Safe, funny and frightening drinking situations from children's viewpoint: Comparing recalled childhood stories about others' drinking in Scandinavia.

The article analyzes retrospective childhood stories related to others' drinking (N = 336). The stories have been told in a focus group context in Finland and Sweden. Hence, they are stories about the past that have been constructed in the present. The retrospective childhood stories are analyzed from the perspective of emotions, seen as relational and situational sociocultural constructions, by paying attention to what kind of contact and emotional responses children develop to others' drinking in specific situations. The analysis demonstrates how in an intoxicated-oriented drinking culture the presence of alcohol may signify something outside the bounds of everyday life, in the case of which children develop an ambiguous contact with drinking in which many kinds of positive or negative emotions can emerge, such as love, fun, fear, shame or curiosity. In the Finnish narratives, children's emotional socialization to drinking is regulated by situations of heavy domestic drinking, festive drinking and moderate routine drinking at home. In the Swedish narratives, children's emotional socialization to drinking is governed by festive situations, moderate routine drinking at home and meal drinking. Fear dominates the Finnish participants' recalled childhood stories, whereas fun is the most common emotion in the stories from Sweden. The differences between Finnish and Swedish emotions recalled from childhood in relation to drinking may reflect differences in these culture's drinking practices and/or social interaction norms. The article demonstrates how adults' childhood memories on drinking provide an important 'indirect' source to get knowledge on children's ways of experiencing and responding to others' drinking in various situations.