Meanwhile parents kid themselves if they suppose they always know where their teen is and with whom. There are limits to parents’ ability to control what teens do with their friends. But there are simple steps parents can take to avoid enabling dangerous behavior. Having their eyes wide open is step one. Refusing to be a “partner in crime” is step two.

As a parent now, I can tell you that my daughter won’t experience the same degree of freedom that I enjoyed as a teenager because: a) the laws are much more severe now for permissive parents whose kids get into trouble, b) kids in general don’t party like that anymore, c) she’s a girl and I’m an overprotective father with guns, and d) I don’t want her to have to battle as hard as I did with the fact that the world in general won’t let you get away with the stuff your parents let you get away with.

But just the same, I would say this: I love America, but one of the things we don’t do well here is teach our kids about moderation… everything tends to be either balls-to-the-wall or else strictly taboo, and that includes our attitude towards booze. The parent who drinks a glass or two of wine with dinner in front of their kids (and when the time is right, allows them to do the same), and who has friends over to enjoy social time that includes a few drinks but not drunken idiocy, is in most cases providing better parenting than the one whose kid’s first experience with alcohol involves a plastic cup, a keg of beer, and a bunch of lies.

Where the hell were you during the ’70s and ’80s? In case you were too sheltered to know about house parties and keggers in the woods, maybe you should ask Tucker what was the typical scene at St. George’s when he was a student there. The younger brother of friend of mine was a contemporary of his, and what I heard was that good strong bud was a daily staple and there was a fair bit of coke available on the weekends.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I went to a different St. Grottlesex school a few years earlier, where most of the pot smoking was limited to weekend use. We did have that great snow day back in ’82 when most of a dormitory, some 34 boys, simultaneously dropped acid. Good times. Nobody got hurt, but that was probably just good luck.

Now I would be utterly appalled if my kids did 1/10th the drugs I did as a privileged teenager, and I guess that makes me a typical middle-age hypocrite. In any case, I don’t see anything like the frequency of hard drugs and heavy drinking in today’s kids that was common in their parents’ generation. Not being an ingenue, I know what to look out for, and do not panic at the occasional horror story played up by the press.

The kids are alright. Mostly.

Also, never go away for the weekend, leaving your teen behind with access to your home, no matter how much you trust him/her. IM and texts will fly around town to alert other kids to a house that’s free of adults on Saturday night. Your teen will not be able to control what happens when kids start showing up.

Finally, never be that parent who lets kids drink at your house: “we’ll take their keys and make sure they’re safe.” If all parents observed the above simple rules at all times, teen parties would be less common.