Drinking more
Although being a wine mom doesn't necessarily mean one has a drinking problem, the cultural phenomenon has taken off at a time in which alcohol use has spiked among women.
A recent study in JAMA Psychiatry found that between 2002 and 2013, "high-risk drinking," defined as consuming four or more drinks a day, rose among women by 58%, compared with a 29.9% rise for the general population.
"Problem drinking," or drinking so much that it causes significant problems in your life and/or the inability to stop drinking, rose by 83.7% among women during this period, says the study, compared with a 50% rise in the general population.
Though there is no research looking at how much the wine mom phenomenon has contributed to the change in drinking habits, experts believe there is a connection.
"Moms drinking alcohol used to be taboo," said Emily Feinstein, director of health law and policy at the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. "Now, we have more women acknowledging that being a mother is hard work, which is a good thing, and they need a drink at the end of their workday."
There's nothing wrong with having a glass of wine at night, Feinstein added, but she cautioned that it should be done after the kids go to sleep, and they shouldn't be told about it. "If they see you are drinking to deal with stress, then they learn that is how they should deal with stress."
Having more than a glass of wine on a regular basis, as more and more women are doing, is a different story and can lead to addiction as well as a host of health problems. According to Feinstein, women metabolize alcohol less efficiently than men and as a result get intoxicated faster and have worse hangovers. They're also more likely than men to suffer health consequences from drinking, including liver, brain and heart damage.
Britni de la Cretaz, a recovering alcoholic who became a mother when she was three years sober, found the ubiquity of alcohol among moms alienating.
"Even as someone who was really secure in my sobriety, I found I couldn't relate to other moms. There was always this wink and a nod about how you have to have that glass of wine," she said. "I don't think there is anything wrong with drinking; what concerns me is the message being sent to women that the only way they can get through parenting is by drinking."
There are, of course, many moms who drink wine who aren't following the wine mom script. These are the women who drink to have fun and don't view alcohol consumption through the prism of motherhood. For them, having a drink isn't about numbing themselves from the pain caused by demanding children or resisting the perfect moms. Instead, it's about taking time to check in with their non-mom selves.
Laura Beatrix Newmark, a mother of two in New York, said that when she was on maternity leave, she would sometimes meet friends at a bar during the day. Her infant would sleep, and she would "nurse a glass of rosé."
"It was really about me showing myself that I was still the same person after I had kids," Newmark said.
A woman, who happens to be a mom, having a glass of wine -- that's nobody's business but her own. It's the wine mom that has got to go.
Whether she drinks for release, rebellion or both, that glass of wine is still tethered to all the sacrifice she makes as a mother, a sacrifice the wine might make her too willing to accept.
Here's to raising a glass to birthday parties planned by dads; to workplaces that don't look down on employees who have to leave by 6; to quality and affordable child care spread far and wide across the land. Here's to moms permitting themselves to exit stage left from motherhood now and then, and feel liberated to pursue pleasure for pleasure's sake, through a glass or wine or whatever else their unburdened hearts might desire.
Refrence :
(1 )http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/01/health/wine-moms-strauss/index.html
(2 )Being a heavy-drinking 'bad mom' is more worrisome than funny-By Elissa Strauss, CNN
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