Alcohol and school fetes
Canada Goose Outlet Monica Dux ask why, in parts canada goose factory outlet of Australia, suggesting schools abstain from serving alcohol at canada goose black friday sale fetes can be so controversial. Canada Goose Outlet
Canada Goose Online When I emailed a friend telling her that I was writing about alcohol at school functions, and asking whether booze had been served at her son’s primary school fete, her response was blunt and immediate: ‘Yes it was, and don’t you dare write that it should canada goose outlet uk be otherwise!’ Canada Goose Online
canada goose uk outlet Of course there was a vein of wry humour running through this email. We parents love our canada goose outlet shop children, and we support our local schools, but we also know that gathering large numbers of the little darlings together and letting them run rampant can be exhausting. In acknowledgement of this fact we roll our eyes at one another when school fetes are discussed, and make cracks about the need for some alcoholic self medication in order to get through them. Yet if you scratch away at the jokey surface, you often find canada goose outlet jackets that there’s an earnest dedication to drinking lurking just below the banter. canada goose uk outlet
canada goose factory sale Late last year, the Australian Drug Foundation (ADF) launched a campaign urging schools to examine their policies towards serving alcohol at school functions. The ADF said that it had been contacted by parents canada goose outlet toronto factory who were discomforted by the presence of alcohol, most especially at those events that involved young children. But the campaign gained little traction, largely due to a lack of support. And no wonder. The vast majority of parents I’ve spoken to about the issue heartily endorse the presence of alcohol at school functions, or are at very least ambivalent about the matter. canada goose factory sale
canada goose coats on sale One big reason that alcohol is so enthusiastically endorsed by those organising school events is that it brings in far more money than a chocolate wheel, or a cake stall. canada goose coats on sale
Canada Goose sale I first discovered all this after my eldest son started prep. canada goose outlet nyc I hadn’t been to a school fete since my own childhood, and I certainly didn’t expect that along with the stomach churning rides, the aurally confronting grade 6 band, and the sugared up kids running manically about, that there would canada goose outlet store uk be a bar, positioned up on the oval, bleeding out parents, all with glasses of wine or beer in their hands. ‘Got to smooth over the creases’, one father quipped when I expressed surprise at the booze canada goose outlet reviews policy. Had anyone considered the cultural sensitivities of the ethnically canada goose jacket outlet diverse community that attends the school, I asked, including a significant number of Muslim families? The blank looks that greeted me suggested that the answer was ‘no’. Canada Goose sale
Canada Goose Coats On Sale I agree that school functions can be socially challenging, and I’m sure that having a couple of drinks does help. Yet this is true of a great many activities. I’ve held jobs that I found awkward and stressful, but I don’t think my employers would have found it acceptable for me to have a few beers in order to ‘smooth out the creases’. Why should we accept a lower standard of canada goose outlet parka behaviour in a child focused context like a school fete? Canada Goose Coats On Sale
canadian goose jacket One big reason that alcohol is so enthusiastically endorsed by those organising school events is that it brings in far more money than a chocolate wheel, or a cake stall. And considering how cash starved our public schools are, you can understand this desire to maximise revenue. Yet earning power alone is a poor justification for canada goose outlet uk sale the practice. A pop up official canada goose outlet casino or a striptease show might also be great schoolyard money spinners, but I don’t canada goose outlet online uk think many parents would support canada goose outlet online such goose outlet canada innovations. canadian goose jacket
canada goose uk black friday In Victoria, canada goose outlet new york city if you want to serve alcohol at a school event you need to apply for a temporary license, with the underlying assumption being that the license holder will ensure responsible drinking. But it’s the question of what constitutes ‘responsible’ in this context that I find problematic. We tend to imagine that there is always a clear divide between ‘good drinking’ (responsible, sober people sipping a nice glass of red) and ‘bad drinking’ (violent, irresponsible, disruptive drunks). But isn’t there an enormous grey area between these two extremes of behaviour? Alcohol is woven so tightly into the fabric of our social life that attempts to untangle ‘good’ drinking from ‘bad’ drinking can be fraught, particularly if you include the question of how our children perceive what we’re doing when we insist on boozing at every social opportunity. canada goose uk black friday
canada goose black friday sale According to the WHO Global Status Report on Alcohol canada goose outlet store and Health Australia has one of the highest levels of alcohol consumption in the world. We are a nation of over drinkers, and the list of social, personal and economic problems that stem from this bad habit cannot be underestimated. As Nyanda McBride of the Drug Research Institute at Curtain University wrote in The Conversation last year, ‘Reducing the social acceptance of alcohol in Australia is one area we can target to lower rates of consumption and the related harms. And we know canada goose outlet canada that the way adults model alcohol use has a significant influence on the drinking patterns of young people.’ canada goose black friday sale
canada goose store Some have sought to flip this argument around, suggesting that canada goose outlet including alcohol at school functions is actually a good opportunity to model responsible drinking for children. Indeed, in response to the ADF campaign, Mary Bluett, the former Victorian branch president of the Australian Education Union, implied it would be negligent to do otherwise. She told The Age that ‘the total abstinence approach on those social occasions is not the child’s normal experience, so it could be confusing.’ canada goose store
cheap canada goose uk Yet when you think about it, this is a profoundly troubling claim. It seems to rest on the assumption that alcohol use is so ubiquitous in our society, so universal, that many children would be ‘confused’ to see their parents without a drink in their hands. If Bluett is right about this then there canada goose outlet is surely even more cause for alarm about our collective drinking habits, and their likely impact on our children. cheap canada goose uk
uk canada goose I’ll admit that, as far as social problems go, there are bigger fish to fry than canada goose outlet black friday the tipsy ones you might canada goose outlet sale find at a typical school fete. But what if our http://www.canadagoosesalesus.com behaviour at such events is symptomatic of a deeper, more profound issue? After all, school fetes come but once a year. If we don’t have a collective problem with alcohol, then why is the suggestion that we should all abstain for those few raucous hours so controversial? uk canada goose
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