Welcome to the Water Bar

The other day I was in my basement exercising while my kids were upstairs making noise and jumping around, from what I could hear, but overall playing nicely together. I also heard repeated singing of songs from the soundtrack of a musical we recently watched that they loved (and had re-watched many times). 

When I emerged from the basement, my son immediately ran up to me to ask “Do you want to come to our water bar?!” 

I asked, “What is a water bar?” He replied, “It is like in the movie we watched when they were dancing around and drinking---what is it called?”

“Whisk?” my daughter chimes in. She is 4.5 years old.

“Whiskey?” I say. My son, who is 8, says, “Yes! That and how they danced around the bar and sang! We made our own bar but with water!”.

I assessed their set up, and to their credit, it was very similar--3 oz. paper bathroom cups for the shot glasses, a large water bottle filled with water for the whiskey, their small sized kid table acting as the “bar” with their tiny chairs pulled up to it like bar stools. 

I thought to myself as I held my face in a neutral expression, “Ok, drug and alcohol prevention lady, your next step is…?”. Then the “The More You Know” banner and stars flashed before me, accompanied by the theme song, and I knew it was a teachable moment. 

For some context, this movie was set in the late 1800’s, and in this scene two men are in an empty bar discussing a business deal. They are taking shots of whiskey in time to the song and as part of the musical number in combination with dancing. The bar is dark, wood paneled, and has the requisite handlebar mustached barkeep. There is a little Cocktail-era trickery with the bottle and slamming down of glasses for effect. But, just for fun, I went back and counted the number of drinks and found the two men down seven rounds of whiskey shots...in just under four minutes--and an extra one midsong for only one of the gentlemen. Also, please note this was a musical rated PG and is made by the most trusted family studio in existence. I did watch it for the first time with my kids and made comments about how I did not like how they were using alcohol in the film, and in that specific scene making it the focus, but overall it was a good story and admittedly has great music and actors. 

So I asked my kids, “Hey, do you know what whiskey is and what they are drinking?” (Sidenote: we don’t drink whiskey. We don’t consume or keep any hard liquor in our home, though my son mentioned seeing a Jack Daniels box in the basement holding my husband's records during this conversation...so there’s that.) 

They respond that they know it is alcohol and we talked about how alcohol is a drug and it affects how you feel and move, and that you have to be over 21 years old to consume it.  I also asked, “What do you think this movie makes it look like to drink like that?” They responded “fun”, “cool” and “exciting”. I then went on to explain that if that was real life what we would actually see is people getting very sick, maybe throwing up, maybe not being able to walk, definitely not able to dance a choreographed number on a bar and play piano. I explained that too much of anything is usually not good--even the water they were using to mock up this scene--that too much alcohol can lead to alcohol poisoning, which can lead to going to the hospital and even a person could die from drinking too much. Lastly, I tried to explain that oftentimes what we see in movies and on shows we watch isn’t like real life. Even though the two characters here seemed fine (after participating in what would qualify as a binge drinking episode), that isn’t real life, and there are influences all around us that make certain things or behaviors appear more glamorous and fun than they are in reality. 

One thing I do want to share is that this whole exchange was brief, casual, and age-appropriate. And my kids still love that movie and ask to listen to the soundtrack almost daily. My own “The More You Know” moment here was that influences are all around our kids (and us) all the time, through many different communication channels--tv shows, movies, music, posts on social media, and even free storage boxes in the basement. As parents it is our job to start and keep these conversations open and continuous so we can reinforce how life really is, compared to what is portrayed in the media. 

Now that summer is officially here, we will likely see and hear more references of cold summer alcoholic beverages--during ad breaks between innings, sponsoring music festivals and concerts, in memes on social media, and on the radio between songs. All the more reason to mention it in passing and talk about it with your kids. Because if I learned anything from my visit to the Water Bar, it is that even the most seemingly benign or innocent things can have a big impact.