39 karma · joined June 28, 2018
The minimum purchasing/public drinking age is 18 (other than a single pint with a meal), but there's no practical restriction on parents letting their kids drink in private. My parents encouraged me once I was around 16 to join in with the adults whilst they had drinks. This led to me getting silly drunk a couple of times but with proper supervision. Same thing with going to some college house parties with 6th form friends - their parents knew that at the end of the night all the kids we're being picked up by their family.
The problem is if parents don't consider this and just ban drinking for kids up until they leave the house and aren't under their control any more. That's what causes people to go out of control at Uni since it might be literally their first experience with alcohol, or at least more than "1 glass with a meal" etc.
Neither way is more superior than the other, and both should be accepted as just preferences and not forced one way or another.
Of course, this is my experience of cruises around Europe, where there's a lot of interesting ports clustered closely together. The experience is probably pretty different otherwise.
This is essentially going to let Google gatekeep the web if you aren't using their services.
Additionally, I know this is UK and not US, but it does bring up other factors that economic factors can have on kid's performance: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/socio-economic-influences...