Women and wine...

According to The Today Show and NBC, women having ONE glass of wine with their girlfriends in front of their children makes them lushes AND bad mothers. Hmmmm.....What about dad's drinking beer with each other while watching a football game while their kids watch, too? Does that make them bad fathers? And, is it okay for mothers to have a glass of wine at a barbecue when men are around to patrol their consumption?

(For a frame of reference, view this clip: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16818362/. Then read: http://www.suburbanbliss.net/. This is the woman they invited on the show to "interview." She gives her side of the story on her blog.)

Why am I writing about this when I, myself, am not a mother? Because this stuff affects future mothers as much as it does current. It makes future mothers question if motherhood is the right choice for them and not just because we may like to have a drink or two every now and then. By the major news media telling women that we need to be chaste, devoid of pleasure and devoted only to mommy-hood to be a good "woman" (which really means good mother, in their language), it makes women who are spunky, mouthy, feisty and fun loving feel that perhaps they are not cut-out for this role of mother. This NBC article suggests that women who enjoy their other roles in life--such as as wife, lover, friend and socialite which may involve a single, responsible drink--are somehow lesser mothers. I think that is downright scary.

In this country, we seem to enjoy turning healthy drinking or healthy sexuality into something bad. If mothers have a glass of wine or a beer in front of their children, they are showing their children that drinking an alcoholic beverage can be done in moderation with pleasure. I feel the same way about sexuality. We rate movies with passionate love scenes between two people who are "in-love" R and rate movies where people blow each other's heads off with little consequence PG-13. Nice example to set! Kids watch porn--that is just the reality of our times-- and by eliminating any visual examples of healthy sexuality while refusing to talk about healthy sexuality, our kids are left with one example, porn. If we keep telling ourselves that being honest with our kids about our smart drinking habits and healthy sex lives is a bad thing, then where do these kids turn to get their answers? Frankly, I find the answer to that question a lot scarier than having watched my mom have a beer while I played in the sandbox.