Corrupting our daughter

SWMBO just yelled at me for corrupting our 22 month old daughter. I was sanitizing my keg so I could keg my cream ale. I put sanitizer in the keg and pressurized it and my daughter wanted to hold the picnic tap open so the sanitizer could run through the down tube. SWMBO walked in and yelled at me for corrupting her. I told her I was teaching our daughter proper sanitation. She just gave me a funny look. After Filling and pressurizing the keg I let the daughter roll the keg around the floor. Yet another look from SWMBO. The kid had a blast.

The question is corruption or education? Is she too young to help out making an alcoholic beverage or is there no such thing as too young?

 

Better than you sitting at the local bar while she sits in front of a TV!

 

No big. My three year old boy helps me bottle.

 

I don't have kids; but I think parents that engage with their kids for just about any activity are doing a good thing.

And I think that by involving them in a hobby like homebrewing will likely (hopefully?) relate to engrainment about moderation of alcohol in-take....

 

I was raised in a house where alcohol wasn't forbidden. I wasn't allowed to get get drunk or go to keggers, but I was always allowed a glass of wine or beer at family parties, a glass of champagne on new years, etc. I was raised to treat alcohol as something totally fine when consumed responsibly and not to excess. As a result, when I got to college, I wasn't interested in going out and getting hammered. On the other hand, my roommate was brought up in a dry household, where alcohol was not only not allowed, but it was seen as evil. When he got to college, the first thing he wanted to do was go out and get sh*tfaced. When you remove the taboo from alcohol in childhood, it tends to foster more responsible use later in life.

just my $.02

 

What thisgoestoeleven said is our philosophy as far as alcohol goes. SWMBO and I drink around out 8 yo daughter but never get wasted. She has witnessed responsible alcohol use from us her entire life.

She has helped me brew since she was 4 or so. She enjoys learning the science behind it (she thought I was the coolest when I built my stir plate and my Erlenmeyer flasks came!) But most of all, she is spending some one on one time with Dad and that is what it is all about, not the alcohol.

 

My parents did the same with us, starting at 9th grade If I wanted a beer at home it was in the fridge, and I could have one. I rarely did, but I would occasionally have one with my older sister. Got to college and drinking wasnt a big deal. I drank probably once a month while at college and very rarely got "hammered". I think it was smart parenting.

 

Well when I was a youngin my old man took me to the barroom almost every day he would sit at the bar while I played the illegal gambling machine in the corner and I turned out ok. We were bonding haha

 

haha!
i have 2 daughters, a 5 year old and a 2 year old. i was bottling this afternoon when the 2 year old wanted to help. i let her help by letting her set the cap on the bottle just right before i used the capper on the bottle. my wife thought it was funny!

 

My 21 month old daughter loves to help with everything. Of course we let her help. Some day I might have to force her.

"You aren't going anywhere till that milk stout is bottled and all the carboys are cleaned and sanitized!"

 

My 2.5 year old daughter poured me a beer form the kegorator last Saturday at like 10 am. I walked in and she had a pint glass full of stout sitting there and said "Daddy want beer?"

 

I'm starting to brew with a next door neighbor that has a 18 month old: normally he's looking after her while I'm the one brewing....but I've notice she likes to "help" by grabing the mash paddle and slap it around in the mashtun/kettle. She doesn't really help, but is just enamoured with banging the paddle around (I let her do that in between my rests of really whirlpooling the wort down). She also gets to lick beer off a person's finger. I'm more interested in seeing if she'll be a beer or wine drinker later in life (as right now her dad takes care of her more, so she's getting more exposure to beer then wine: which her mom drinks).

 

I hate to be saying it, but your wife is wrong. You haven't fed the kid any alcohol, you aren't getting drunk in front of her. Hell, you aren't even brewing ! You could be sanitizing the keg for soda... At 22 months, the kid isn't thinking about how she would like a glass of that beer, she's thinking about how rad it is to be playing with the tap handle and see the liquid flow.

I was raised in a household where drinking alcohol wasn't seen as a sin or as a vice. It was aways consumed in moderation. Result ? The first time I got REALLY drunk, I was 22 and firmly out of the household.

Now, I always get a little uneasy when people on talk about letting their young old kids have a sip of the final product. It's not necessarily bad per se, but it's not necessary either. Alcohol is an adult thing and only adults should consume it. Not that a 14 or 16 year old cannot behave like an adult.

 

My wife is happy our daughter and I have something we like doing together. She's been helping me brew since I started. She's 17 now and is wanting to set up her own brewing gear when she goes off on her own.

 

I'm with everyone else about the education and exposure to alcohol. Never a big deal here. Alcohol isn't an issue it's how the irresponsible act with it. Just because kids can't drink the beer doesn't mean they can't help in the process.

Plus a little taste or bit of exposure here and there demystifies it. Plus there's a lot of science going on in beer it's educational!

 

Maybe your swmbo should stop worrying, relax & have a homebrew.

I mean the kid could be sitting in front of the boob-tube, learning the tao of Lady Gaga & the rest of the MTV crap-fest or learning that there's something wrong with what Daddy is doing & thereby something wrong with Daddy for doing something wrong. You know it's not like you're teaching her to cook meth, or doing bong hits with her for crying out loud. Maybe brew up some traditional root beer with the little tyke, that's something she can actually enjoy (along with swmbo) & it might just give swmbo a new insight to things. Regards, GF.

 

Back to the OP.

It's definitely educational. Could it currupt? I think that is up for debate. But spending some quality time with your kids is priceless and IMO will offset any kind of corruption that may be going on.

 

You got to spend quality time with your daughter and obviously she had a blast. Call me silly but to me that's just priceless!

 

My daughter wrote a story in Kindergarten about helping me brew and how good and important it made her feel. She also said that she only helps with the safe stuff and that she couldn't wait to 'help with the next brew of berr(sic)' It came complete with a drawing of her and me on our deck standing next to my BK! SWMBO thought for sure that CPS was going to be knocking down our door, but no such thing happened.

Just make sure to keep her at a safe distance from boiling wort and that sort of thing and it will turn out to be time that you both will look back on when she isn't so little.

 

my niece loves brewing... she sees me getting stuff out of my beer area and gets extatic like "uncle noah! are you making your beer today?!!" so i laugh a bit and say yes. and she helps dump the hops in and watches the temps on the stove for me... i have one of those probe meat termometers that i can put in the water and set the reader on the counter or something, every 10-20 minutes i have her run in and read off the numbers (i have an alarm set on it so it wont get overshot by much lol).
she absolutely LOVES helping me clean the bottles and delabel the new ones... so i'm perfectly fine with that! haah

 

What is your wife's attitude toward brewing in general? Does she think your brewing is obsessive and takes you away from her? Does she think you drink too much? Sometimes a spouse will harbor an objection that can't be justified, but the negative feelings are there anyway. Rather than directly object, i.e. "I know there's no rational argument I can make for it, but I still don't like it", she might be latching onto another aspect of it and venting her objection that way. "Jeez, that smells terrible. Why can't you do it somewhere else? I can't stand it." Or "Keep her away from that beer stuff, she's just a child!" It may not be the smell at all, nor her feer of corruption of the child, but an underlying objection to your brewing in general. There's my armchair psychologist's suggestion.

 

I think the American way of looking at alcohol is that it is a means to get drunk, and that's it. So when a child is somehow involved with it, it's "shocking". It's like we can't imagine alcohol without a hangover the next day. In other countries I don't think it's as taboo if a child is near alcohol, but here it's like a federal offense.

I can remember tasting my dads beer when i was young (it was icky at the time), it's not a big deal IMO.

 

Having your daughter help out a bit while you brew is a lot less corrupting than letting her watch, say, Hannah Montana, or some of the terrible shows on Nick and Disney. (iCarly excepted. That show rocks!)

 

My little guy (5 yo) has been helping me for two years. He tastes the beer, samples wine and helps make the brews. I want him to respect alcohol and see it as something to sample and enjoy not binge with its consequences.

B

 

I just gotta say:
Epic f&*$ing win.

 

Perhaps socially, but in most states it's legal to provide your own children alcohol in your own home, and in some states, it's legal at any age.

In my state (Tennessee) it's a class A misdemeanor to give your own kids alcohol, punishable by a couple months in prison, 1000 hours community service, a hefty fine, and having your kids taken away. Heaven forbid the cops find you rolling a keg around with your 2-year-old.

I'm trying to convince my wife to let us move to a state that's a little less backwards when it comes to alcohol, before we do decide to have children.

 

My 3 year old helped hold the plastic tubing during the transfer of wort into the Better Bottle. She has been walking around telling me she wants to be my brewers assistant again. She has told me to move my kegs and carboys. My 6 year old seems to just not care about the whole thing. I don't mind my kids learning that beer and alcohol isn't bad it just needs to be respected for what it is and what it can do!

 

Growing up, my parents had a very well stocked wet bar, and dad had a beer fridge in the garage. throughout high school.. I had my share underage drinking.

However when I got to college, I still wanted to get sh*t faced!

Now, I'm 30 yrs. old and I still like to get sh*tfaced about 2-3 times a month!


I don't it think it has anything to do with parents and having alcohol in the house. I think it's just to each his own.

 

Well, in fairness, you ARE from Texas...

 

I've been instilling the concept of "quality over quantity" to my daughter. She'll be the only girl at the college kegger sipping a snifter of something Belgian while everyone else is playing beer pong.

 

not to mention, you have a brewer in the works!! i wish i had a kid i could train to brew for me.

 

Oh, she's learning how to brew and I'm teaching her to play poker. Her plan is to draw 'em in with the homebrew, then pull out a deck of cards and skin 'em for rent money.

 

My nephew isn't even 3 yet, but this is my plan

 

Ah, SWMBO has some hormonal stuff going on. That explains it.

 

Sounds like in your case... your daughter is the one corrupting you!

 

maybe - she was totally proud of herself too. It was filled to the rim. A little bit overflowed into the drip tray but overall not a bad pour. I took a few sips of it to humor her and then stuck it in the fridge for later. I don't generally drink before noon.

 

My 16 year old daughter helps me. I am doing a lager and have to change out the frozen water bottles 3 times a day, she texted me at work after she got home from school asking if she needed to swap out the bottles cause it got warm out. She also takes a taste of new brews. She sample the red ale and said it was a little hoppy.

I also agree with several of the people here, teaching your kids that beer and stuff is not evil if drank in moderation. Besides there is a lot of medical proof that a beer or glass of wine daily is good for you.

Besides doing something with your kids is what we need to be doing as parents. My 18 year old and I watch The Cape each week together, it is our time. It is not about the show it is about us.

 

My 11 yo loves to help (until she remembers that there is a lot of "down" time). But my 16 yo only helps if I need her to hold something or pour something that I can't do myself. She has no interest in brewing at all. I highly doubt she will even try beer when she gets older.