The Baltimore Sun on Monday published additional excerpts from an interview last week with Gansler, the state’s attorney general, regarding a teenage beach house party he attended in Bethany Beach, Del., where there was apparent underage drinking.
During the interview, which took place in a diner, Gansler was approached by a woman who asked to have her photo taken with him, according to the Sun. Gansler drew the woman into the conversation about whether parents should intervene in such situations, the Sun said.
After the woman left, Gansler said having a daughter might factor into a parent’s judgement on how to react. “It also has to do with whether you have a boy or a girl,” he said, according to the Sun.
Del. Heather Mizeur (D-Montgomery), who is also seeking the Democratic nomination in June, said she was “deeply troubled” by Gansler’s comments.
Gansler “appears to be saying that the safety of some children is more important than that of others, or that young girls need guidance and protection from their parents and other trusted adults that boys do not,” Mizeur said. “The dangers of underage and binge drinking have been well-documented, and for the attorney general to suggest that it’s only a problem for young women, as he appears to be doing, is tragically wrong and indicates that he doesn’t understand the larger issues at stake here.”
In defense of Gansler, it seems that there are all sorts of people second-guessing what they would do in a similar situation. In the first place, I expect most of his criticism is coming from people who don’t have kids who are young adults and from people who don’t have children of each gender.
Gansler is correct. Parental response is different depending on their chid’s gender. Why? Society has different expectations for males and females and there are different inherent risks for each gender. Parents view the risks differently. While kids of both genders can die of alcohol poisoning and in horrible crashes, I doubt that many of us warn our sons about passing out and being gang raped by marauding gangs of over-sexed drunken girls.
Additionally, Gansler would probably not be going around checking IDs. Unless he is sponsoring the party, it isn’t his job. Young adults, or whatever we call those creatures between 18 and 21, really are in no man’s land. They are supposedly adults (I will never buy into that one.) and yet it is illegal for them to drink. That right there sets up a conundrum that is almost impossible as a parent to navigate through.
It’s time to move on and check out what Gansler’s other qualifications are. Supposedly his own kid wasn’t even drinking. Tempest in a tea pot.
