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Conflicting norms on parental duties – Can parents party?

We are pleased that our article (Raitasalo, Holmila, & Makela, 2011) on children’s exposure to parental alcohol use evokes discussion and we thank the commentators for their positive and insightful commentaries on our article. The research looking at harms caused by substance use to others has recently received growing interest. Also, the discourse on alcohol’s harmful effects on family has moved from focusing on genetics and psychology towards public health, as is pointed out by Naimi and Nelson (2011). Public health approach is likely to open up new possibilities of actually helping children of substance using parents. The risks on children’s wellbeing caused by parents’ substance use are also situational, linked with inadequate attention and care when parents get intoxicated. In this context, the risks are not necessarily caused by severe addiction, family violence or disruption of family systems, and they can also take place among the so called ‘‘ordinary parents’’ as well as among those suffering from more severe alcohol problems. Room (2011) used the clever term ‘‘designated sober child-minder’’. This term reflects well the Finnish respondents’ thinking when trying to solve the dilemma of conflicting norms. At the same time when the majority of the respondents condemn drinking in the presence of children, it is considered normal to have parties in private homes, and for both genders to drink. Finns may have a notion or ideal of having one sober adult to take care of children. However, in practice it may be more easy to keep the driver sober, or limit drinking to leisure time – both of these successful forms of prevention presuppose heavy systems of control and sanctions and are clearly marked by time and place – than to create a cultural pattern where people would explicitly and voluntarily designate someone who is not allowed to drink in privacy and during leisure hours. Traditionally, though, this actually was the solution to the dilemma. Finnish women used to abstain and to try to keep the home as an alcohol free zone. Thus fathers were free to take a drink without risk of harming their children – provided that drinking was kept under some limits. During the last forty years women’s drinking has increased a lot, and gender equality is considered a very important and positive value in modern Finnish families. Both parents are responsible for child care, and both have their rights of leisure. In many respects this principle is valuable and beneficial, but it does bring about challenges to children’s well-being in situations when alcohol is consumed. As Room wrote, there is an overriding norm that children’s safety has to be guaranteed. Hence, responses to questions about drinking when children are present are heavily morally loaded and they are bound to be influenced by social desirability bias. It seems that when the survey question indicates that children are safe, the real attitudes towards drinking in the presence of children emerge. As was pointed out by both commentators, it may not be enough that there is one adult who is sober and takes care of the children while other adults drink and get intoxicated, as all adults act as role models for children. This pattern may create a picture of drinking as ‘‘normal’’ and abstaining as ‘‘deviant’’ behavior. We agree with Naimi and Nelson that the best result with respect to children’s and youth’s well being would be to change the adult drinking behavior. There are no easy solutions for this, though. The control policies suggested by Naimi and Nelson are needed to restrict the volume of alcohol consumed and the extent of related harm experienced in the society, and this will be beneficial also for the children of those adults whose drinking is curbed down. However, these methods – or any others, for that matter – have not proved very effective with regard to changing drinking patterns or the drinking culture. Hence, a multitude of methods is probably needed. General control policies should be combined with approaches that aim at raising awareness about the potential impacts of drinking in the