The Skinny Post - Don't Spare the White Russians, Spoil thy Child

I had an awesome White Russian the other day that had a shot of espresso and a double shot of Sambuca. Dee-lish. I had really only tried White Russians on one other occasion, and that was back in high school. At least I think it was back then. Anyway, my buddy and I were at a party that was thrown by some girlfriend of a friend of a friend, and we sat at their home bar and drank them all night with the girl's mother. It was a good time. She was a loose parent, and I liked it. She was a realist, and that's how you need to be sometimes as a parent. A realist. unfortunately, kids will be kids no matter what, and as a parent, there are two ways to go about controlling your kids: the hard way and the really hard way. The latter consists of keeping your child closeted and reclusive during high school so when it comes time for college, they end up in an ambulance during the first week of the first semester of Freshman year, getting their stomachs pumped because they didn't know what the hell was going on when it came to partying. It's like throwing a rookie boxer in the ring with no training and no sparring experience. It just doesn't work. The boxer's going to get hurt. The kid is going to end up hospitalized or dead. On the other hand, the hard way is much, much easier. Of course, it entails walking that fine line, but it's possible regardless. This method consists of simply communicating, accepting the fact that your kid will drink, coming to terms with yourself and your kid, and realizing that you, as parents, probably did much, much worse when you were young. I mean, if anyone is my age, then their parents definitely grew up in the seventies, and we all know that the seventies were chock full of very large, naked parties and no-holds-barred, psychedelic drug raves. And naturally, White Russians. I enjoyed them so.