At lunch in my office. A colleague was talking about living with her 2-year-old daughter in her joint family. Then she started talking about weeping babies and someone mentioned gripe water, and a misheard word here and there, and I ended up joking, "Well watch out, your kid's going to be walking around with a bottle of alcohol before you know it." She replied, "Oh she does that already." "Good one," I replied.
Turned out, she wasn't kidding! She went on to tell us how her kid has been sipping the adults' drinks in their house almost from the age she could walk. And then a few days ago, the kid was sitting on her potty trainer and she was constipated. She called out to her grandfather, "Grandpa, get me the bitter juice it'll help me poop better." Apparently the adults used to try to dissuade her from drinking alcoholic drinks by telling her it was a bitter juice. But the kid got over the bitter taste and now drinks from time to time.
I was shocked on a bunch of different levels. The kid had somehow linked up alcohol with a cure for constipation, which meant that at the very least she's had enough experience with alcohol and bowel her own movements! Further, the mother was telling us about this stuff like it was a joke. Now, technically it's probably not harmful for babies to sip alcohol, I don't know. But it's disturbing to hear that all the same.
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