For generations, alcohol has occupied a strange, almost sacred place in Australian culture. It marks celebrations, lubricates social gatherings, and — whether we admit it or not — often serves as a rite of passage into adulthood. A sip of beer at a barbecue. A watered-down wine at Christmas. A quiet wink from an uncle: “You’ll be right.”

Yet we now live in an era where health authorities say something confronting and unequivocal: no level of alcohol consumption is safe.

So the uncomfortable question for modern parents becomes unavoidable: If we’re being told alcohol is harmful at any dose, do we really want our kids drinking it at all?

The message has changed — but the culture hasn’t

For decades, public health messaging focused on moderation. Drink responsibly. Know your limits. Have alcohol-free days. The implication was clear: alcohol was risky in excess, but acceptable — even beneficial — in small amounts.

That message has shifted dramatically.

Today, health authorities emphasise that alcohol is a Group 1 carcinogen, linked to cancers of the breast, bowel, liver, mouth and throat. The latest guidance suggests that even small amounts increase risk. There is no longer a “safe” threshold — only varying degrees of harm.

And yet, Australian households still host birthday parties stocked with drinks esky-deep. Teenagers still see alcohol as the social currency of maturity. Sporting clubs, festivals and family events still revolve around it.

Parents are caught in the middle — intellectually convinced by the science, emotionally anchored to the culture.

The parental contradiction

Many parents find themselves saying two things at once:

• “I don’t want my child drinking.”

• “I drank when I was their age and turned out fine.”

This contradiction sits at the heart of the debate.

On one hand, parents want to protect developing brains, mental health, and long-term wellbeing. On the other, they fear being unrealistic, authoritarian, or disconnected from the social realities their children face.

Some parents choose controlled exposure: supervised drinks at home, hoping to demystify alcohol and reduce binge behaviour later. Others adopt strict abstinence rules, believing any early exposure normalises a harmful habit.

Both approaches are driven by concern — but neither fully resolves the tension between science and society.

What alcohol does to young brains

Unlike adults, adolescents’ brains are still developing — particularly the prefrontal cortex, which governs decision-making, impulse control and emotional regulation.

Alcohol interferes with this process. Research consistently links early drinking with:

• higher risk of dependence later in life

• increased anxiety and depression

• poorer academic outcomes

• higher likelihood of risky behaviours

This isn’t moral panic; it’s biology. The younger the brain, the greater the vulnerability.

When authorities say “no amount is safe,” this warning carries extra weight for children and teenagers.

Normalisation is powerful — and subtle

One of the strongest predictors of whether a child drinks is not peer pressure — it’s parental modelling.

Children absorb what adults do more than what they say. When alcohol is present at every celebration, when stress is routinely “taken the edge off” with a drink, when jokes revolve around needing wine to survive the week — alcohol becomes framed as necessary.

Parents might insist, “It’s different for adults,” but children don’t interpret behaviour through policy nuance. They interpret it through repetition.

Normalisation doesn’t require excess. It only requires consistency.

The fear of exclusion

One of the strongest arguments parents raise in defence of teenage drinking is social inclusion.

“No one wants their kid to be the odd one out.”

It’s a fair concern. Adolescence is a time when belonging feels existential. Parents worry that strict rules may isolate their children, or push drinking underground — into unsupervised spaces where risks escalate.

But this raises a deeper question: are we protecting children from harm, or protecting them from discomfort?

Social norms change only when enough people resist them. Once, smoking was inseparable from social life. Today, most parents would never accept a cigarette as a rite of passage.

Alcohol may be on a similar trajectory — but we’re still mid-transition.

The myth of “teaching them to drink responsibly”

Many parents believe that early exposure teaches moderation. The logic is intuitive: familiarity reduces curiosity, secrecy breeds excess.

Yet evidence for this approach is mixed at best. In many cases, early supervised drinking correlates with earlier and heavier drinking later, not less.

What actually teaches restraint is not exposure, but clear boundaries combined with honest conversation.

Children who understand why limits exist — and who trust their parents to discuss risk without hysteria — are better equipped to navigate peer pressure than those given vague permission without context.

Are we asking the wrong question?

Perhaps the real question isn’t whether kids should drink — but why alcohol remains such a central pillar of social life that abstaining feels radical.

If no level of alcohol is safe, then the burden shouldn’t fall solely on teenagers to navigate that contradiction. It should fall on adults to rethink what we normalise, celebrate and excuse.

Do we really want our children inheriting a culture where harm is accepted because it’s familiar?

Or are we willing to model something harder, but healthier: enjoyment without intoxication, connection without chemical crutches, and adulthood without compulsory drinking?

A quieter shift is already happening

Interestingly, many young people are already re-evaluating alcohol. Rates of teenage drinking have declined over the past two decades. Alcohol-free beverages are booming. “Sober curious” is no longer fringe.

This suggests that the next generation may be more receptive to honest conversations than we assume — provided adults don’t undermine them with mixed signals.

The uncomfortable conclusion

If we accept the science — that no amount of alcohol is safe — then allowing or encouraging children to drink becomes difficult to justify.

That doesn’t mean parents must be punitive, puritanical or naive. But it does mean acknowledging that normalising a harmful substance because it’s culturally convenient is a choice, not an inevitability.

The hardest part of parenting has always been this: choosing long-term wellbeing over short-term ease.

So perhaps the better question isn’t “Will my child drink anyway?”
But rather:

“What values am I modelling when I decide how seriously to take what we now know?”

That answer — more than any rule — is what children will carry with them into adulthood.