I'm a touch embarrassed, reading my last post. Sometimes I've just gotta ask myself if it's worth it to talk about hot-button topics like drugs on a parenting blog. It's so hard to do it and not sound like an idiot.
How to redeem myself ...
Drugs around kids are dangerous beyond the social taboo, because you risk their health. Overdoing it can severely limit your capacity to parent, as it does to drive. I'm mostly talking about alcohol here, as opposed to marijuana. I'd wager that any stoner parent you ask will tell you that, if anything comes between them and their kids, it's not the weed. There's usually a larger problem at fault.
I have, however heard stories of a mother smoking a joint while breastfeeding—now there's a classic example of weed-with-parenting gone too far. But in my opinion, alcohol is the real danger to kids, not marijuana.
Don't get me started on cigarettes.
Yet here I am skirting on legal thin ice, talking openly on my parenting blog about how I smoke pot while parenting. Meanwhile, marijuana laws aren't even fully fleshed out in Washington state, even though it was recently legalized here, and it's still federally illegal. And courts can take your kids away.
But the thing is—so many people use marijuana. So many. I know they're out there. It's becoming socially acceptable.
That using alcohol—a drug that can ruin and take lives—at home with your kids is more acceptable than marijuana—a drug that pretty much makes you mellow—doesn't square with me.
I want to rise above the legality of drugs and talk about them as a real person. I don't want the law to shape my thoughts; I want to come to my own conclusions. To worry about the state pounding one with its iron fist detracts from true mental development and the strengthening of one's intellect. If all topics are not on the table for discussion, we do not live in a free society, especially if we're not free to practice what's being discussed.
I'm trying to contribute honestly to the drugs debate. Many call it "The War on Drugs," which is an antiquated term, in my opinion. We have drug laws, not a drug war. Though, the violence resulting from those laws, drawn among racial and social lines rather than those concerned with health (read: reality), might constitute a war-like result.
Back to the kid issue.
My kids are safe. They eat healthy food, and there are no physical dangers to them around the house. They get outside regularly, they're interested and inquisitive about everything they see, they color prolifically, look at books even if I'm not reading to them, build with blocks, play and pretend with toys, watch kids' tv shows and play Mario games, and they give us the appropriate amount of guff and arguments and crying. Sounds normal and healthy to me.
Today BB was wearing a backpack on her back. This little two-year-old, and I'm already getting visions of her going off to school and leaving me alone in the house, and it makes me a little, like, sick-sad, like a sad that's a fear and it's in my stomach. Parenting, I suppose it does that to you.
I want to be a good dad. I want to raise my kids to have high standards for how people treat them, especially friends and lovers. I want them to be able to make their own choices and be wary of danger. To use their senses, develop good judgment, and see the world around them as it is, not as anyone with less-than-the-best-intentions would tell them it is. And to give their dad a hug when he needs it.
As a parent, you do have to trust yourself, but simultaneously you must also question yourself, to strive for self-improvement and thus the improvement of your kids, to always ask yourself if what you're teaching your kid, thru both example and spoken word, will square with them. Is right. Consistent. Not teaching them something you don't realize you're really saying, but don't mean to.
Let me lay a story on you about an alcoholic mother, whose family I lived with briefly. It illustrates what I've seen of bad parenting, all of which kind of encapsulates itself in this story.
It's about a mother and her 4-year-old son, and her husband, the child's step-dad. Let's call the wife "Linda," her husband "Mort," and her kid "Eugene."
I lived with them for two summers when I was 18 and 19. The draw was to get work at a job that offered me incredible opportunities to break into the entertainment industry.
Eugene's father had died in a car accident while Linda was pregnant with him. Mort had taken them in, working his ass off at the only job he know how to do, but which didn't have any insurance or pension benefits. This frustrated the hell out of Linda. However, Linda was also an alcoholic—extremely unstable, drank too often, wouldn't get a job, got put in jail both summers I visited. One of those times I bailed her out—she didn't pay me back. Although she promised to, and got a job serving tables to do so, she instead spent the money on getting her nails, hair and makeup done, and probably some liquor too, along with the rent and other family expenses. She was at least stable enough to keep her family together, but it wouldn't last.
She's from a very wealthy family, and was dependent on her parents to bail her out every time she got in trouble. She drank, and drank, and drank. No one in the cul-de-sac we lived in could stand her. They all avoided her when she came drunkenly and loudly sauntering over, letting herself in to the neighbor's houses, talking really loud, blabbering about whatever, thinking she was at a high-class party or something. She was blind to how her neighbors perceived her and how she came across to her neighbors and family.
She was hard to live with. I was 18 and 19, so I had zero social skills and no idea how to handle her. I just tried to be nice. I played with her kid, cleaned up their apartment for them, worked with Mort and contributed to the rent. My car became the family car that second summer, as their previous car was repossessed. Mort and I, pretty good friends, would sometimes go out driving just to avoid Linda.
One time she made me cry. She was getting in my face as I was trying to eat a taco she had made for dinner. I forget what she wanted, but the tone was of one trying to start a physical fight. She wanted some kind of satisfaction from me, to get me to admit some kind of flaw she saw in me. Probably the fact that I was a country kid in the big city and seemed weird to her.
Mort wasn't home, so I had no one to go to. She was laughing, mocking, and then pushing me. I was just trying to eat a taco. Trying hard to be unfazed by her taunts, I stood there in the kitchen, holding my plate, and I raised the taco toward my face to take a bite. With a stupid, drunken smile, she flicked the taco out of my hand and back onto my plate. That was my breaking point.
I fled into the basement, where my "room" was. I can't remember when I started sobbing. I had no idea what I was doing with my life, my parents were states away, and here I was stuck living with this lady. It seemed I had hit a low point in my life, and all because Linda was being a shit. It wasn't fair.
Linda opens the door at the top of the stairs, laughing at my reaction, as if I was the irrational one. She comes downstairs, sits next to me on the futon. Puts an arm around my shoulders. Instantly becomes nice, caring mom-figure. It was really ... kind of crazy, the instant twist. I can't remember what she said exactly, but I remember that it didn't help. She didn't want me to tell Mort, either. She did apologize, but she thought I should lighten up because it was all a joke. "I was just joking! Awww, come on."
That was the first of two summers I spent with the family. I came back next time because the money was good, and I liked the job. When she got put in jail again, for I don't know what, I didn't bail her out. We all just kind of shook our heads at the hopelessness of it all and let her dad come up with the money. I remember all us at the jail that day.
Sometime soon after that, she got into a physical fight with Mort. We had taken Eugene to the shop we worked at without telling Linda what we were doing. So she must have come home, found no one there, and freaked out. She shows up at the shop, where Eugene and I were playing around in the back of an empty box truck. In full view of us both, she starts pushing Mort around and throwing punches at him. Meanwhile, Eugene is sobbing, so I just sat there and hugged him. It was all I could do. The fact that his confusion and sorrow at seeing his mom trying to hurt his dad wasn't enough to get her to stop attacking Mort was telling of Linda's mental state at the time. It just never occurred to her to stop fighting, even in full view of her sobbing 5-year-old child. I'm willing to bet Eugene remembers it all. Mort fended her off, saying, "You're crazy!" and not retaliating, like a good guy. At least he could see what was going on.
Eventually Linda cut it out, took Eugene, and drove away. If I had been older and more learned, I would have helped. I would have stepped in. I would have made sure Linda got the help she needed and didn't put her child at risk. It's one of my greater regrets. I jump into fights now to help those currently at risk, because I didn't do enough to help Eugene then.
Meanwhile, working with Mort was the experience of a lifetime. He was a good guy. Came from an abusive home. His temper was horrible, and he was uneducated. But he stayed away from alcohol completely because he knew it made him a person he didn't want to be. He was an old man then, and he's even older now. He taught me lots of good lessons about helping people, especially those in trouble.
Once, we were waiting at a stoplight at a very busy intersection. A car had pulled out, and stopped running right in the middle of it all. No one could drive through. The woman driving was clearly freaking out, scared and not strong enough to push the car by herself. So what does Mort do? Says, "Come on, Lightning," throws the door open and gets out of the car. He called me Lightning. "We're gonna help her."
We left our car where it was and pushed the lady's car out of the intersection, into a gas station. She was relieved and thankful. We ran back to our car, doors still open, while everyone else just .. I don't know, they did nothing. Sometimes society as a whole is a big shit, and you have to break thru it to help people in trouble.
Mort helped me learn how to help others in trouble, and to restrict oneself to only using the appropriate amount of violence necessary to solve the situation at hand, and never anything more. Using more
All of this is to say I have a pretty good idea about what not to do in order to be a responsible parent. And I also have a pretty good idea about what to do in order to raise good human beings. And my wife kicks always helps me to reign myself back in when I get out of line, so I've got that going for me too.
So if I talk about smoking weed at home while my kids are home, know that I do it responsibly, I hide it, it's all way out of their possible reach, and I don't let it conflict with my parenting. There are parents out there who do this, I'm not the only one.
I've got my head on straight. My girls help keep me there. The loves of my life. Look at them. What a lucky guy I am.
I'll post more pictures of these lovelies soon.
How to redeem myself ...
Drugs around kids are dangerous beyond the social taboo, because you risk their health. Overdoing it can severely limit your capacity to parent, as it does to drive. I'm mostly talking about alcohol here, as opposed to marijuana. I'd wager that any stoner parent you ask will tell you that, if anything comes between them and their kids, it's not the weed. There's usually a larger problem at fault.
I have, however heard stories of a mother smoking a joint while breastfeeding—now there's a classic example of weed-with-parenting gone too far. But in my opinion, alcohol is the real danger to kids, not marijuana.
Don't get me started on cigarettes.
Yet here I am skirting on legal thin ice, talking openly on my parenting blog about how I smoke pot while parenting. Meanwhile, marijuana laws aren't even fully fleshed out in Washington state, even though it was recently legalized here, and it's still federally illegal. And courts can take your kids away.
But the thing is—so many people use marijuana. So many. I know they're out there. It's becoming socially acceptable.
That using alcohol—a drug that can ruin and take lives—at home with your kids is more acceptable than marijuana—a drug that pretty much makes you mellow—doesn't square with me.
I want to rise above the legality of drugs and talk about them as a real person. I don't want the law to shape my thoughts; I want to come to my own conclusions. To worry about the state pounding one with its iron fist detracts from true mental development and the strengthening of one's intellect. If all topics are not on the table for discussion, we do not live in a free society, especially if we're not free to practice what's being discussed.
I'm trying to contribute honestly to the drugs debate. Many call it "The War on Drugs," which is an antiquated term, in my opinion. We have drug laws, not a drug war. Though, the violence resulting from those laws, drawn among racial and social lines rather than those concerned with health (read: reality), might constitute a war-like result.
Back to the kid issue.
My kids are safe. They eat healthy food, and there are no physical dangers to them around the house. They get outside regularly, they're interested and inquisitive about everything they see, they color prolifically, look at books even if I'm not reading to them, build with blocks, play and pretend with toys, watch kids' tv shows and play Mario games, and they give us the appropriate amount of guff and arguments and crying. Sounds normal and healthy to me.
Today BB was wearing a backpack on her back. This little two-year-old, and I'm already getting visions of her going off to school and leaving me alone in the house, and it makes me a little, like, sick-sad, like a sad that's a fear and it's in my stomach. Parenting, I suppose it does that to you.
I want to be a good dad. I want to raise my kids to have high standards for how people treat them, especially friends and lovers. I want them to be able to make their own choices and be wary of danger. To use their senses, develop good judgment, and see the world around them as it is, not as anyone with less-than-the-best-intentions would tell them it is. And to give their dad a hug when he needs it.
As a parent, you do have to trust yourself, but simultaneously you must also question yourself, to strive for self-improvement and thus the improvement of your kids, to always ask yourself if what you're teaching your kid, thru both example and spoken word, will square with them. Is right. Consistent. Not teaching them something you don't realize you're really saying, but don't mean to.
Let me lay a story on you about an alcoholic mother, whose family I lived with briefly. It illustrates what I've seen of bad parenting, all of which kind of encapsulates itself in this story.
It's about a mother and her 4-year-old son, and her husband, the child's step-dad. Let's call the wife "Linda," her husband "Mort," and her kid "Eugene."
I lived with them for two summers when I was 18 and 19. The draw was to get work at a job that offered me incredible opportunities to break into the entertainment industry.
Eugene's father had died in a car accident while Linda was pregnant with him. Mort had taken them in, working his ass off at the only job he know how to do, but which didn't have any insurance or pension benefits. This frustrated the hell out of Linda. However, Linda was also an alcoholic—extremely unstable, drank too often, wouldn't get a job, got put in jail both summers I visited. One of those times I bailed her out—she didn't pay me back. Although she promised to, and got a job serving tables to do so, she instead spent the money on getting her nails, hair and makeup done, and probably some liquor too, along with the rent and other family expenses. She was at least stable enough to keep her family together, but it wouldn't last.
She's from a very wealthy family, and was dependent on her parents to bail her out every time she got in trouble. She drank, and drank, and drank. No one in the cul-de-sac we lived in could stand her. They all avoided her when she came drunkenly and loudly sauntering over, letting herself in to the neighbor's houses, talking really loud, blabbering about whatever, thinking she was at a high-class party or something. She was blind to how her neighbors perceived her and how she came across to her neighbors and family.
She was hard to live with. I was 18 and 19, so I had zero social skills and no idea how to handle her. I just tried to be nice. I played with her kid, cleaned up their apartment for them, worked with Mort and contributed to the rent. My car became the family car that second summer, as their previous car was repossessed. Mort and I, pretty good friends, would sometimes go out driving just to avoid Linda.
One time she made me cry. She was getting in my face as I was trying to eat a taco she had made for dinner. I forget what she wanted, but the tone was of one trying to start a physical fight. She wanted some kind of satisfaction from me, to get me to admit some kind of flaw she saw in me. Probably the fact that I was a country kid in the big city and seemed weird to her.
Mort wasn't home, so I had no one to go to. She was laughing, mocking, and then pushing me. I was just trying to eat a taco. Trying hard to be unfazed by her taunts, I stood there in the kitchen, holding my plate, and I raised the taco toward my face to take a bite. With a stupid, drunken smile, she flicked the taco out of my hand and back onto my plate. That was my breaking point.
I fled into the basement, where my "room" was. I can't remember when I started sobbing. I had no idea what I was doing with my life, my parents were states away, and here I was stuck living with this lady. It seemed I had hit a low point in my life, and all because Linda was being a shit. It wasn't fair.
Linda opens the door at the top of the stairs, laughing at my reaction, as if I was the irrational one. She comes downstairs, sits next to me on the futon. Puts an arm around my shoulders. Instantly becomes nice, caring mom-figure. It was really ... kind of crazy, the instant twist. I can't remember what she said exactly, but I remember that it didn't help. She didn't want me to tell Mort, either. She did apologize, but she thought I should lighten up because it was all a joke. "I was just joking! Awww, come on."
That was the first of two summers I spent with the family. I came back next time because the money was good, and I liked the job. When she got put in jail again, for I don't know what, I didn't bail her out. We all just kind of shook our heads at the hopelessness of it all and let her dad come up with the money. I remember all us at the jail that day.
Sometime soon after that, she got into a physical fight with Mort. We had taken Eugene to the shop we worked at without telling Linda what we were doing. So she must have come home, found no one there, and freaked out. She shows up at the shop, where Eugene and I were playing around in the back of an empty box truck. In full view of us both, she starts pushing Mort around and throwing punches at him. Meanwhile, Eugene is sobbing, so I just sat there and hugged him. It was all I could do. The fact that his confusion and sorrow at seeing his mom trying to hurt his dad wasn't enough to get her to stop attacking Mort was telling of Linda's mental state at the time. It just never occurred to her to stop fighting, even in full view of her sobbing 5-year-old child. I'm willing to bet Eugene remembers it all. Mort fended her off, saying, "You're crazy!" and not retaliating, like a good guy. At least he could see what was going on.
Eventually Linda cut it out, took Eugene, and drove away. If I had been older and more learned, I would have helped. I would have stepped in. I would have made sure Linda got the help she needed and didn't put her child at risk. It's one of my greater regrets. I jump into fights now to help those currently at risk, because I didn't do enough to help Eugene then.
Meanwhile, working with Mort was the experience of a lifetime. He was a good guy. Came from an abusive home. His temper was horrible, and he was uneducated. But he stayed away from alcohol completely because he knew it made him a person he didn't want to be. He was an old man then, and he's even older now. He taught me lots of good lessons about helping people, especially those in trouble.
Once, we were waiting at a stoplight at a very busy intersection. A car had pulled out, and stopped running right in the middle of it all. No one could drive through. The woman driving was clearly freaking out, scared and not strong enough to push the car by herself. So what does Mort do? Says, "Come on, Lightning," throws the door open and gets out of the car. He called me Lightning. "We're gonna help her."
We left our car where it was and pushed the lady's car out of the intersection, into a gas station. She was relieved and thankful. We ran back to our car, doors still open, while everyone else just .. I don't know, they did nothing. Sometimes society as a whole is a big shit, and you have to break thru it to help people in trouble.
Mort helped me learn how to help others in trouble, and to restrict oneself to only using the appropriate amount of violence necessary to solve the situation at hand, and never anything more. Using more
All of this is to say I have a pretty good idea about what not to do in order to be a responsible parent. And I also have a pretty good idea about what to do in order to raise good human beings. And my wife kicks always helps me to reign myself back in when I get out of line, so I've got that going for me too.
So if I talk about smoking weed at home while my kids are home, know that I do it responsibly, I hide it, it's all way out of their possible reach, and I don't let it conflict with my parenting. There are parents out there who do this, I'm not the only one.
I've got my head on straight. My girls help keep me there. The loves of my life. Look at them. What a lucky guy I am.
I'll post more pictures of these lovelies soon.
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