The scene of an accident near Hawthorne, N.Y., that killed four adults and four children
(2 of 2)
Christie Mellor, who arguably launched the "martini mom" trend with her 2004 book Three-Martini Playdate, says she was just using cocktails as a figure of speech: "Anyone who read my book and actually understood the metaphorical nature of the title would know that I wasn't actually encouraging mommies to down a fifth of vodka at their toddler's play dates."
Unfortunately, says Mellor, who wrote a 2007 follow-up, The Three-Martini Family Vacation, some people took her 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."
Tell that to Turning Leaf wine. The company's new ad campaign, complete with minisite HowDoYouBreathe.com, features smiling mothers — among them the parenting blogger Rebecca Woolf, author of Rockabye: From Wild to Child — and implies that wine is as necessary as oxygen to parents of small children.
In the wake of the Schuler tragedy, the ad campaign seems outdated at best.
"To say '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."
But 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.
"I hate the fact that when a man does something idiotic and criminal resulting in the death of a child, that isn't held out as some Searing Indictment of Modern American Fathers, but a woman's colossal, tragic screw-up somehow does end up reflecting on all her fellow mothers," says Carole Morrell, author of the popular parenting blog DrunkenHousewife.com. "In this particular instance, I'm sure this will confirm the belief held by many that a mother should never drink around her children, ever."
But the Schuler episode hasn't prompted Morrell to throw away her bottle openers: "I'll continue with my more European point of view, showing my children by example that you can enjoy alcohol without anyone getting hurt."