It is very frustrating as a parent to think that you try to help your kids develop good habits so they can hopefully go to college, only to find out that alcohol pretty much rules their lives once they start their freshman year.  A New York Times article highlights the “new” binge drinking, aka drinking games.  It seems that since many campuses and bars have outlawed binge drinking on its face, the kids are playing drinking games to get around the ban, and the marketers are playing right into it.  Anheuser-Busch has a new game called Bud Pong - yes, these are these same people who remind us during each alcohol commercial to drink responsibly.  Even Urban Outfitters stocks a beer pong kit.  Why is an apparel retailer selling alcohol accessories? 

Bud Pong is marketed to bars around college campuses, and the official rules call for water to be used in the game, with alcohol consumption on the sidelines.  What college student is going to sit around and play a drinking game with water?  I think The New York Times was wondering the same thing, hence the article, sharing this hypocrisy with us.  Drinking games inherently put someone else in charge of how much any individual drinks, thus undoing any successes we may have had in promoting personal responsibility for alcohol consumption.  This is a real problem since 50-80% of college students play drinking games, according to several different surveys.  Apparently, some colleges have banned the games, only to reverse the ban because they want to encourage students to be responsible for themselves.  Maybe some of these kids are not ready to be on their own if they cannot handle the pressure of consuming alcohol at a level that does not risk their own or someone else’s health.  Parents and educators have been grappling with this for years.  It seems that parents and colleges are becoming the weakest link in the game of teaching our kids to grow into adulthood responsibly.