This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to theechidna.com.au
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
At first I thought it was me. The intolerance of drunks and drunkenness yet another symptom of advancing age and its irresistible tide of sanctimony.
Try to be patient, I'd tell myself whenever I was in the city, lying awake listening to the bellowing Saturday night revellers making their way home from the pub. You were young once, I'd remind myself. You got drunk and made a complete dick of yourself too many times to remember. In fact, you did it all the way through adulthood and into middle age. Until you stopped.
But it turns out it's not just me. Nor is it friends of my age who also bemoan the intrusion of drunks on their peace and quiet. People like my mate who relocated to Noosa a couple of years ago and dreads the arrival of former colleagues from Sydney intent on a week's binge-drinking. And it's not young people, either. Those drunks in the street were well into their 30s.
Meet Generation Sober Curious, who've turned their backs on binge-drinking and are keeping the Big Alcohol executives awake at night.
In the UK, almost 30 per cent of young adults don't drink. They're the socially conscious members of Generation Z, born between 1997 and 2012, and the late Millennials now knocking on the door of middle age.
Curiously, many of these abstemious young adults had started drinking as children. A World Health Organisation study found about half of the UK's children had their first alcoholic drink by the time they turned 13.
But they were also soaking in social media and acutely aware of the damage video of them doing stupid things while drunk could do to their online image. Being tagged in a post of them driving the porcelain bus or flat out next to a planter box could be ruinous, something Boomers like me never had to worry about when we were out on the sauce.
During Australia's COVID lockdown, 44 per cent of Gen Zers reported they were drinking less. That's why their social media feeds are now bombarded with alcohol ads - as many as 20 in an hour of scrolling, according to recent University of Queensland research. How dare this generation de-legitimise boozy behaviour! What are they thinking, substituting kombucha for XXXX? Bomb them with ads!
Sobriety in Japan's younger generation is so entrenched, it's affecting tax revenues and unsettling bosses, who've traditionally held court at after-work drinks, boring witless their salarymen underlings. Japan has the rare distinction of trying to convince its young people to drink more. The country's largest brewer, Asahi, recognises that's a tall order. It aims to have 20 per cent of its beverages low- or non-alcohol by the end of the decade.
Less than three weeks out and more than 10,000 Australians have signed up for Dry July, pledging over $416,000 in sponsorship for going booze-free for the month.
It's a worthy cause, raising funds for cancer care. And it raises awareness of the link between alcohol consumption and cancer. According to the Cancer Council, alcohol increases the risk of mouth, throat, oesophageal, stomach, liver and breast cancer.
Yet there's something wrong when as a society we regard going without booze for a month as some kind of challenge, worthy of cheers all round, especially come August as we dive straight back in.
As teachers of senior high school students will tell you, there's a lot we can learn from young people. Maybe there's a lesson for all of us in the current crop's sober attitude to alcohol.
HAVE YOUR SAY: Have your drinking habits changed as you've grown older? Have you become less tolerant of drunks and drunkenness? Could you go for a month without alcohol? Email us: echidna@theechidna.com.au
SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
- Former NRL star Jarryd Hayne has had his rape convictions quashed on appeal as prosecutors weigh up whether he should face a fourth trial. The 36-year-old has spent a year behind bars after a jury convicted him of two counts of sexual intercourse without consent in April 2023 after an earlier guilty verdict was overturned in a separate appeal.
- The incoming Australian Information Commissioner has urged government agencies to demonstrate transparency and accountability, as new data shows the bureaucracy is falling short on key measures. The Office of the Australian Information Commission, which regulates the Freedom of Information Act, has released a report showing a decreasing proportion of agencies are publishing documents released under FOI.
- Disturbing doctoring of about 50 teenage girls' photos to create fake nude images reflects a broader pornography-driven crisis in schools, an expert warns. Sexual Assault Services Victoria chief executive Kathleen Maltzahn said the circulation of manipulated social media photos of Bacchus Marsh Grammar students showed there was a lack of education about the illegality of image-based abuse.
THEY SAID IT: "Beer makes you feel the way you ought to feel without beer." - Henry Lawson
YOU SAID IT: Early childhood educators say kids who are allowed to take risks when they play turn out better equipped to deal with life's challenges and setbacks.
"Helicopter parenting has become an art form," writes Bruce. "And parent pushback despite overwhelming evidence of their child's poor behaviour is automatic. It is a contributing factor in why teachers are leaving the profession in droves and no one is taking up the training."
Anita wonders if we misremember our childhoods, when we were told to be home when the streetlights went out. "I hear this quote often and assume it's an Americanism. Certainly not relevant in my family and I'm older than you are by a decade at least. We had to ask permission to leave the boundary fence and had to give the time of our expected return. My own 1950s parents were mindful of abductions and called children roaming free, 'street urchins', which was uttered with a look of disapproval." No misremembering here, Anita. That rule frustrated us kids greatly in summer because it was when the streetlights went on that the Christmas beetles came out and we loved collecting them.
"You brought back memories for me," writes Hilary. "In the mid 1950s I too fell in a ditch but was lucky not to have been killed. I was riding my friend's bike which had hand brakes and I had only just learned to ride on a bike with back pedal brakes. Straight across the main road at the end of our street seconds before a car went by. A few scratches but I certainly learned to be careful and became quite risk-averse as a result. I don't think I ever told my parents."
Terry writes: "I have four grandchildren, the oldest 16. They have all learnt about risk taking by spending most of their free time playing outdoors. Yes, a few broken bones but they all know how to look after themselves. I now have neighbours who do not go outside except to go somewhere. The children do not play outside at all in the six years they have lived in this safe outside area."
"Thank you for the column," writes Tony. "It brought back memories. I used to make and eat mud pies. I became a Cordon Bleu chef! I built my own bike out of bits from the tip; it collapsed and I broke my arm. I built another one which looked odd but didn't collapse. We roamed far and wide but always home for dinner. I came here from England by ship as a 10-year-old. My life was full of adventure and, apart from the broken arm, I never came to any harm. Compared to many children today, I was blessed."
Paul writes: "Another great article, John, but why stop at the kids? The nanny state for adults is emulating Seymour from Little Shop of Horrors. Our vacuum cleaner warns us that the insides contain live electrical parts. Who would have thunk it? My car won't let me go anywhere unless I first acknowledge that I can't touch the screen while driving. Then it tells me to obey road rules and traffic signs. At least I can breathe on my own."
"Climbing trees, jumping from rock to rock, riding down hills on billy carts, bikes and scooters all build executive skills of thinking ahead, planning, calculating things like distance and speed, so it's all great for developing problem-solving skills and recovery when things don't go to plan," writes Jennifer. "Kids learn to think for themselves, rather than relying on others to do it all. Keeping the risk to a safe level (away from traffic) is smart and also teaches the difference between risk-taking and stupidity. Also smart to teach about bluebottles, redbacks, funnel webs and blue-ringed octopus so they're not touched, some of which I did out of curiosity."
Annie writes: "Yes, there are fewer kids being adventurous, being hijacked by their time-consuming devices, but I disagree with your take on fenced-off, rubberised playgrounds. Playgrounds these days are way more fun and challenging than any in the old days. Some resemble army obstacle courses with large rope climbing structures.They are rubberised so kids don't crack their heads open when falling backwards off a swing. Pools are fenced off so kids don't drown as often. Playgrounds are fenced because traffic is busier and parents like to relax too, not spend time chasing their little ones."
"Echoes of my childhood came flooding back," writes Brian. "First few years growing up in Ireland I recall my mother's wisdom: 'Good clean dirty never did anyone any harm.' Then in England as a 10-year-old my parents sent me off to Ireland for the school holidays. I was put on the train in London at 3pm, got off at midnight in the port of Rosslare, Wales, and got on the 2am boat to Cork, where my aunt met me when the boat docked. All on my own. Never thought it a worry. Today, I imagine my parents would be arrested or pilloried on social media."