Parents Are Drinking Regularly Around Their Kids—Does It Matter?

Key Takeaways

• Postpartum drinking can lead to alcohol-use disorders, drunk-driving arrests, and alcohol-related deaths.
• Having one or two drinks is not an issue, but bear in mind that research suggests that kids are aware of and are influenced by parents’ alcohol habits.
• To maintain a healthy relationship with alcohol, parents should assess their risk for addiction and moderate the amount they drink.

Following the birth of my son, a few not-so-wonderful things happened to my routine. There was a lot less exercising going on, for one thing. A lot less brushing my teeth and showering at normal times of day, for another. Also, sadly, less sex.

What there seemed to be more of, though, was drinking. Once, when my son was about 4 months old, I went to watch a matinee movie with a mom friend and her baby. We chose a fancy theater that served nibbles and cocktails. The movie was meh, but the drinks were delicious. My friend downed an Aperol Spritz, and by the time the credits rolled, I had almost polished off a second pint of stout.

It was barely past two in the afternoon, I should add. On a Tuesday.

In those harried first months of parenting, I drank a glass or two of wine most days of the week, often starting before the sun went down. As it turns out, I wasn’t drinking alone. In a survey Parents conducted back in 2018, we asked more than 1,600 moms about their alcohol habits, 78% said they drink at least one adult beverage a week. One in three admitted to consuming four or more drinks per week. The sip of choice? “Wine all the way,” said more than half of the moms. So far, no big deal.

But what happens when diving into a bottle at 6 p.m. starts to feel more like a reflex than a choice? Our 2018 survey showed some clear trends:

• About half of the respondents said they consume less alcohol since becoming moms
• 39% said they imbibe rarely or never
• 48% said they’ve tried to curb their drinking
• One in three admitted they’ve thought they might be drinking too much
• 12% said they’ve worried they might have a dependency problem
• 52% said they drink regularly with their children around
• 47% have been drunk or tipsy in front of their children

I know what it’s like to be the kid in those scenarios. My mom was a nightly wine drinker. A cheerful one, tipsy more often than sloshed. But from an early age, I noticed the change when she drank. She was organized, composed, and maybe a little too tightly wound by day. Into her fourth glass of Burgundy, she came loose.

In our survey, 77% of moms said their drinking doesn’t affect how they are as parents. Could that be true? Is parenting with a buzz really no big deal? Or are we kidding ourselves?

It’s (Kind of) Funny

April Storey is a mother of two from Redding, California, with a passion for fitness and wine. Years ago, she became a viral sensation when she posted a “wine workout” on Facebook. In the video, she performs push-ups with a glass underneath her. With each rep, she lowers herself to sip through a straw—a flourish, she tells me, that’s pure comedy: “I don’t actually drink when I work out.” But Storey’s post struck a chord, garnering more than 22 million views and a flood of comments. She knew other moms enjoyed wine as much as she did, but she hadn’t realized just how many.

According to a Gallup Poll, 49% of U.S. women said they preferred wine to other types of alcohol,¹ which may be due to the public perception that wine is healthier than other forms of alcohol despite studies that show that no alcohol is safe in any amount.² Still, among the health-conscious, vino enjoys celebrity status as the unicorn drink that can supposedly slim your waist and strengthen your immune system.

Did You Know?

Here’s a sobering fact, a report from the American Society of Clinical Oncology suggests that one drink a day—wine or otherwise—can raise a female’s risk for developing breast cancer by 4%.³

Wine is also a panacea for the trials of modern parenthood if you buy into the messages in movies like Bad Moms, the memes and GIFs on Facebook, and the cutesy slogans printed on T-shirts sold on Etsy (“I wine because they whine,” ha-ha).

“It’s become this wink-wink joke of ‘Parenting is so hard, I need my wine,’” says Gabrielle Glaser, author of Her Best-Kept Secret, a book about the relationship American women have with alcohol. But there’s a problem with the punch line: It gives those who have bona fide drinking issues fodder to justify their behavior.

Stefanie Wilder-Taylor knows this firsthand because she used to be doing the wisecracking. The author of Sippy Cups Are Not for Chardonnay, she quit drinking in 2009 after accepting that her nightly swilling had gotten out of hand. Wilder-Taylor went on to found an online community, the Booze-Free Brigade. “Many moms who joke don’t have a drinking problem. They just think it’s funny,” she says. “But the women who do have a problem get fooled into thinking, ‘Every mom drinks like I do.’ ”

Experts say there’s a darker story to be told about how the drinking culture affects our health. Alcohol-use disorders, drunk-driving arrests, and alcohol-related deaths among American women are rising, says Deborah Hasin, PhD, professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. If current trends continue, millennial women will become as likely to binge drink as millennial men.

An Innocent Escape

After giving birth to her second child in December 2016, Storey couldn’t wait to kick back with a glass of wine. “You’re tired and overwhelmed,” she says. “Going out at night is rare. A glass of wine is the thing we look forward to.”

Stephanie Saxton, a mother of two from Louisville, Kentucky, feels the same way. She pours herself a Chardonnay almost every night, often around her kids’ bedtime. “I’m more patient and more fun when I’ve had my wine. It’s not my only outlet—it just happens to be the most convenient one,” she says.

More than 80% of the moms Parents surveyed said the top reason they drink is to relax and unwind. And many of those interviewed for this story spoke of drinking and stress in the same breath. Some felt isolated and unfamiliar to themselves in new parenthood. Sitting back with a drink felt comforting, like a way to reclaim a part of their lives lost to parenthood.

“We live in an alcogenic culture,” says Canadian journalist Ann Dowsett Johnston, author of Drink. “Drinking is how we celebrate, relax, and reward ourselves.” If she’s right, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that we’ve normalized going overboard.

I’m more patient and more fun when I’ve had my wine. It’s not my only outlet—it just happens to be the most convenient one.

— Stephanie Saxton, mom of two

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly one in three Americans is an excessive drinker, and one in six binge drinks about four times a month.⁴ I was surprised to learn that the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration defines low-risk drinking in females as imbibing no more than seven drinks over the course of a week but no more than four drinks in a sitting.⁵ According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, breastfeeding parents should restrict their drinking further.⁶ Those who are nursing should limit themselves to two or fewer servings a day—and wait two hours after a drink to feed their baby.

I’ve never considered myself a heavy drinker. And yet, before my son was born, it wasn’t unusual for my drink count on a Friday night to constitute a binge. The thing is, it’s easy to rationalize how much you drink when the people around you are guzzling at the same rate or faster. “The voice in your head says, ‘I drink four glasses of wine a night, but I’m not drinking more than my friend,’” says Stephanie Brown, PhD, director of The Addictions Institute, in Menlo Park, California.

One glass of wine, maybe two, can quiet the mind, but what about a third or a fourth? There’s self-care—the buzzword of my generation—and then there’s self-medication. For some drinkers, the line dividing the two is fuzzy. Add kids, and the situation is even more loaded.

Children Are Watching

Research published by the Institute of Alcohol Studies, a nonprofit in the U.K., suggests that kids are more aware of their parents’ alcohol habits than we’d like to think.⁷ In a study of light to moderate drinkers and their children, kids who had seen their parents drunk, tipsy, or hungover—even once or twice—were more likely to report that they’d been worried or embarrassed by their parents’ drinking than their peers were. In other words, not only do kids know we’re buzzed, they don’t like it.

“Children see, hear, and smell the signs of drinking from the earliest time,” says Dr. Brown. “They are attuned to your change in mood with even one glass.”

Amanda M., who lives outside Phoenix, used to regularly down a glass or two of wine in front of her kids in the evenings. She even belonged to a wine playgroup made up of moms like her. “I thought it was great,” she says. “We were there for fun. There was no judgment.”

But after the birth of her second child in 2013, when she endured a rough patch in her marriage, Amanda started draining a bottle of white each night. She thought her kids were none the wiser until the evening she overdid it with her friends and couldn’t drive herself home. “I had to pull over and call my husband, who had to wake up the kids, put them in their car seats, and come get me,” she says. By the time he arrived with their pajama-clad children, Amanda, who had been waiting in her car, had vomited all over her backseat. “My husband told them I’d had bad pizza,” she remembers. For days afterward, the kids asked about the smell.

Assessing Your Risk

Of course, not every parent who sips wine at day’s end develops a drinking problem. “It’s important to take a step back and not be an alarmist,” says Glaser.

Although children of alcoholics are four times as likely as others to become alcoholics, half of them won’t have any issues. The key is being brutally honest with yourself, says Reid Hester, PhD, senior scientist of CheckUp & Choices, an online moderation program.

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism offers a free questionnaire that provides people with an objective picture of their habits, participants receive help setting limits and identifying what drives their urge to drink.

But while moderation works for many, it isn’t the answer for everyone. After the car incident, Amanda ultimately decided to quit drinking for good. Although seeing wine on Instagram can still trigger her, following accounts that advocate alcohol-free living has helped. She also checks in frequently with the Booze-Free Brigade and is vigilant about taking time for herself. “I like art and crafting, and I make sure to get workouts in,” she says.“I practice more self-care.”

Self-care. There’s that word again. These days I’m trying to engage in the kind that doesn’t involve a popping cork. My husband handles bedtime two or three nights a week, and I lace up my running shoes. When I get back, still coasting on endorphins, sometimes I pour some wine, and sometimes I don’t. I like having the choice. I’m glad that it still feels like one.

And if it ever doesn’t? Well, I’ll know what to do.

37 of the Funniest Excuses Ever Uttered

By Reader’s Digest Editors

Updated on Jun. 05, 2025

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Your bad? Fine. Just don’t follow it up with one of the lamest excuses ever.

Lame excuses are inevitable

At some point in our lives, we’ve all tried to come up with a believable excuse instead of accepting defeat and telling the truth. Some people are good at it, while others crack under pressure and blurt out a blatant lie. On the bright side, even when folks dole out one of the lamest excuses ever, they’re usually funnier than your best pre-written knock-knock joke could ever be. That’s especially true if they go beyond the classic “my dog ate my homework” and dish out some wonderfully random details.

We explored a Reddit thread and asked Reader’s Digest readers to gather some of the silliest (and funniest) excuses people have ever uttered. Keep reading—and make sure to avoid these lines at all costs!

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1 / 37

Can’t lie to family

My cousin once called out of work because of a “death in the family.” Since I was her boss, it was a pretty lame excuse. —Reddit

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2 / 37

Gambling for rent

Working as an apartment manager, I’ve heard every excuse for why the rent
is late: Husband got laid off. Kids were sick. I lost the money order. Or 
simply “I forgot.” But the most creative excuse of all was this: “I only had half the rent. So I went up to the casino to try to double my money.” —Mikki Sams, Everett, Washington

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3 / 37

Stolen towels

From my co-worker: “I don’t need a ride today, I’m not coming to work. Someone stole my towels from the laundry room, and I’m going to track them down.” —Reddit

4 / 37

Shedding pounds

My husband hasn’t been to the gym in over a year. One day, I asked him to come with me. “No,” he said, “I need to lose a few pounds before I go back.” —Sandra Curran, Vero Beach, Florida

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5 / 37

Quidditch practice

People at my high school used to tell a teacher that they had to leave early for Quidditch practice. Yes, she let them leave and apparently hadn’t heard at all of the sport. —Reddit

6 / 37

Back to life

When our new hire didn’t show up for work, I called her. She explained that her mother had passed away and that she would need a few days off for bereavement. “Of course,” I said.

A week went by, and
she still hadn’t returned to work. So I called again. This time, she said she had good news and bad news. The good news: Her mother had come back to life.
The bad news: She was sick again, so she had to stay home with her. —Benjamin Weber, Cincinnati, Ohio

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7 / 37

Muffler on the wrong side

My former roommate, on the phone with his boss, “I can’t make it today. My muffler … is to the left.” —Reddit

8 / 37

No license

I was a federal agent, interviewing a young man for his security clearance. I knew that he’d been arrested for speeding
a few years earlier, but he hadn’t said so on his application. When I asked him why, he said he didn’t think the arrest counted.

“Why wouldn’t it count?” I asked.

“Because I didn’t have 
a driver’s license.” —Miriam Kitmacher, Tucson, Arizona

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9 / 37

Can’t hear correctly

My co-worker on why he was late: “I Q-Tipped my ears last night, and went too far into my left ear. My alarm was on the left side of my head in the morning, and I didn’t hear it till now.” He was fired shortly after. —Reddit

10 / 37

New furnace filter

Once, when my dad received an invitation to do something he obviously didn’t want to do, he replied, “I can’t go. I have to change the furnace filter.” Now, whenever anyone in my family doesn’t want to do something, that’s what we tell each other. —Debra Nelson,
Hugo, Minnesota

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11 / 37

Where am I?

I got caught texting in class and told my teacher I forgot I was at school. —Reddit

12 / 37

Overslept

I was an hour late for my appointment at the sleep-disorder clinic. My excuse: “I overslept.” —Lou Fleury, 
Royal Oak, Michigan

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13 / 37

Fighting for my teacher

“I lost my homework fighting a kid who said you weren’t the best teacher ever.” —Reddit

14 / 37

Home to Texas

Working on an oil rig in North Dakota during the winter weeds out the riffraff. One day, one of my workers told me he had to go home to get a warmer coat. He was gone for a few days before finally calling to tell me he was home. Home, by the way, was sunny Texas. —Leon Hewson, Amidon, North Dakota

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15 / 37

Dreaming of work

I had someone call in to work saying that they were going to be late. Why? Because they were at home sleeping, but dreamed they were at work, so they didn’t realize they had to get up. —Reddit

16 / 37

My dog ate your homework

I was in the middle of grading my students’ homework, and my husband and I decided we were hungry. I left all the papers organized in neat piles, and we ducked out. I returned an hour later to discover that my puppy had found the papers.

The next day, I called three of my students over to my desk to explain why I was giving them all 100 on their assignments: “My dog ate your homework.” —Joanne Beer,
Las Cruces, New Mexico

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17 / 37

You don’t need your finger to run

“I can’t do cross country today because I hurt my finger.” —Reddit

18 / 37

Late for dinner

I recently invited neighbors over for dinner. When they were about an hour late, I gave them a buzz to see what time we might expect them. The wife was nonplussed. “Oh,” she said, “I thought that was last night.” —Jim Godfrey, Freeport, Florida

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19 / 37

Take your Grandson to Work Day

In eighth-grade health class, we were doing a “baby” project with bags of sugar. I forgot mine at home, and my excuse was “it’s Take Your Grandson to Work Day.” —Reddit

20 / 37

Lost in the snow

A student of mine claimed he didn’t have his homework because it had fallen into a pile of snow and was quickly covered by a snowplow. Of course, I didn’t believe him. Still, I gave him credit for concocting such an original excuse and allowed him to redo the assignment.

Two months later, after the snow melted, he presented me with the ragged folder containing the faded original version of his homework. —Michael Lorinser, Prior Lake, Minnesota

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21 / 37

Allergic to water

My roommate’s lame excuse for not being able to wash her dishes: “I’m allergic to hot water.” —Reddit

22 / 37

Can’t go that fast

Years ago, as a young man driving a very old station wagon, I was pulled over for speeding.

“You know, you were going 55 in a 45-mile-per-hour zone,” the officer said.

I knew he was wrong and told him. “Honestly, officer, I don’t think this piece of junk can go that fast.”

“You know, that’s the best excuse I’ve heard in a long time.”

He then got back into his patrol car without ticketing me. —Arnie Maestas, Cumberland, Maine

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23 / 37

No internet

I received an email from a student that said, “Yeah, sorry, teacher, I didn’t do my homework. I didn’t have internet.” An email! —Reddit

24 / 37

Late train

One of my chronically late employees showed up later than usual. At least he had a good excuse: “The train that gets me here 10 minutes late was 10 minutes late.” —Patricia Johnson, Brick, New Jersey

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25 / 37

High fever

One of my cashiers once called off with a 112-degree fever. Needless to say, I congratulated him on his medical miracle for surviving when I saw him next. —Reddit

26 / 37

Invisible train

A guy claimed he was held up by the train on the way to school. There hasn’t been a train on those tracks in decades. —Reddit

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27 / 37

Depressed cat

“I can’t go to work today, my cat is depressed, and I should take care of it.” This random excuse came from a physical therapist with a doctorate degree. —Reddit

28 / 37

Crow thief

I had a worker who didn’t show up one Monday, and his excuse was “a crow stole my car keys.” —Reddit

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29 / 37

A lot of stuff to move

I had an employee who told me six weekends in a row that he didn’t turn up to work because he was “helping his parents move.” —Reddit

30 / 37

Sick cat

A student couldn’t come to take their final exam because their “cat was sneezing.” —Reddit

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31 / 37

Water on fire

“Be right back, guys, my pool’s on fire.” —Reddit

32 / 37

Wanted to miss the final

I had a student tell me she would be missing the final to drive her grandma to the airport. I said, “Can’t someone else drive her?” She replied, “Yeah, but I want to do it!” —Reddit

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33 / 37

Furniture shopping

“I have to go furniture shopping with my parents.” —Reddit

34 / 37

Tripped on the stairs

After a student was late to class, he said he had fallen on the stairs. He used that excuse several times too. —Reddit

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35 / 37

Band first

“I’m in a band. I don’t have time.” Hey, it might be one of the lamest excuses ever, but people have to understand, right? Right? —Reddit

36 / 37

Elephant in the road

My mom’s excuse for being late for work: Barnum and Bailey’s circus was in town, and the elephant got loose and sat down in the middle of the road, and they couldn’t get him to move. —Reddit

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37 / 37

Just play dumb

“Sorry, officer, I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to do that.” —Reddit

Why trust us

Reader’s Digest has been telling jokes for more than 100 years, curated and reviewed over the last 20 years by Senior Features Editor Andy Simmons, a humor editor formerly of National Lampoon and the author of Now That’s Funny. We’ve earned prestigious ASME awards for our humor—including comical quips, pranks, puns, cartoons, one-liners, knock-knock jokes, riddles, memes, tweets and stories in laugh-out-loud magazine columns such as “Life in These United States,” “All in a Day’s Work,” “Laughter, the Best Medicine” and “Humor in Uniform,” as well as online collections such as short jokes, dad jokes and bad jokes so bad, they’re great. You can find a century of humor in our 2022 compendium, Reader’s Digest: Laughter, the Best Medicine. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.