Agonize over what to tell your kids with my approval, because our drinking impacts our kids early. I struggle to tell this story, for fear of outing my anonymous standing as well as my personal embarrassment, but my mother just LOVES to recount how my now-19-year-old son went to our home with them after a holiday event at the church and offered them "wine, beer of coffee" before we got home, because that is what he knew mom and dad drank, and he was just being sociable. At um, 5 or 6? Not a proud moment for me/us. Even more disconcerting is that we are still drinking some 15 years later, oy....
The ugly side of me has to add that alcoholism is rampant on my side of the family. I don't know why I am being spiteful about this.
And Izzy, geez, I don't want to hijack your thread... As I said before, my son and I are very close years later. We've always been close.