Well some things drive me to drink too.

Recently the Ottawa Citizen ran this story under the headline “Watching R-rated movies can lead children to drink, study finds”

According to the report,

“The researchers found that of children whose parents never allowed them to watch R-rated movies, only three per cent had started drinking when questioned a couple of years after the initial survey. For children whose parents "sometimes" let them see R-rated films, 19 per cent had started drinking. For children who were allowed to watch R-rated films "all the time," 25 per cent had started drinking.”

And from that the researchers seem to have decided that, 

“… watching R-rated movies can lead to children drinking alcohol earlier in life.”

This reminds me of the “study” that was done back in the 60s that proved, beyond any reasonable doubt, that breastfeeding your infant was the single biggest causal factor that led to later marijuana use because 90%+ of users were breast fed as infants. Something to do with oral fixation as I recall.

Did it not occur to anyone that perhaps parents who allowed their young children to watch R-rated movies weren’t particularly good role models themselves? Maybe there was already alcohol abuse/overuse in the household and the kids were just emulating mom and pop. Who knows what other factors were at play – the paper didn’t elaborate – but I expect the linkage is tenuous at best, despite the alarmist headline.

Rubbish then, and rubbish now.