Several times a week, in that brief lull that comes after school ends and before the nightly supper-homework ritual begins, several mothers gather on a front porch in Ben Avon for what they laughingly call "wine hour."

"There are usually about three or four of us," says Susan Geist, a 31-year-old mother of a 9-month-old. "We sit and talk and have a glass of wine or two, and then I come home, make dinner for my husband and feed my daughter."

For Ms. Geist, wine hour isn't about getting drunk, it's about mothers helping each other cope.

"It's like a breath of fresh air, at the end of a long day with a baby, to have these other moms to talk to who have been there and can be so helpful. It's almost like therapy. It's not like we just sit there and drink and lose ourselves in alcohol or anything."

Perhaps, but the whole culture of women and social drinking -- the "cocktail play dates," the "Happy Hour moms," the wine bars, the boozy book clubs, the single girl's "Sex and the City" Cosmopolitans -- is coming under increased scrutiny lately.

A horrific car crash in July on New York's Taconic Parkway, in which Diane Schuler -- who police say was drunk and had smoked marijuana -- killed four children, herself and three adults while driving the wrong way, has intensified the debate over whether child rearing and drinking are simply too lethal a cocktail for some women.

There's statistical reason to be concerned.

The number of women arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs has mounted dramatically in recent years, according to FBI data. Overall arrests of men for DUI still outnumber arrests of women by nearly 4 to 1. But the number of women arrested for DUI was 28.8 percent higher in 2007 than it was in 1998, while the number of men arrested was 7.5 percent lower.

What's causing this?

"For women, it's one of the consequences of being encouraged to do the things that men do," said Carnegie Mellon University criminologist Alfred Blumstein. "Some are good things, like becoming police officers, firefighters and so on. Some are bad things, like becoming criminals or being arrested for drinking and driving."

The FBI numbers may not tell the whole story, he cautioned -- some people may have been arrested multiple times, for example. Also, thanks to the efforts of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, drunken driving is no longer just a traffic offense, he said, "so there may be less of a sense of chivalry among arresting police officers, who may have been more gentle about nabbing a woman than they are now."

In Pennsylvania, the number of women being arrested for driving under the influence has also gone up in roughly the same time period -- from 16.5 percent of all DUI arrests in 2000 to 22 percent in 2008, noted Lt. Myra Taylor, a spokeswoman for the state police.

Closer to home, that changing drinking demographic can be seen at Gateway Rehabilitation Center, which provides drug and alcohol rehabilitation services, says Neil Capretto, its medical director.

"When I got into the field 30 years ago, it was usually a 3-1 ratio of men to women [seeking treatment]. Now it's almost 50-50 men to women walking through the door," he said.

Dr. Capretto said he believes that spike may be due in part to vast numbers of women entering the workforce in recent decades. In June, women held 49.83 percent of the nation's 132 million jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and are soon expected to overtake men.

"The way men have always dealt with stress after work was to go the bar," he added. "Now women are going to the bar, too -- and driving home afterwards. It's the old notion that if you play by the railroad track, chances are greater you'll get hit by a train."

Not all of these women drinkers are alcoholics, by any means, but two or three drinks can raise blood alcohol levels in women more quickly than men.

"Women do many things better than men, including absorbing alcohol better," Dr. Capretto said, because of their smaller size and other physiological factors.

So who are these new women drinkers? They range across the age and socio-economic spectrum. But research from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University shows that better-educated women are more likely to drink than those who are less-educated, just as working women drink more than those who stay at home. Married women have the lowest rates of heavy drinking.

Certainly, plenty of women drink in moderation and enjoy it. Kathy Sullivan, 54, recently walked into the Bocktown Beer and Grill in North Fayette with her daughter Sara, 24, for what has become a favorite mother-daughter ritual: savoring craft beers.

"It's like walking into a candy store here," Ms. Sullivan said, as she sipped her Troeg's Dreamweaver wheat beer with the rapt attention of a wine connoisseur "It's lighter, sweeter than regular beer, with a slight banana flavor to it," she noted.

Bocktown, which is owned and managed by women, sees itself as an alternative to the male-oriented Budweiser "beer garden" from back in the day.

When she was growing up in Aliquippa, "my grandmother used to say, 'Don't you ever go to the beer garden next door, only the men can go there,' " said bar manager Tera Bevilacqua, laughing. "And if she did, she was always there with her husband, sipping a coke."

Ms. Sullivan, who worked in a bar when she was a young mother, doesn't understand the fuss about women and drinking. It has always gone on, she believes, and there will always be those who can handle it -- and those who don't.

"I don't get drunk," she said. "Ever. I have two, at the most, and that's enough," she said, noting that when she was raising Sara, she never felt the need for a drink to relieve stress.

Today, though, some young mothers apparently do.

The Web is stuffed with mommy bloggers weighing in on the drinking culture. At Thecocktailcafe.com, which bills itself as "The Mothership for Moms to Gather, Sip and Socialize," one poster laments that "I, like so many other mommies, never seem to find the time to make time," and goes on to give thanks for "caffeine, liquor and chocolate."

At MommyWantsVodka.com, Becky Harks, a 29-year-old mother of three children from St. Charles, Ill., refuses to apologize for the title of her blog.

"It's a joke, for heaven's sake," she said. "I do occasionally drink, but I was being sarcastic. I don't condemn mothers for drinking, though. It's a stressful life, and I'm kind of annoyed that the media has suddenly started in on these mothers after that woman killed all those people in that car accident

"If I were a lush, I wouldn't be able to do all the writing I do on the Web," she added, noting that MommyWantsVodka.com has thousands of subscribers.

Many of these bloggers describe themselves as "relaxed" moms, when in fact, they're probably rebelling against perfectionist baby boomer parents, noted Rachael Brownell, author of "Mommy Doesn't Drink Here Anymore," the story of her own decision to become a teetotaler.

"It's kind of a 'slacker mom' thing, this notion that our parents were overachievers so we're going to do it differently with our kids and our marriages, and if that means unwinding with a couple of glasses of wine, so what?"

Ms. Brownell said she did her share of celebrating the "cocktail mom" lifestyle for Web sites like Babble.com before she decided to stop drinking two years ago. And she admires others who are pulling back, most notably, Baby On Bored mommy blogger Stefanie Wilder-Taylor, author of, among other books, "Sippy Cups Are Not for Chardonnay."

A popular Web columnist, Ms. Wilder-Taylor announced her decision to quit drinking in April on her blog.

For Ms. Wilder-Taylor "to come out and say, 'I think I have a problem,' is really brave," said Ms. Brownell, a 41-year-old mother of three daughters who lives in Bellingham, Wash.

"She's asking an important question -- is alcohol the only way for mommy to relax? For a lot of mothers, 'Mommy needs a drink' has just become a shortcut for facing the hard stuff about parenting," she said. "It's a lot easier to say 'I need a drink' than to go down the litany of what's wrong in your life."

Jennifer Ginsberg, who writes about parenting her two young children on her blog, Angstmom.com, says many mothers who are at home with their children feel tremendously isolated -- but don't know how to bond with other women without alcohol.

"It's a socially acceptable thing to go to a book club and get sloshed and not even talk about the book," said Ms. Ginsberg, a former clinical director for a drug and alcohol treatment center in Los Angeles.

"When you're bonding with alcohol, are you really bonding? Are you really forming a connection with someone? There need to be more sober book clubs, play dates and options for women who don't want to drink," she said, noting that she's starting her own support group for mothers who feel isolated, confused and uncertain.

"Drinking can be fun, totally fun, but it is definitely not compatible with complex tasks, like operating a nuclear power plant or watching children. There are no gold stars, promotions or 'atta girls,' even when we make it through the most challenging of days," she said.

The romanticizing of drinking goes on, "and then all of a sudden you have this New York mother ... [and] that car accident, and everyone's so shocked and horrified. Meanwhile there are all these moms who drink and drive every day, except that they don't think they're drunk."

Ms. Brownell is glad she no longer drinks, but she's not insisting everyone follow her example. In fact, she senses a whiff of sexism in the current media fixation on cocktail moms.

"There are plenty of responsible drinkers out there, and a lot of women are feeling very defensive. As usual, you're seeing women held to a higher standard. We should be able to have a glass of wine or two -- that's not the issue. The issue is, when you have a problem with alcohol, you need to address it."

Yes, but media and marketing campaigns will do little to help women who are navigating that treacherous middle ground between too much and just enough alcohol-flavored stress relief, noted Misty Moyse, national spokeswoman for Mothers Against Drunk Driving. She noted that a few years ago, liquor packaged in tiny bottles that look like nail polish were all the rage in some states, although not in Pennsylvania.

Then there are shows like "Weeds," featuring a suburban, pot-dealing mom, and "Sex in the City," whose single women consume lemon drop Martinis like ... lemonade.

"There's a place in Dallas where you can get a foot massage where it's BYOB," said Ms. Moyse, who stressed she was all for responsible drinking -- but recalled that at one wine-infused party for new parents at the kindergarten her children attended, she stood up and asked the group if anyone needed a designated driver.

"Boy, that was a real party killer," she said.