Dear Jenny,
Your blog post “Mummies (and Daddies)
who drink” touched a bit of an raw (intoxicated?) nerve because I
am one of those boozy mummies you are aiming it at:
I liked it. I think I agree and
disagree in equal measure (make mine a double...). So here is my
considered response to it, as promised.
Is booziness part of our cultural
heritage or a worrying upward trend?
Us Brits pride ourselves (rightly or
wrongly) as a nation of beeraholics. But is our very high alcohol
consumption not a relatively modern phenomenon? My parents love to
drink, but when I was a kid it was reserved for Friday nights and
celebrations simply because they couldn’t afford to over imbibe.
The government is increasingly worried about the societal effects of binge
drinking and the health consequences of the affluent middle class's
love of Malbec. Is this interference of the Nanny State or should we
all sit back and take stock a little? When I was a barmaid in the
late 1990s a large glass of wine was 175ml and a small was 125ml. Fifteen years later it is 250ml and 175ml respectively. A single shot has
risen from 25ml to 35ml and the average pint of bitter is 4.5-5%
compared to the 3.2% kinds I used to serve. Despite inflation it is
still possible to buy a bottle of wine for £4.50, the same price we
paid for the bottles we sneaked into formal dinners at Uni in 1996.
So it is easy for just a couple of drinks to tip you into the “binge”
category. The quaffing habits once reserved for the upper class
connoisseurs of Claret are available to us all. The average mum's
shopping list now contains milk, bread and Merlot. Compared to our
grandparents we have higher disposable incomes, more restaurant
meals, post work socials and girly nights out. We drink because we
can.
But as your blog pointed out there is a
far darker side to our drinking culture. We live in a society of
double standards: we are correctly appalled by the alleged abuse of
young girls at the hands of a TV star (you know who I mean) yet
young women are objectified on Page 3. Within just a few years of the
smoking ban nicotine addicts have become pariahs yet the effects of
alcohol consumption cost the NHS dearly – just ask an A and E nurse
or a liver specialist. It would be a serious disciplinary
offence/dismissal to turn up to work coked up (unless you work for
the London Stock Exchange) or to shoot up in the loos at the office.
Yet functional alcoholics are ubiquitous. We all know one. I have
never worked anywhere where there wasn't one.
My confessions...
But alcohol is our national drug of
choice. And bloody gorgeous it is too. I love a good bottle of red
wine or strong G and T on a hot day and I have a particular penchant
for Real Ale (the Northern kind with a decent head). I am not over
weight, I am active, I eat above my quota of fruit and veg, I never
cook with salt, I don't smoke, do drugs or practice extreme sports.
But I do drink too much. I often consume above my measly 14 units
week. My gorgeous book club friends (or as it has now been renamed:
Wine Club) have to witness the verbal carnage that is me after a
bottle of wine. I am outspoken at the best of times but my ethanol
induced loquaciousness (OK, ranting) sometimes gets me into trouble. But I
have never put my kids in harm's way because of alcohol, I do not
drink and drive and they do not witness me "drunk" - I would like to think I have grown out that anyway. But I do think that
I was a danger to myself and others when in charge of a car in the
fugg of severe sleep deprivation and post natal depression that was
associated with the first months of their lives.
Lighten up?
I do think that, even as a self
confessed Anglophile, maybe you need to develop a better
understanding of our British sense of humour and take the ramblings
and twitterings of some of us mums with a bucket full of salt (and
maybe a stiff gin). Tweeting “I.NEED.A.GIN.ALREADY.” at 9am, as I
did this morning, does not actually mean I would ever drink at
this time (not least because midday hangovers are killers. Joke!). And if
you follow tweeters with profiles that include #gin then what do you
expect?! I really doubt that many mums are doing the school run half
cut.
The real reason Mummy is On the
Wine
Maybe the “pass me the bottle” or
“is it Wine O' Clock yet?” type posts are just amusing. Or maybe
they reflect some deeper issues. The parents posting them are often
well educated, successful, well traveled, well read and affluent.
But are we products of our own success? Yes, we have it easy compared
to our grandparents and our choices and opportunities are vast
compared to theirs. We spent our carefree twenties traveling,
skiing, crossing the Zambezi on an elephant, being perpetual students
etc, etc. We then hit our 30s and traded in mini trips
to Rome for stressful jobs, crippling mortgage payments, juggling
childcare with work, ill parents, relationship breakdowns and the
relentlessness, sleep deprivation and exhaustion that is family life.
We are extremely lucky to live in our modern era but it does also
provide some new and different challenges. So don't mind us if we
occasionally lose ourselves in the oblivion found at the bottom of a Hendrick's
bottle.
In addition to this, motherhood seems to
be fetishised – we are lead to believe that it will be the most
fulfilling, rewarding and amazing thing we will ever do. Which it is.
On Saturdays. For all the other days of the week we are bored, tired,
stressed, pissed off and frustrated at having relinquished our
careers, financial independence, sanity and status in society for a
couple of ectoparasites that will shove us in a care home as soon as
we stop being useful to them. So sodding hell, pass me that bloody
bottle of Bordeaux.
By admitting to “needing a glass of
wine” to strangers on a social networking site maybe what we are
actually saying is “I am having a tough time, I feel isolated, I
feel judged, I would really like my partner to acknowledge that
rearing kids is the toughest thing I will ever do and actually I
would quite like some performance management...and some targets...
and a reward for meeting them. Oh f*ck it just get me a drink”.
Love Gems xx
PS If you ever want to buy me a pint
sometime...
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