To me, responsibility in these areas is all about preparation. i do agree that things like alcohol and sex aren't necessarily a given in anyone's life, but to look at the current cultural landscape and assume people can get by on a mere "don't do that" is foolish. Plenty of folks may work fine with general principle; many of my friends, for example, have no taste for these sorts of things. But to assume that, as a parent, is to take a serious risk. After all, many of these same friends only threw off their particular vices when some sort of bad (extremely bad, in some cases) personal experience hammered the truth of that vice home. Personal experience always speaks the loudest, and granting that carefully and watchfully in the home is the best possible place for it.

To me, it's better to prepare for a kid for such things in a controlled environment rather than simply decree law and hope for the best. No, i certainly wouldn't want my kids having promiscuous sex and getting drunk every weekend, but do i simply tell them so and hope it works out when they go off to college? No. That 'decreed' morality is the most distant brand thereof, and while for some, that's more than enough, education needs that extra level of personal experience to truly sit well. It's a far more stable moral education to present a respectable idea of what's out there, instilling respectable virtues in the process. People need to be prepared adequately for the world around them, because eventually they're going to live in it. And controlled introduction seems to me the most effective route.

And yes, there's a chance that my hypothetical kid could get to college and remember all my warnings, turning down this or that vice on general principle. But when i look at my own college campus and see folks getting drunk by the truckload on the weekends, at least a portion of whom will eventually come back with someone on their arm - either from the college or otherwise - for "a good time" back at the room, i can know for a fact that every kid is eventually getting some exposure to the more adult issues of the world. The question, then, is the choice he makes to either involve himself or stay out of it. And he may or may not partake, but he should at least be fully aware beforehand - because then it's something he'd be more likely to avoid.

It seems our debate has come to a diametric standstill of general principle, though.