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.
“Unless he is sponsoring the party, it isn’t his job.” So here is the man who is the Attorney General of Maryland, standing in a room full of drinking kids (excuse me–young adults) and he has no responsibility? I’m having a VERY hard time with that. That seems to me to be one of the problems today–no one is responsible.
Easier said than done. What would YOU have done?
I always felt that it was unwise to up the legal drinking age to 21.
Why? Because by then they are allowed to vote and to join the military, which I consider taking on responsibilities of an adult. We trust them to make choices when it comes to deciding who’ll become our President, Governor and Attorney General, etc. Yet we’re saying that they are not old enough to legally drink beer. If we didn’t make such a big deal out of this, I believe we would have a lot less binge drinking.
What about bars that have live entertainment, entertainment that appeals to the college age kids, wether they are in college or not? The youngsters aren’t allowed in. Does that make any sense? Instead they have private parties, where drinking becomes THE big thing.
Would I have done what Gansler did? I honestly cannot say.
What would I do? Probably call the local law enforcement folks and certainly would have gotten my child out of the place.
Would you have really done that to say your 20 year old kid?
@George S. Harris
Like George, I would also have gotten my child out of the place.
But would he have called “the local law enforcement folks” BEFORE
or AFTER he had removed his child? That’s a dilemma, isn’t it?
If your college age kid was off partying where booze was being consumed? You would have removed them? What if they didn’t want to be removed?
When kids get to be a certain age, there is only so much you can do.
If the party was in my house, I would have put a stop to it. That’s about as good as it gets.
Gotta agree with George on this one. He is the chief Law Enforcement Officer of the state. He has a sworn duty to uphold the law. He is also a father, and has a parental duty to do everything reasonable to ensure that his son is obeying the law. In failing to exercise these two duties, he contributed to the delinquency of minors.
Still, I believe this is a question for Marylanders to decide, in relation to the race to elect their new governor.
I agree its up to the Marylanders to decide. I haven’t followed the election. In fact, I don’t even know what party he belongs to.
Its just a lot easier to say than do. We aren’t talking about high school kids. That’s a given. How would he know what everyone’s age is?
It isn’t his home.
Now, as far as wisdom as a politician goes, I might agree with everyone. He was probably stupid to even be in the vicinity, just knowing about rites of passage and all.
However, as a parent, its real easy to make those ” I would never…” kinds of statements. As a person who has lived through some similar situations with kids ….I am here to tell you it is much easier said than done. It’s difficult enough to keep your own home free of stuff like this. I am here to tell you, I tried like hell and wasn’t always successful.
I can’t get with him just ignoring it and getting on with his life. That’s a black eye.
Did he leave his kid(s) there? if so, that a serious failure in judgement.
How are you going to remove a 20 year old from a party? Mine simply would have laughed at me at that age.
This is the dance that many of us go through with college age kids. But such is life. In a way, his kid put him into this awkward position.
Yea,and my kids put me in a couple of real awkward positions also. I once had an APB out on me for stealing manhole covers. The cop who came to the door in the middle of the night I knew from work from many years ago. It turns out I was co-owner of the “get-away” car. The cop said I knew it couldn’t be you out there stealing cars, Ms. Howler. That was the kid that gave me the LEAST trouble.
Raising kids is not for sissies, I can tell you that. I learned when my first one was about 2 to never utter the words ” My child would never …______” Fill in the blank. The minute those words are out of your mouth, you will face regret and humiliation.
I do see your argument … he is in a way a victim of circumstance. Certainly Al Gore and Howard Dean have more to answer for as regards their kids’ behavior. I think you’re convincing me.
Ok…here we go again….He wasn’t 20 when the party happened. He was 19. This was his High School Graduation party…From the infamous photo, it looked like something out of MTV Daytona Spring Break. Lots of kids drinking from the “Red Solo Cups”. I’m just shy of 50 years old. I won’t try to kid myself that a bunch of kids raging in a house, with beverages contained in Red Solo Cups…it ain’t KoolAid. Also, 19, almost 20 and just graduating…draw your own conclusions. Could be LD. Could be a lack of discipline due to a father invested in his political career. Maybe something else. Regardless, he’s underaged, drinking with underaged kids (locals call them “Junebugs” since they infest the local community during graduation). Nothing even remotely legal about this. Gansler kicked in cash for the house…LIABILITY ANYONE?
Just FYI…Gansler is a Democrat, just like all of the statewide MD offices. He’s the former Chairman of the BOCS from MoCo. He’s known for his leadership, along with Chief Moose, durng the sniper spree. What party he is a member of really has little bearing on my opinion. One of the few remaining GOP state delegates just got popped for a 2nd DUI (one was boating related).
No, this is about hypocrisy of the ruling elite. As I said before, he’s the chief LEO of the state. He, and his family are not above the law. This is a legitimate election issue (For Marylanders) and speaks directly to his judgement and fitness to serve. His public explanations since the story broke, the parsing, the spinning, speak directly to his integrity. He’s have been better off saying “Look, I screwed up. I was young once, and wanted my son to be able to celebrate in a controlled environment. While I didn’t break any MD laws, Delaware laws are to be respected as well. When I realized the nature of this party, I should have removed my son, and myself from the situation qucickly. I made a mistake. Let’s move on..”
From a political perspective, I don’t disagree with you at all. Moving on from there, I have heard all sorts of pontificating from talking heads and I suppose I am responding to the parent side of this.
Easier said than done and not much you can do about kids that age…that no man’s land of idiocy between 18 and 21. I was still under my parents’ technical roof. We just went through some acts of rebellion from my granddaughter age 18. It exhausted the entire family and I am not going to sit here and declare a win. I think resolution is about as good as it gets.
As far as handling his kid I don’t think there was much he could do. Good parents have kids that act like jerks. Really great solid kids sometimes have parents that are losers.
I have purposefully tuned a lot out about this case. Like I said, I often think those who have all the answers haven’t dealt with many young adult kids, especially their own.
I wasn’t an attorney general. BTW, my answer would have been the same if it were Cooch.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/24/doug-gansler-underage-drinking_n_4156285.html
Gansler’s taken some flak lately for abusing state troopers. He seems like Cuccinelli in that he abuses his office. Whereas Cuccinelli has used our tax dollars to pursue his personal social agenda, Gansler has stuck to abusing his office’s personal detail by having his troopers run red lights and speed. I think both large local papers (Baltimore’s and DC’s) were gunning for him and he easily provided the ammo they needed.
Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler regularly ordered state troopers assigned to drive him to turn on the lights and sirens on the way to routine appointments, directing them to speed, run red lights and bypass traffic jams by using the shoulder, according to written accounts by the Maryland State Police.
When troopers refused to activate the emergency equipment, Gansler, now a Democratic candidate for governor, often flipped the switches himself, according to the police accounts. And on occasion, he became so impatient that he insisted on driving, directing the trooper to the passenger’s seat. Gansler once ran four red lights with sirens blaring, a trooper wrote. Another account said he “brags” about driving the vehicle unaccompanied on weekends with the sirens on.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/attorney-general-gansler-depicted-as-reckless-passenger-by-md-troopers-who-drove-him/2013/10/12/3115487a-328f-11e3-9c68-1cf643210300_story.html
That would be reason enough not to vote for him.
So what do you all think about my belief that it was a mistake
to up the age from 18 to 21 for being legally allowed to inbibe alcohol?
Again, back to voting and military service.
The problem with the drinking age being lowered to 18 is that drunk driving fatalities skyrocketed nation-wide. There is a buffer zone with drinking being at 21 legally. Its harder for high school kids to find someone to buy them booze if the drinking age is 21 than it is someone 18. Once the drinking age went back up, the traffic fatalities went back down.
I have no problem with 18 year olds drinking on base.
Plenty of stupid people vote.
We don’t have a draft unless war is declared. I am still not sure I would want 18 year olds drinking. War kills enough of them without throwing booze in the mix.
I was 17 when MA raised its age from 18-21. They had a grandfather period, in that if you were 18 by January of the year the law went into effect, you could still purchase alcohol. I missed it by 4 months. But, I was soon in the USMC, and the on-base drinking ages were set by the local base commander. This created a confusing patchwork of base regulations, where I could leagally drink or purchase alcohol at the base package store at one base, but couldn’t do it at another. Also, if I was off-base, it might be legal to possess it, or maybe not. The base commanders began setting their regulations to whatever the state/local regs may be. I left for a 6 month deployment legally able to drink on-base at 19, and when I returned as a 20 year-old, learned I had to be 21 now, on or off-base. Bummer, but now things were clear.
I don’t think the ages should be lowered. Then again, if more 18 yearolds voted, maybe they could make this happen. They seem more intent on legalizing pot (I’m for decriminalization, not legalization).
NYC is contemplating raising the age for tobacco to 21.
“NYC is contemplating raising the age for tobacco to 21.”
That seems like a good idea to me.
Thinking about this issue of substances, I believe we should systematically expose early high school students to a class or defined class section that covers various narcotics, and what they do to the human body. To include teaching them that these substances are usually used to cover underlying emotional pain, which remains within you while you ravage your body. After that if they want to play with drugs, at least they will have an understanding of what they’re doing.
And I oppose legalizing pot, for the simple fact that that will cause more pot to be in circulation.
Thanks for your input. Always good to find out different opinions.
@punchak