In the News

Pioneer Press, January 11, 2007

Parents need to be held responsible when they knowingly allow or condone an underage drinking party in their home. We applaud Deerfield's Mayor Steve Harris and state Sen. Susan Garrett, D- 29th, of Lake Forest, for supporting tougher legislation on parental responsibility and desiring to send a message to all parents in the north suburbs that they need stop pretending it is OK for teens to drink at home.

Parental responsibility laws are designed to make clear to parents it is their responsibility to monitor parties at their home to make sure alcohol is not being consumed by minors.

If that requires checking every guest as they enter or leave the party, making periodic sweeps of the party, or some other measure of control, then that is what is necessary. It's called being a parent.

The laws are necessary to counter the widespread myth that drinking is a rite of passage and that if teenagers are going to drink, they are safer doing it at home.

As has tragically been demonstrated again and again, this premise is false and dangerous.

According to police officials, when Deerfield and other communities enacted Public Nuisance Assemblage ordinances to hold parents responsible for activities at their homes, the numbers of loud teenage parties decreased.

Tougher parental responsibility would encourage parents to take this matter seriously. Study after study has shown that parents wield the greatest influence on their children. According to one study, teens are more than 50 percent less likely to abuse alcohol, and 35 percent less likely to do drugs, if they have learned about these things from their parents.

As one parent expressed recently in a letter to the editor, "It's not OK that kids drink and use drugs, and just as importantly, it's not OK that any parent in our community does not feel a sense of responsibility for all of the children of our community."

Parental responsibility laws are not about punishing innocent parents or finding scapegoats to blame after a tragedy. And the teenagers who engage in underage drinking need to be accountable, too.

But such laws are unfortunately necessary to get some parents to act responsibly when it concerns their children and drinking.