Lowering the legal drinking age has really been discussed a lot lately. It's not the drinking or the age at which one is allowed to drink that is the problem. It's how the drinker handles responsibility. Unfortunately, today's young people have not been taught certain responsibilities. Parents want to protect their offspring from the"big, bad world" out there. Unfortunately, this lack of guidance creates innocent young people with a lack of wisdom as to how to handle responsibilities.
Of course that can be said for every generation since Adam & Eve. "The Children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for
authority; they show disrespect for adults, and love to talk rather
than work or exercise. They no longer rise when adults enter the room.
They contradict their parents, chatter in front of company, gobble down
food at the table and intimidate their teachers." - Socrates (469-399 B. C.) It appears parents did not try to teach responsibility over 1,700 years ago either.
I am not in favor of lowering the drinking age limit without some rather specific guidelines. But if a young person is old enough to fight and possibly die for his/her country in the military, I feel that person is old enough to drink. The specific guidelines in this case would be determined by the military. As an example, I was 17 when I was graduated from High School and entered the Air Force. After basic training, I was sent to Indiana University (still 17) to study Russian. At that time, if you had a military ID, you were of legal drinking age in Indiana. If I had not shown responsibility, the Air Force would have definitely taught me.
There are myriad news stories of under age drinking incidents in the paper. However, there are as many, if not more of problems caused by drinkers who are of legal age. Like I said at the beginning, it's not the age or the drinking, it's the lack of responsibility. Even TV alcoholic beverage companies try by telling everyone to, "drink responsibly" in their ads.
But how does one predetermine who is responsible? By setting and age limit? I don't think so. I think the problem is much deeper than that. What say you, mom and dad?
