Aged 16, with the creamy, peach-skin face of a child, wearing my mum’s work skirt and a pair of navy court shoes, I sat, smiling serenely, without my parents, in the Oxford branch of an Italian restaurant chain and ordered an Irish coffee. All to myself. It was, at that point in my life, the most sophisticated thing I had ever done; staring out at the accountants and lecturers hustling up George Street in the rain, listening to the gentle strains of classical guitar as it pumped out of a speaker hidden behind some nylon flowers, stirring the creamy foam with one of those inordinately long spoons the 1990s specialised in. I distinctly remember thinking; now this is living. And it really was.
In point of fact, the Irish coffee incident wasn’t my first underage encounter with alcohol. My mum had breezily watched me, aged six, down at least one entire mini-bottle of Babycham at the kitchen table, convinced as she was by the Bambi illustration down the side that it was not just alcohol-free, but specifically designed to distract mine-sweeping children like me from going around adult parties trying to finish absolutely anything clear and sticky I found in a glass. It was decoy booze, she apparently told her friends, looking at me indulgently. Until I slid dramatically from my chair on to the floor and, woozily, asked why all the pictures were spinning round.
I can’t remember it of course, but it strikes me now as an absolutely brilliant laugh and – a hackneyed phrase, but it seems appropriate here – it did me no harm. My mother – a teetotaller of well over 30 years – knew no better, and I imagine that I threw up the booze almost immediately.
Harm, however, is not always easily spotted. According to research from University College London and Pennsylvania State University, one in six parents give their children alcohol by the age of 14, when their body and brain are not yet fully developed. It’s the not fully developed bit that, surely, is the kicker. Any substance that alters the chemistry of the brain – whether it’s alcohol, caffeine or the sort of bought-off-a-white-guy-wearing-crocs-and-a-Burning-Spear-T-shirt hash that my pre-adolescent cohort went in for – can, and probably will, have a lasting effect on your brain development.
According to Drinkaware, drinking alcohol as a young person can affect memory function, reactions, learning ability, attention span, mental health, your chances of having serious accidents, disturbed sleep and liver damage – all of which will almost certainly impinge, to some extent, on your ability to function at school and in later life. Of course, like most middle-class white children growing up in Britain, I drank like someone facing the apocalypse during my teenage years – that heady space between feeling like a child and looking enough like an adult to get into pubs.
Our house parties and park hangouts featured more spirits than a seance but – and this is the important bit – only what we could buy and afford. It was, mercifully, still quite hard for 16- and 17-year-olds to buy and then digest enough hard liquor to do themselves serious harm. Inevitably our gag reflex would kick in and the whole £7.99 concoction of vodka, juice, Doritos and Amber Leaf flecks would come hurtling out into the nearest bin. And we only did that once a month. And we were not, crucially, 13.
Of course, the European idea of introducing your offspring to alcohol at home, as an accompaniment to a fine dinner in the company of responsible adults, is extremely attractive – especially as the festive season looms like a juggernaut of brandy and frayed family nerves.
But let’s remember just how young a 13-year-old really is. They may have never learned about Hitler, may be unable to cook pasta, may be entirely unaware of the very existence of Indonesia or know how to turn on a washing machine. They can’t join Facebook or buy matches, and still qualify as a child on public transport. Just three years before they were at primary school.
So, while I may laugh off my early encounters with booze – and while I may think longingly of all those gin-soaked dummies and whisky-rubbed gums as my month-old baby cries in the middle of the night – it also seems fairly obvious that alcohol, like sex, bank accounts and social media, is something best enjoyed when you have the life experience to truly navigate and appreciate it. And if by 13 or 14 your child has become so hard-bitten and cynical with life that regular drinking is the only way they can think to get their kicks then, perhaps, there is something more fundamental at question.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a table for one booked at a popular high street Italian restaurant.
• Nell Frizzell is a freelance journalist
