My Mom Drinks Too

Molly comes home the other day and tells me about this conversation she had with her friend and her friend's mom. They were apparently telling Molly some silly story in which the mom came home from a party where she had had a drink or two and she went off on the kids about the kitchen being a mess. So in the morning the kids got up early and started to clean the kitchen. To which the mom was like "What are you doing? Everything looks great." I guess a big family laugh was had. Here is where I get involved in the story. Being female (albeit an 8 year old one) and biologically pre-programmed to show empathy and understanding when in a conversation, Molly says, "My mom drinks too." That's it. Nothing more. Hello? God can only imagine what the friend's mother was thinking. Ugh! I replay it in my head. What would I think if some kid said that to me about their mother? I'd probably smirk; maybe raise an eyebrow. "How much?" and "Does she drink alone?" are questions that would pop unasked into my head. It's in the choice of words really. "My mom drinks too." It has that bottle-of-Thunderbird-in-a-paper-bag implication to it. But how to explain this to an eight year old. So I simply say, "Next time just say, 'My mom enjoys having wine with her friends'." There, that's much better. Right?