HEADLINE:  70 teens ticketed for MIP at party    DATELINE:  Any Saturday night in America

Another one of these hit the news media this past week in our fair city.  For toppers, an upset mother made headlines by accusing the police of intimidation for telling all 70 kids they caught they had to take a breathalyzer test or go to jail.  The irate mother stated that that is a bold-faced lie, and that the police officers involved therefor used coercion in order to attempt to persuade her son into taking the test.  Little Johnny apparently held his ground and was one of three who refused to take the test, which didn’t set we’ll with the men in blue, and they got all testy I guess and handcuffed the three rabble-rousers.  Apparently this was an indignity Mom was not willing to let Johnny suffer through in silence, and thus decided to voice her displeasure via the news media and letters of complaint to any city official she thought worthy of a postage stamp.  She magnanimously admitted it was acceptable for the police to lecture the kids, but declared boundaries were exceeded when they corralled the entire reveling group of 70 in the basement of the home and got all pushy with the breathalyzer instruction.  Only a public apology from the police and mayor’s departments will appease her vexation.  Now I don’t profess to know what is true here, or whether Mom has her facts straight.  However, you would have to guess she is familiar with the law as it applies in such a situation.  After all, Johnny seemed to be well tutored in the proper way to handle himself should this very circumstance arise, and from all reports publicly available you would have to guess the person doing the tutoring was dear old Mom. It could be said, however, that perhaps Johnny needs a bit more tutoring in practical math- permutations and probability would be a good start.  Not sure how well Johnny will be doing on his SAT’s if he’s figuring 70 teenagers in one house won’t set off some very high-flying red flags of alarm in the neighborhood.

If you ask me the person really in need of a lecture and tutoring is this mother.  Mom, while Johnny is living at home, you should probably have better awareness of teenage drinking.  It’s part of your responsibly.  If you pay attention and give the kid some solid advice about drinking, maybe when he goes off to college or is otherwise living more independently and out of reach of your over-protective nature, he will be able to know how to extract himself from dangerous social behavior.   Not much is different now than 20 years ago when my two kids were going to high school. Dads and moms all over the country still choose to ignore the prevalence of underage drinking.  “Bad choices” seems to be a favorite term used to gloss over the problem.  The fact is these bad choices teens make are often times so ridiculously stupid any parent cognizant of their child’s activity and swirling peer conversation might easily suspect their upcoming Saturday evening’s agenda involves a smorgasbord of bad choices.  My wife and I pulled one of our teen aged children out of one of these drinking free for alls, and if we suspected alcohol was involved in their week end socializing we sat them down when they got home and performed our own breathalyzing and sobriety testing routine with the very accurate instruments God supplied us with on our faces.  Mom, your confrontation should be with your son, not the police.  Be prepared for push back and know how to handle it.  Grow some balls before one of the “bad choices” your son makes ends up being of the tragically ultimate type.