Seeking advice from been there and done that dads. First timers, sorry but your opinion doesn't outweigh experience.
Parents who've been there and done that only please as experience is better than opinion.
My youngest son is turning 16 shortly and will be having a camping party with his nates at the back of our farm property, and has told me he wants me to buy him a can of alcohol to "try". The legal age in my country town drink is 18.
Now, I'm not an idiot. I am well aware this isn't his first time drinking (but he knows it all and doesn't think I am). At his age, I was defintely passed out in a field somewhere as were many of us. That being said, many of us also had a really shitty home life, not that it makes it better for anything. My son doesn't. He **IS** loved, and supported. He is however, at that adolescent boy stage. I know there's going to be alcohol. Many of his mates are 16 or 17.
Everything inside me is telling me not to allow his request, but if I do, in your experience, is it less likely he would consume alcohol with his mates or at the least, at a safer leve? Or is that wishful thinking and he's going to do it anyway regardless?l