[arraxylap]

Is it considered normal for parents to encourage kids to drink at a young age in the DR?
I ask the question because a friend of mine posted pictures of his sons birthday party on facebook. The family were all together at a colmado. The father, mother, son and daughter. It was the sons 12th birthday. His father had a large bottle of Presidente and was sharing it with his son. The mother was drinking in the pictures too.
Is this like a coming of age thing for young kids in the campos?

[refsherne]

The age for drinking in the DR is when the kid can raise enough money for a beer.

[arraxylap]

ahhhh OK SKY. This kid was lucky it was free beer for his birthday plus he got a cake to eat? LOL

[gDGwm8BC]

Legally - 18. I've not noticed too many 12 year olds drinking but mid-teens yes, just like most countries. My parents allowed my brother and I to drink beer at home since we were about 14.
Most Dominicans I know would not be allowing their teenagers to drink, little lone a pre-teen. Now a sip of beer from Dad's glass is hardly the same as drinking.

[ultimda horaf]

My husband's been putting bottles of Presidente in shot with our son and ordering him Brugal in restaurants since he was a baby, as a joke. Maybe that's what they were doing in that photo?

[iodillalm]

My husband's been putting bottles of Presidente in shot with our son and ordering him Brugal in restaurants since he was a baby, as a joke. Maybe that's what they were doing in that photo?

I have people coming into the bar here and ask for i beer and 4 glasses, daddy, mommy brother and sister all have a few sips. 22 ounces 4 ways doesn't go to far.

[pkopwqzsdcvbn]

I think it's all about common sense when it comes to children and alcohol. As a young kid I was served wine, cider and beer by my parents and grandparents. They called it wobbly juice! But I was never allowed to get drunk and it helped me sleep! It's also very much how the French perceive alcohol with their children. I have noticed that some Dominicans do too.

As an adult, I have never made great deal about booze. I can take it or leave it. I enjoy a tipple every now and then. I would call myself a moderate drinker. I hardly ever drink alone. I very rarely get drunk.

Something I noticed when I was a young man in the Air Force, a lot of my fellow recruits would love to get mashed at every opportunity, because they were away from home and they could now drink legally. I met so many alcoholics in my military career.

I intend to treat alcohol the same with my kids. If you don't forbid it, it doesn't become a problem.

[arraxylap]

I never noticed it to be common in the DR when I lived there. The pictures were shocking to me because it certainly was a typical colmado party.

[geraint.faughn]

Mom CB made yummy peach and raisin wine. We got a small goblet of it at the family Easter, T'Giving and Xmas feast...(and I had to monitor and chart the specific gravity while it fermented , one of my household chores...)

[dserbokim]

'Legally: 18. Enforced only if the payoffs are not on time, especially at the major hangouts...

But you can send a 5 year only and money to any colmado for a few "frías" and they will sell them to him/her...after all, it is just a "mandado," right? ...No problema!

Ah, paradise..

HB

[duawLauff]

'Legally: 18. Enforced only if the payoffs are not on time, especially at the major hangouts...

But you can send a 5 year only and money to any colmado for a few "frías" and they will sell them to him/her...after all, it is just a "mandado," right? ...No problema!

Ah, paradise..

HB

Daddy needs his "medicine"!

[Machater]

as a child i often drunk vodka at home celebrations (there was a tradition of celebrating lavishly patron's day). i sat under the table and when the opportunity arose took a shot glas and drank what was left inside, few drops i guess it was just curiosity. then in high school i got totally sloshed about five times a week for two years in a row. those were good days of the youth, never had a hangover! i could share a bottle of vodka with my girlfriend and then go out and party drinking more and more... but then when one is young it is fun to get drunk, fall over and vomit. source of pride, one may say.

now i think i have had my share of alcohol. i rarely drink, three drinks at the most and i already feel kinda blasted. similarily miesposo, his brother and sister hardly ever drink, few glasses of wine at the most or some brugal with ice.

dominicans seem to like their drink but i never see hammered guys sleeping on the sidewalk, pi**ing their pants. and never ever have i seen a s**t-faced young women vomiting on the street, a common sight in london. maybe dominicans can hold their drink better...

all parties i have beed to in DR included alcohol but i never saw kids drinking, not even a sip.

[VitaliyMurnov]

Drinking is just not a big deal in The DR. Kids don't feel the pressure to get hammered whenever they can get a hold of it as in The US, because they can just buy some any time they want if they have the money. Another thing I've noticed is that when American "kids" drink their main focus is the alcohol and so get completely hammered vs. The Dominicans of the same age are normally doing it, but at the same time checking out the girls, trying to pick them up, etc...so the focus is normally not the alcohol as a result you don't see the same level of drunkenness.

[JohnTruels]

Drinking is just not a big deal in The DR. Kids don't feel the pressure to get hammered whenever they can get a hold of it as in The US, because they can just buy some any time they want if they have the money. Another thing I've noticed is that when American "kids" drink their main focus is the alcohol and so get completely hammered vs. The Dominicans of the same age are normally doing it, but at the same time checking out the girls, trying to pick them up, etc...so the focus is normally not the alcohol as a result you don't see the same level of drunkenness.

100% agree. It is the same in Belgium. As it is readily available, the kids do not feel the need to consume as much of it as possible, in the shortest possible time. When I lived in the States, as a student, it always amazed me how my fellow-students felt the need to get drunk as quick as possible.

Which does not mean it never happens in Belgium...

BelgianK

[Machater]

maybe domican teenagers are more into sex than alcohol

[gDGwm8BC]

maybe domican teenagers are more into sex than alcohol

Liquid panty remover.

[Machater]

in DR you do not need to rub much to have a girl jump out of her panties

[arraxylap]

So it is the same with kids as adults there. Drinking is OK but getting totally sh*^faced is not.
Truthfully, it is the opposite in the US. Many kids and adults drink till they puke or pass out whichever comes first.

[Pypeassesty]

My Dad would beat the *(+ out of me if he caught me drinking beer on a colmado when I was 16-17. But he would let me have one sip of his whiskey glass at home.

[AricGoffgog]

Well Dionysus, god of Wine, is reputed to have gone mad on adulthood! does this point to too much wine in childhood or too little.
STORIES OF DIONYSUS 2 : Greek mythology

Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 2. 29 (trans. Aldrich) (Greek mythographer C2nd A.D.) :
"Hermes took him [the infant Dionysos] to the Nymphai of Asian Nysa . . . [in his youth] Dionysos was the discoverer of the grapevine. After Hera inflicted madness upon him, he wandered over Aigyptos (Egypt) and Syria [introducing the vine]."
Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4. 2. 3 (trans. Oldfather) (Greek historian C1st B.C.) :
"After he [Dionysos] had received his rearing by the Nymphai in Nysa, they say, he made the discovery of wine and taught mankind how to cultivate the vine."
Oppian, Cynegetica 4. 230 (trans. Mair) (Greek poet C3rd A.D.) :
"When Dionysos was now come to boyhood, he played with the other children; he would cut a fennel stalk and smite the hard rocks, and from their wounds they poured for the god sweet liquor."
Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 130 (trans. Grant) (Roman mythographer C2nd A.D.) :
"Father Liber [Dionysos] went out to visit men in order to demonstrate the sweetness and pleasantness of his fruit . . . he gave a skin full of wine as a gift and bade them spread the use of it in all the other lands."
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 12. 330 ff (trans. Rouse) (Greek epic C5th A.D.) :
"When Bakkhos saw the [wild] grapes with a bellyful of red juice, he bethought him of an oracle which prophetic Rheia had spoken long ago. He dug into the rock, he hollowed out a pit in the stone with the sharp prongs of his earth-burrowing pick, he smoothed the sides of the deepening hold and made an excavation like a winepress [and made the first ever batch of wine]."

Of course he made the first batch of wine; every schoolboy knows that!


pi2