Homestudy and Booze?

nisems

I'm sure that subject line caught your attention!

Our first homestudy meeting is on Thursday night.  My mom came over today to help me clean out the spare bedroom that will one day be our nursery and mentioned something that I hadn't really thought about before.  She asked if we were going to remove the liquor from our bar area before our meeting.  She says that it gives the impression that we are heavy drinkers and would be concerned about what our social worker might think.  We do have a relatively well stocked bar and a good deal of wine, (we live in Northern CA - we're wine country kids!), and we definitely enjoy a cocktail, but I wouldn't say we're big partiers or heavy drinkers.  What do you think?  Does an out in the open bar give the wrong impression for this process?  We don't want to give the wrong impression, and we also don't want to "cover up" who we are.  I'll PIP below. 

nisems

Here is the bar in question - thanks for your thoughts on the matter!

love_ya_babe

I would remove the liquor and maybe buy a small wine rack that hold 5 bottles. So you can still have wine out, and not conceal who you are, but it won't be as overkill.

Temp206787500007404

Your pictures don't show up...but here is my opinion.

I would put any liquor/wine away in a cabinet if it is just sitting around.  If your wine is displayed in a decorative wine rack, I think that's fine.  I would make sure that whatever cabinet you put it in isn't floor level, otherwise it needs to have a lock on it to keep children out of it. 

All of our hard liquor is stored in the cabinet above our stove vent and our wine rack is on top of our refrigerator.  Our social worker did ask me if we had any alcohol in the house and asked if there was any stored at floor level in our china hutch (where we keep all of our wine glasses displayed).  I said no and pointed out where it was stored and she made a note and said those areas were fine.

PSU-NCBride

We have our last homestudy meeting tomorrow, but the question has not come up in the first meetings. We have quite a bit of liquor that is stored in an upper bar cabinet that is not visible. However, we collect wine and have 50 bottles that are on display in the living room. They are on one of those original A frame racks from a vineyard in France, so it is more a 'piece' in our home than just an alcohol display. ?But it is definitely visible right when you walk in the house. I hadn't really been concerned with it.... so I will be interested to see if anything is brought up tomorrow. So far our homestudy has been very very laid back.?

BurkeJax

I say you have shots ready when she shows up 

I would put it up out of the way, I can't see the picture to see what it looks like currently. We have a few bottle of wine out but they are in a wine holder. I am not going to move ours when we do the homestudy, but I will move the Vodka up and away.

 

MyColonyNJ

I can't see the pics, but we were told that all alcohol had to be out of reach.  We have a under the cabinet wine rack and all the liquor is above that in a cabinet.

But, on the countertop right there we had a bar set (ok, a few bar sets) - our home study worker told us it would be best to to the bar sets away, but everything else was ok.

We have several home visits with our worker before our final state inspection.

So, that is what we will do, but the bar sets away, keep the liquor high up and keep the 2-3 bottle of wine in the rack.

BabySweetPeasMom

We had it in our wine rack.  Just have it put away tastefully, not all over all the counters, etc.  That's really what they are looking for - they don't want to see beer cans and open wine bottles on the coffee table, couch, floor, all the kitchen counters, etc.   Everything in moderation (unless you are using an agency that is strict "no drinking" or tied to a church that isn't big on drinking).

nisems

BurkeJax:

I say you have shots ready when she shows up 

LOL BurkeJax - my thoughts exactly!

Sorry my pictures didn't show up - I think I fixed at least one of them.  Thanks for all of the thoughts and suggestions.  I think I'm going to let it ride for the first meeting, and if its a problem then we'll fix it.  My feeling is that we have a "classy" bar, (it doesn't look like a frat house in here!), that is up high enough that it will not be posing a problem for an infant.  If our social worker has a concern, we'll take care of it at that point.

Thanks again!  

come*on*baby

we had all of our alcohol out and our wine cooler and a tiny wine rack were sitting out in the open in our dining room. they never mentioned it to us once, but of course they probably noticed the very thick layer of dust on the bottles so they figured out we're not raging alcoholics.

 

i say that and my children have driven me to drink tonight. 

RubyInParadise

Hi there. ?My knee-jerk reaction when I saw it was to reduce the amount of bottles or remove it. ?

kirstenw05

It wasnt an issue at all with us. Our dining room is full of wine racks and we have 2 HUGE portraits in our dining room of fine french wine bottles as art. I didnt move or conceal anything, and the CW didnt even glance at it. We sat in the dining room for the formal part of our interview so she could use her computer. I dont think you have to be too paranoid about it.