An excuse for becoming a nagging parent.

Adults often struggle to know what to tell kids about drinking. The drinking age of twenty-one seems arbitrary to some, while others feel hypocritical prohibiting something that they did at the same age. And, of course, many just feel like the kids are going to do it anyway, so what's the point. According to this NY Times article, however, keeping kids away from alcohol until they're 21 makes a whole lot of sense. To begin with, the article outlines that kids who engage in heavy drinking at an early age are far more likely to become alcohol dependent later in life. More striking, however, is that alcohol appears to affect the brain function of teens in ways that adult drinkers don't have to worry about--excessive drinking may stunt neurodevelopment in the hippocampus with possible long-term effects on memory.