A mother's guide to drinking

The day my son turned 21, I stood in the gift shop for half an hour in front of a display of beer mugs.

I wanted something to commemorate his entry into legal adulthood.

But then I thought of 150 reasons why I shouldn't give Chris a quart-sized drinking vessel that says "21st birthday!" on one side and "Keep full!" on the other, the top three being:

-I didn't want to equate Budweiser with manhood.

-I didn't want to glorify alcohol, period.

-He could care less.

Even during that whole long semester last year when he was studying abroad in Europe, where the drinking age varies between 0 and 16, all he had was one glass of red wine and a pitcher of German beer.

And yet in our country, where the drinking age is 21 in most states, drinking is THE rite of passage: In some cultures, you become a man by going off into the wilderness alone for six months. In others you go through an intense physical ritual that ends with your pinkie being chopped off and presented to your elders. In our culture, meanwhile, you go bar-hopping until you vomit on your shoes.

This is not always a laughing matter. For many young people, turning 21 becomes synonymous with drinking, which becomes synonymous with cultural belonging, which can easily lead to over-consumption and risky behavior.

You don't have to travel far to find somebody whose young nephew or daughter died after consuming too much alcohol, and not always behind the wheel of their daddy's SUV. At the University of Virginia, students participate in a ritual known as Fourth-year Fifths: In the span of a few hours' time, seniors drink a fifth of liquor, equivalent to 17 shots, to celebrate the final home football game. According to various online reports, 20 students have died since the ritual started in the 1980s.

Seeing your child through this culture can be tricky. If your child is away at college, you may have no idea how many nights he is stumbling home with a liquor concoction called Long Island Iced Tea coming out of his pores. On the other hand, if he happens to live at home - like my son - you may be trying to grant him a measure of space and independence, even as you see him spending way too much leisure time playing beer pong.

In the end, I decided against buying a mug to commemorate my son's 21st birthday. I instead bought him a hoodie, some books and a candle, which we lit at our traditional family birthday dinner as he took tiny sips of the single, symbolic beer his dad and I bought him at his request.

He hardly seemed interested in the taste, the effects or the fact that he was drinking a Sam Adams instead of a Shirley Temple.

And then he announced that he would be taking the Jeep downtown for a "couple more" with friends and that the following weekend, he wanted to have a 21st birthday party - yes, Mom, with alcohol.

My husband and I exchanged the uh-oh glances of parents headed into uncharted waters.

But after 21 years, you learn to be quick on your feet. Just like you nailed shut the cupboard doors before the tiny fingers learned to open them, so do you quickly come up with new rules to fit the occasion. Like, uh, sorry, dude, but no drinking and driving. Like a party at the house is fine, but no under-age drinking. Like don't forget how many drinks are healthy and that both your grandfathers had an alcohol problem.

"Do we have to do this?" he asked, just like he did when he was in sixth grade and we were talking about sex.

"We're done," we said.

All pinkies still intact.

(Journalist and mom of three Debra-Lynn B. Hook of Kent, Ohio, has been writing about family life since 1988. Contact her at www.debralynnhook.com or dlbhook@yahoo.com)

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