Word: alcoholic
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Suddenly, post-Schuler, it's no longer funny when people crack a joke about "better parenting through alcohol." The image of a giddily drunk parent may have had some appeal when it started, once the war against Betty Crocker had been won and when irreverent mommy bloggers were confessing their sins as far as the mouse could reach. There was something liberating about the eyebrow-cocked, white-wine-swilling posture of the saucy parenting memoir. It felt fresh, a rebuke to the perfectionism displayed every day by the overly tidy mothers on morning television. (See TIME's parenting covers...
...recovering drinkers in the parenting blogosphere were more circumspect. "On the one hand it's easy to believe that Diane Schuler is so extreme and a crazy alcoholic," says Wilder-Taylor, "but on the other hand, according to the news, her husband and family had no idea she had a drinking problem. Her husband says he's never seen her drunk. It would seem there are a lot of people out there with alcohol and drug problems not being addressed due to shame or other factors, and in some cases it leads to tragic results...
...literally. "I did hear from a few mommies who felt that I was, in fact, giving them 'permission' to party down with the cocktails while supervising a gang of 2-year-olds," she says. "I tried to explain in various interviews and columns that it's not about alcohol - it's about attitude. The addition of alcohol to your incredibly overscheduled, child-centered life wasn't going to suddenly make you a relaxed 'three-martini mom.' It was simply going to make you a very busy drunk." (Watch TIME's video "The Story of an Uninsured Woman...
...cautionary tale' doesn't even touch what this is," says Brownell of the Schuler crash. "This is a worst-case scenario for what happens when people, mothers and fathers, have alcohol abuse and addiction issues that go untreated ... and unrecognized by loved ones. The amazing thing is that more cases like this don't happen every day." (See TIME's alcohol abuse covers...
...while revelations about Schuler's final hours have led to many discussions about closeted drinking as well as where to draw the line between unwinding and alcoholism, not every mommy blogger is ready to swear off alcohol...