Rough Day with the Kids, I Need a Drink

One common aspect of motherhood that is all too familiar is a glass of wine. I remember growing up, my mom, friend’s moms, and neighbors, having a glass of wine at the end of a long day. As soon as I became a mom, I too was inducted to the “mom needs her wine” fan club. It almost seemed to come with the territory. For example whenever I go to someone’s house for a play-date, we have wine while the kids play. Oftentimes for lunch dates with other moms, we will have some type of alcoholic beverage.If I have a bad day, myself, and other mom-friends will joke about having a drink. For someone who is not a heavy drinker, doing this makes me wonder if we are numbing from something. I even have a mom friend that brings wine to the park after a tough day with the kids; this is socially acceptable and often recognized as a part of mom life. We deserve it after a long day of screaming kids, and tantrums.

As I started spending more time with other moms, I noticed that I was drinking wine at almost every play date. This ended up being almost every weekday, which made me wonder if this is how parents end up forming drinking habits.

According to national research, in the United States alone an estimated 28 million children have alcoholic parents, of which 11 million are under the age of 18.This figure is shocking, but it does not surprise me. Drinking culture is built into parenthood and statement such as, “mom juice” or “my kid was a handful today, I need a drink” only highlight the social acceptability to parent drinking.

I never thought much about it until I was drinking a glass of wine at every play-date, which so happened to occur on a daily basis; I started to feel like that was the beginning of how many women or stay at home parents, lose control. It starts small but ends up building into a full-blown issue. The fact that this happens does not come as a surprise, because many stay at home parents struggle with dissatisfaction. Stay at home parents often abandon passions that made them feel like a whole person in order to take care of the kids, or they simply get bored with the monotony of everyday life.   

I don’t say this to shame stay at home parents, because I stay at home the majority of the time, but to bring light to an issue that is happening, and oftentimes is happening to someone we know under the invisible shield of #momlife.