Welcome, Blue. If your children are under the legal drinking age for the State that your in, it is technically illegal, BUT......
malicious intent drives the enforcement of laws. If you supply minors with alcohol with the intent to allow them to become intoxicated, you're most likely guilty of a misdemeanor in most States. If you supply small amounts of alcohol, wine, etc. in the privacy of your home,under supervision, to YOUR children with the intent of education, culture sharing, religious observance etc., you'll not have a problem and I don't know any law enforcement officer in his/her right mind that would attempt to enforce that law. Many/most restaurants will not allow an obvious minor to openly consume alcohol from a non-shared glass and all should not allow you to order wine for them,(if caught by licensing authorities they could lose their liquor license). If your children share a little from your glass, you shouldn't have a problem. We haven't reached the point as yet, in this country, of recognizing wine as a food. Personally, though, I would never offer alcohol to any minor that did not come from my loins...that's usually asking for problems.
Drew
[This message has been edited by Drew (edited 12-08-2000).]
- hotwine - 12-08-2000
I'm not a lawyer, but serving alcoholic beverages to minors is illegal in any state.
Now, what's an alcoholic beverage? Generally, beer, wine, or distilled spirits. How about cough medicines, some of which have as much alcohol as does a fortified wine? That's a medicine, so it's not illegal to serve to a minor, unless used recreationally.
I'd not serve wine to a minor in a restaurant; some bluenose sitting nearby could see it and call the law. But in my own opinion doing so in your own home is the way to teach your youngsters how to responsibly handle alcohol. But be careful: your child's friends should not be included in your "lessons" about alcohol, and your child should be old enough to understand the "lesson " he's being taught. Pre-teen is too young to understand, while late teens is a good time to learn IMHO. Mid-teens is danger-central, and I'd wait until he's at least 18.
- hotwine - 12-08-2000
Drew, you and I are posting responses simultaneously today, and I think saying about the same thing. BTW, thanks again for your emailed notes on the Champagnes.
Gil
- Drew - 12-08-2000
Yes Gil, I've been home for a couple with a terrible virus and when I feel like I'm becoming delirious, I go to the wine board!
Drew [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/confused.gif[/img]
- Blue - 12-08-2000
Thanks for the advice.
The first time I tasted wine was at christmas when I was 4 1/2 years old....it was...yucky.
Every christmas thereafter I always tasted a little bit. By the time I was 16 I grew to enjoy wine. I still had very little. I never got drunk (okay a couple times) because for me alcohol was something that was savoured, studied and appreciated, the affect was really in many ways, only a hinderance to the experience (I add to wine scotch and cognac here). All of my family had a part in my wine education, but most of all my grandfather, with his delicious old bottles of Chateau Margaux and Chateau Latour (w/ a little Chateau La Gafelliere, Chateau Yon Figeac and Chateau Sociando-Mallet). It saddens me that in this country, teaching my son the value of wine like I was is seen as shocking to many and, as you say is technically against the law.
I think that this kind of education to the young has tremendous value. I remember when I went to college binge drinking seemed completely absurd. I'd drunk too much wine before, and too much beer, and it leaves you with a major head-ache...fine its fun a few times to try to get girls in bed and because you don't yet know how to have real conversations with friends, but it gets old very quick.
I remember the time when some friends of mine decided to get drunk. They bought jug wine. I don't know what was funnier, the look on my face when I took my first sip of the wine, or the look on theirs the next morning with their hangovers.
Can someone please explain to me why people in this country are so hung up about making sure that an 20 year old can't have a glass of Sancere with his Sole Meuniere in a restaurant?
</get off soap box>
PS I was recently naturalized americain, and there are many many things I like in this country...I just wish they took the drinking laws and applied them only to hard liquor and wine below a certain grade.
- hotwine - 12-08-2000
Welcome to citizenry, NJ. Glad to have you with us. We'll all have to work at making the laws more reasonable.
Drew, sorry to hear about your virus. Sounds like an excuse to have a toddy for the body. Might I suggest a shot of white rum in a coffee mug, juice of half a lemon, and fill with boiling water. Drink it down firly quickly, then fix another. And go to bed. It probably won't drive away the virus, but you'll sleep like a baby, and wake up feeling a bit better in the morning.
- hotwine - 12-08-2000
Whoops! I left out an ingredient: it also needs a teaspoon of sugar. Sorry 'bout that.
- mrdutton - 12-08-2000
In a few states (and pardon me but I can not remember which ones they are) it is NOT against the law for the parents to allow their children to sample drinks containing alcohol from the glasses served to the parents, when in a restaurant.
In most states, DREW is right on about serving in the home. All depends on intent.
- Thomas - 12-09-2000
I suppose I agree with all the above with one exception: someone posted that it is not a good idea to teach preteens about wine consumption. It most certainly is a good idea to teach preteens about wine consumption. If you wait too long this ridiculous culture of ours will have already turned the stuff into a forbidden fruit and teaching anything responsible about it would go against what the teen is going to be taught in school.
- Innkeeper - 12-09-2000
Agree with Foodie. My parents gave me wine as far back as I can remember. Of course, I can't remember very much.
- winoweenie - 12-09-2000
In our home every Sunday meal was accompanied by wine. When each of our 5 reached her 6th b/d they got there own glass of half- wine and half water. Most of my children are devout wine drinkers with one exception who`s allergic to the stuff. winoweenie
- wondersofwine - 08-23-2001
I used to be given a glass of wine (sometimes diluted with water like in WW's home) during special occasion dinners such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Year's. In addition, my church serves wine (not grape juice) as part of Holy Communion and I started receiving communion when I was about ten or eleven years old. I understand that the incidence of alcoholism is lower than average in Jewish homes where wine is part of the religious tradition. I learned to drink responsibily and have only overdone it about five or six times in my life. In somewhat the same way, I was allowed to have a cigaret in the home if I requested it so it had no attraction as a forbidden object. The first cigaret I tried was at a party in junior high school but I never took up smoking as a habit and have smoked a total of perhaps 30 cigarets in my life! The last one I had was on a ski trip in Austria years ago. I don't recommend this method with illegal drugs but I think it can be effective with cigarets and alcohol along with discussion of the reasons for not smoking or not overindulging in liquor.
[This message has been edited by wondersofwine (edited 08-23-2001).]
- Thomas - 08-23-2001
We'll probably have to move this to the rant forum, but I feel that alcohol and cigarette abuse (legal drugs), not to mention pain killer abuse, prove that the only difference between these drugs and the ones on the street is the government's definition of them.
Potency and criminology are not the issue. Alcohol, tobacco and prescription drugs are every bit as potent as street stuff (but safer because they are under production controls) and the reason that heroin or cocaine produce criminals is because they are illegal drugs.
Did you know that the Bayer company created the recipe for heroin? Heroin was designed as a legal drug to both fight pain and morphine addiction. It worked on both fronts, except that it produced addiction too, as does Methadone, the legal drug to fight the illegal heroin addiction.
[This message has been edited by foodie (edited 08-23-2001).]