Day 154: AF teenage parent

My eldest daughter is thirteen and will be fourteen this year. She will probably in a year or so try alcohol for the first time. Even it it will not be simple the time ahead will definitely be simpler being AF. I'm talking about my own first experiences with alcohol here.
1) As sober dad she can always call me if she’s in a tight spot. I’m thinking about all parents risking either to drive drunk or letting their teenagers try to get home by themselves every weekend. If something happened to my daughter because I was too drunk to get her home safely I would have a hard time forgiving myself. And this is something almost every parent risk every weekend.
2) The discussion about alcohol will be much easier to have if I do not drink myself. Teenagers can smell double standards a long way. If I tell my daughter that alcohol is bad for her while still drinking my story will not be coherent. Kids do not do what you say - but what you do.
3) Even if some memories of me being drunk in front of my daughter pains me, I still prefer to have been drinking and then stopping than never have been drinking at all. My own mother almost never drank and her warnings about alcohol weighed very lightly since I didn’t think she knew what she was talking about. My daughter knows that I know what I’m talking about and likes how I have changed going AF.
4) Being AF means being present which also is needed when observing those breadcrumbs of information my daughter is giving me about how she feels and what she’s talking about with her friends. I’ve already managed to piece together a bunch of things from really small pieces of information she’s given: it’s like my secret weapon to stay ahead of her and knowing what she’s going to ask for next and what to respond when the question comes.
AF teenage parent FTW!

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