Lowering the Drinking Age

Lowering the Drinking Age

Everyone knows that the teen binge drinking rates have gone up in the past few years. More and more teens are drinking with no responsibilities at all. If the United States lowered the drinking age to 18, we would be able to teach responsibilities concerning binge drinking to younger teens. I believe that allowing your teens to have a beer or glass of wine at a family dinner helps them to understand that a drink or two is okay, the drinking age in Europe is 16 and ours is 21, and at the age of 18 you are considered an adult so the drinking age should be lowered.

Imagine yourself as an 18 year old sitting down at the dinner table with your family. When your mother pours a bottle of beer in a frosty cold glass, you thank her and continue to finish eating dinner. While you're eating your dinner, a discussion comes upon the table about drinking. You can talk to your family about this topic because your parents taught you that drinking is okay in moderation, but when there is to be trouble, you take the blame for your actions. As a parent, teaching your kids that alcohol is okay in moderation, will also help teens understand responsibilities while drinking. Lowering the drinking age to 18 will help young teens understand the facts and consequences of binge drinking because they are more likely to listen to what their parents are saying at the dinner table.

We all know the myth that in foreign countries, if you can see over the bar you will be served, which, for the most part, is true. Why is it that Europeans can have this law about drinking when they are younger (some as young as 15) while we have to be 21 to drink? Over in Europe, alcohol is something that parents talk to their kids about and they learn their limit of alcohol intake with their parents. While in the US, alcohol is such a taboo to talk about with your kids, so they don't know what can happen if you do drink too much. In Europe, kids are able to tell their parents they are going to the club and the club owners will make sure that at the end of the night, either a cab is called for the teens or that the parents will be there to escort them home. But here in the US, we have to hide it from our parents and tell them we are going to see a movie, but instead we drink, and then have to drive home while under the influence and try not to get pulled over or crash. Why can't we have that lowered drinking age so that we can tell our parents what we are doing then if it comes to it, we can tell them where we are so that we wont have to hide being drunk from them.

In the United States of America, we are officially declared as adults at the age of 18. Being able to vote, join the military, marry without parental consent, and be prosecuted (some are life and death situations) are few of the many things legal adults are allowed to do. But why are we not allowed to have a couple