Parent-child closeness affects the similarity of drinking levels between parents and their college-age children.

College males reported drinking more frequently and in higher amounts than females. Correlations between quantity-frequency (QF) indices of drinking by parents and by their college-age children showed the greatest similarity between fathers and sons. Log linear analyses compared each parent's drinking level against each of three other factors that might affect the QF levels of college-age children: the relationship between parent and child, the effect of the parent's drinking on the parent, and how the parent's drinking affected their treatment of the child. The results supported models in which the relationship of each parent's drinking to the QF levels of both sons and daughters was affected by the closeness of the parent-child relationship. However, there was no support for models involving how each parent's drinking affected that parent or how each parent's drinking affected their treatment of the child.