Parents who drink are selfish, my boozy dad taught me that

ME, AGED 11, in my narrow divan. It’s 11pm and I can’t sleep. Not until I hear the crunch of my dad’s car on the gravel, which means he has made it home safe from The Wheatsheaf. I’d been praying, hands clasped, for him not to crash. Only when lights streak the ceiling can I unclasp; my palms are wet.

I doubt my dad had an inkling one of his children was worried he was a drink-driver. It probably never crossed his mind that I could smell alcohol during a kiss goodnight. Or dread Sunday lunch because, back from the pub, anything would send him over the edge.

When you have a parent who drinks even moderately, it’s not just the worry about car crashes and liver disease: you worry the mood will change.

My mum never drank more than a thimble of Harveys Bristol Cream but my family was awash with alcohol. Brothers returning home late, vomiting on pillows. A sister, asleep in t he afternoon on t he sofa. Another sister, who returned with her family from a few years in the Middle East a changed person: giggling one moment, tears the next.

The shock when, before my dad’s funeral, I noticed my sister- in- law couldn’t get food from fork to mouth: it kept spill- ing down her front. She was a graduate, a teacher, wife and mum who had everything. But she lost it all, along with her life, because of alcohol. I think the reason there were so many tears at my niece’s wedding last weekend was that the only thing missing was her mum.

And so I wonder about parents who are up in arms at the latest findings that even moderate drinking can leave children feeling anxious, and that a tipsy parent is never a good role model.

How can a glass of decent red possibly harm them? And anyway, don’t we deserve the chance to relax of an evening?

The reason this news has come as a shock is that parents these days don’t even see their drinking as a problem. It’s their right. They came of age in an era when we are supposed to have it all. No one will countenance hardship of any kind: not a moment of hunger or thirst.

Drinking is now no longer a treat and not even, as in my dad’s time, something that goes on in a pub. Modern-day drinking goes hand- in- hand with spoiling ourselves: we can have chicken and salmon every night, so why not a bottle of vino? We are entitled to relax. Have some ME time.

DRINKING by mums has even become a joke: all those broadsheet features about looking forward to Wine O’Clock. My God, there is even a jokey bestseller – Why Mummy Drinks – following on from the hit parenting blog and spin-off book Hurrah For Gin.

Unfortunately, the damage caused by a parent who drinks by habit never really hits home when it comes to them heeding public health warnings. We all think we are immune, different.

Well, perhaps the image of my nieces getting home f rom school to find their mum unconscious, surrounded by empty bottles, will be more persuasive than all those ‘ nanny state’ directives. After their mum died, they had to sift through her awful flat, arrange her funeral. Now, they have to bring up their children without a gran. As if that wasn’t hard enough, I imagine the spectre of alcohol sits on their shoulders like a demonic parrot.

What’s your excuse? That you need that little hit at the end of the day? My sister-in-law only started to drink in earnest after a gas explosion meant they lost their house. My sister who used to party (it was the 1960s, after all), grew up, got married, had two boys. Then, her son died aged 21 from leukaemia. And so she started to drink, just to get through the day. It was the only thing she could think of.

There is economic hardship, too; my dad could always afford the pub, whereas come Friday we’d run out of food. Who knew what worries plagued him? Post-traumatic stress from the war? He never mentioned it. I can hear his voice now, every night at 6pm: ‘Bar’s open!’

I’ve only just realised that perhaps I didn’t have children because I didn’t want to pass on my failings. As a parent, surely your needs no longer apply, but everyone these days has forgotten the word ‘sacrifice’; we’re all too selfish. And there’s no point waiting till the kids are in bed, or hiding that glass behind the salad bowl as you make dinner. Children always know.

Turn over their little paws come Wine O’Clock, and don’t be surprised if they are wet.