fetch mommy a drink

One morning, the voice in my tv announced a story called “women and drinking.”

Whoop! Whoop!

I was immediately inspired.

But alas, this was not a fun-loving party story. It was a cautionary tale about naughty mommies who drink during the day (to soothe their underlying mental health issues) and then get DUIs in the carpool lane after school.

Hmmm.

I chuckled when a probation commissioner named Rocco Pozzi said twice that ‘these women’ think nothing of putting their kids at risk, and when a psych doctor named Charles something said that it’s okay for women to be stressed, but we gotta handle that stress, and we need insight to understand the critical responsibility that we have for our kids.

Hah.

Funny.

Okay, so of course it’s naughty to drive your kids around drunk. It’s naughty to drive yourself around drunk; it’s just not nice to endanger perfectly innocent strangers on the road.

And I can even sort of see how this story was well intended; maybe there are people out there who had a lightbulb moment when they saw this segment, who had not previously considered that you should take care when mixing booze and kids.

At my girl’s 6th birthday party, I decided not to serve alcohol because of the location’s close proximity to a large body of water. Plus, the party was at 3:00 and most of the guests were... you know, 6. I meekly and apologetically forewarned many of my guests that I was not serving alcohol, knowing that they were accustomed to a different kind of party vibe from us. I invited them to stay late after the rif raf went home so we could break out the coolers and set stuff on fire in the dark next to that big body of water. But I was filled with doubt and shame, and I felt like a moron. It worked out okay, though, even when some guests brought and drank their own booze during the party (ahem).

But this story on tv missed its mark if it was about helping people with kids cope in an acceptable way. And how was it helpful to make this a story about moms rather than parents or caregivers? Moms with underlying mental freaking health issues?

At any rate, this mom disregarded the judgments and warnings offered by Matt Lauer and the reporter and the psychologist and the social worker and the police and probation officers because buzz kill!

Even though my girl is too short to hold the beer bong up for me, and my lashes are still singed from the last time my boy got to fire up my crack pipe, they both become more likeable when mommy is drinking.

Where are my keys?