Thanks to the Journal Sentinel series Wasted in Wisconsin, I think a lot of necessary attention is being turned to drunk driving.

I’m highly aware of alcohol issues because I work for IMPACT.  We assess convicted drunk drivers to determine if they have major alcohol problems; and if they do, we connect them with treatment.  If they don’t – which surprisingly, is about 50% of the people convicted of DUI – we connect them to education with the hopes of preventing future offenses.  We do similar assessments and referrals that are free for people who think they might have a problem, or know someone who has a problem with drinking or drugs.  We also run a substance abuse prevention program for elementary through high school kids.

All that to say, that in the nine years I've been working for IMPACT, my awareness about drinking has grown by leaps and bounds; and it really should have, since I write grant requests for a lot of what we do.

Leave it to GG to show me how little I know: 60 Minutes aired a story about a movement to bring the drinking age BACK DOWN TO 18.  Hmmmm.  They highlighted the sad story of a college student who, along with his fraternity brothers were binge drinking.  He passed out and his friends couldn’t wake him up, so they moved him to the library steps where he was found unresponsive.  He was never revived.  It was heartbreaking -- and it is heartbreaking, because stories like this are all too common.

I didn’t know that GG was paying any attention because all the while she was drawing on her doodle board; but a few minutes into the story, she showed me a picture that she had drawn about the student, saying that he shouldn’t have had “all those cups of beer.”  I knew this was a “teachable moment,” but I wasn’t sure what to say.  I mean, really, her dad and I have a beer or glass or wine here and there, so I didn’t tell her that drinking is altogether wrong; instead we talked about choices…and how having too much of anything is never healthy or safe.  Then I told her to think about the choices that the student and his friends should have made, and to draw a picture about those choices.  She didn’t let me down: one scene was of the boy smiling with his friends because they called 9-1-1 to help him, and another scene was about him at the party having fun because he didn't drink “too many cups of beer.”

TALK BACK:  Do you talk to your kids about alcohol and/or drugs?  What are some of the things that you tell them?  Do you think the drinking age should be rolled back to 18?

Years ago -- somewhere in my early twenties -- my friends and I would make the annual pilgrimage to Summerfest six out of the festival's eleven days.  Essential to our annual ritual was scrambling around to get our "Summerfest Outfits" in the days before we went.  When we finally made it to the festival, the first order of business was snagging the all-important picnic table and then going to the ladies room in rotation throughout the day so we could keep it.  After all, our table would be our dance floor up until closing time.  After dancing the night away, we'd hear the closing announcement boom over the loudspeakers, and head over to Ma Fischer's for late dinner or early breakfast, depending on what we ordered.

Not so much anymore.  Now it's Summerfest A.K. (After Kids)

This year, I didn't go with a bunch of giggling boy-crazy twenty-somethings who were going just to dance and work it out to whatever band was playing wherever a picnic table could be found.  No, I was among a group of parents who, collectively, have six small children.  Now, instead of scrambling around for the Summerfest Outfit the day before, I was scrambling to make sure that I packed everything GG would need for her sleepover at her Godmother's house.  And snagging a picnic table?  We wanted --no, we needed -- a concert where we could sit, so we opted for the Steve Miller show at the Ampitheater. (Okay, maybe we'd stand for the rockin' tunes as long as it wouldn't morph into one of those twenty-minute jam sessions)   And even though we had a few hours before the concert, there was a quiet understanding among us that hunkering down at a picnic table probably meant not moving once it was time for the concert to start.  So we found it best to keep walking...albeit at a slow pace.  This was Summerfest A.K. ...and it also afforded something that had been unheard of in my early twenties:  Eating!  We all ditched our diets and consumed everything from pork and beef on a stick to mini-bratwurst corndogs to haystack onion rings.  Honestly, I don't remember ever eating at Summerfest back in the "Outfit Days."  That's what Ma Fischer's was for.

The concert ended early enough for us to catch one of the "new groups" at the Briggs & Stratton Big Backyard to complete our Summerfest A.K. experience.  I think we went to prove our "coolness," -- that this A.K. business hadn't gotten the best of us, and so we caught the ending of a rap group's set.  After listening, I found out just how cool I'm not, because I like clean rap -- and what we heard was not clean.  (And here I was thinking that I was being a totally rebellious teen when I rocked out to the Clash's "Straight to Hell" during my high school days)  While the profanity-laced riffs were disturbing, it wasn't as disturbing to me as this girl who was 17 -- at most - totally into it, dancing gleefully on a picnic table.  My husband heard what I heard and saw what I saw, and gave me that deer-in-the-headlights look; and I then realized that we had both flashed forward to GG in about ten years:  What is music going to be like by that time?  Are we going to be the dorky parents who "just don't get it?"  And how long will she want us to hang out with her, because heaven knows she can't be dancing on Summerfest picnic tables without us there to protect her from all the Summerfest guys who are there to pick up girls!  

There's this wonderful commercial that says "A baby changes everything."  Well, they do.  The Summerfest experience isn't about The Outfit or hanging around until closing anymore.  And now, it's certainly about more than "date night" for me.  This A.K. experience made me think about the long-lasting impact that we will have as parents on our daughter's life, and it awakened a resolve within myself to:

• Have continual dialogue with GG about self-esteem, peer pressure, alcohol use and all of those things that can cause our kids to get sidelined
• Teach GG to listen to the lyrics of whatever music she chooses with a critical ear, and to learn about what those lyrics really mean

and just as importantly,

• Recapture my own sense of fun, and not obsess or get too uptight about the years ahead.

After all, I know that Summerfest will still be there in ten years with a new crop of kids dancing on tables, GG included.  I also know that if Jamie and I continue instilling the right messages in GG's heart throughout the precious growing years that we have with her now, she'll be okay then.  And in about ten years after her Summerfest Outfit days are over, GG will get married, have kids....and be just as worried about them too....especially after she experiences her own Summerfest A.K.