Can You Be A Good Parent And Still Smoke Weed?

Bongs and Babysitting - (part of 5 of our series called "Through The Eyes Of A Stoner")

Can You Be a Great Parent and Still Smoke Marijuana? from CannabisNet on Vimeo.

I was in the process of making dinner. I had chosen to briefly exile myself into the kitchen corner, shoulders slightly hunched over Fat Boy, my bong, partly trying to protect my flame from the wind that had picked this untimely moment to howl through the window and partly trying block the view from my eight month old daughter.

She was at the other end of the kitchen in her play centre. You know, one of those ones they stand in yet remain seated? It has a handful of colorful gadgets hanging off it to keep them occupied? One of those. She's at that cute limited vocabulary age. She knows three words. “Dadadadadadad, bababababababa, and brrrrrrrrrrrrt.” At the moment in time she had decided to show off her impressive”dadadad” skills and was putting together a lovely cacophony, all the while staring at me intently whilst shoving her Sophie as far into her mouth as possible.

It's hard to smoke weed incognito when your kid is eyeballing you.

The pan on the stove hissed at me. From the TV set in the living room, I could hear the Teletubbies were having Tubby Toast. The succession of dadad’s pauses and Sophie hangs from her mouth, temporarily forgotten, as my daughter cranes her neck around the kitchen wall to catch a glimpse of Tubby Toast.

I seize the moment, squaring my shoulders resolutely from the wind and spark up.

I'm killing this dad life business.

SUPER DAD

I take a couple quick tokes and pause as the thought strikes me, “Why am I so quick to shrink into the corner and hide so my daughter can't see that I was having a quick rip?”

Would I have felt differently if I decided to pour myself a whiskey on the rocks? Or a glass of wine? Would I have been acting the same suspicious way, shielding the glass from her with one hand, standing vigilant for the chance that she looks away so I can have a quick nip?

The idea that I would shrink from enjoying an alcoholic beverage, just because my daughter is watching, is one that most people would scoff at. The inner dialogue of such a justification would go something like this: “Well, It's not like I'm standing here doing shots, chugging beer or doing a keg stand, so what's the harm?”

Fair go. As far as I'm concerned, that's spot on. I know I go on about the comparison of alcohol and weed frequently, but believe it or not I'm not against Alcohol at all.

What I'm against are the scales of justice being so criminally out of whack that the government can approve an elixir that will be held responsible for roughly 80,000 deaths this year, yet criminalize a leaf that will be directly responsible for none. What I'm against is social prejudice born from bright idea’d political campaigns that play on people's ignorance and fear, touting fallacy as truth.

Yes, I think it's perfectly acceptable to have a couple drinks whilst your watching your kid. We're adults right? We are, and we're expected to make responsible decisions frequently with such a label. People seem to really get outraged at their perception of dope heads and their alleged irresponsibility, especially when they have children, but is it really irresponsible to rip a bong hit while my kid watches? Why? It's not like I'm getting stoned. I'm catching a buzz after a hard day at the grind. Is it OK to have a drink around your kids, as long as you don't overdo it, but not smoke weed around them?

The other side of the coin is this: I believe in this weed stuff. I'm invested. I'm all in. This belief that we need to stand up under the weight of decades of lies so that the truth is known is more than just a novelty. It's more than a hobby even. I'm operating with certainty that this cause is just. I don't just say things to say them or because on paper they might make for a witty point and thought provoking conjecture. I say these things and I make these points because they are part of me. It's almost like a faith, a code even. I speak these things with passion and my life follows my words by default because they are so entrenched into the being that I am that there is no other choice.

Check this out, I'm made to feel like a criminal underneath weight of societies judgemental bigotry when what I am really doing is teaching my daughter values. I'm teaching her that it's perfectly fine to access nature's gifts responsibly. I'm teaching her to question corrupt legislations and to be a woman of integrity. I'm teaching her that if it's left up to the judgement of a parent to responsibly consume a drink that accounted for 5.9% of all annual deaths worldwide in 2010, then it should also be up to the parent to decide to burn a plant that promotes life.

The Tubby Toast is done. I can hear the Teletubbies singing some sort of unintelligible gibberish.

I'm a goldfish in a bowl.

I peek over my shoulder and am greeted me with a toothless grin. I see her eyes flicker downward and spark with delight. She's spotted Fat Boy. The multicolored design has captured all of her child like glee and she's rocking back and forth furiously giving me the ol’ “dadadadadadada” number.

The bud’s still burning so I have to think fast.

I falter slightly before raising the bong back to my lips. “I'm all in,” I repeat it to myself outloud. Our eyes meet as I inhale and she throws her arms into the air, chuckling and giggling to herself, “dadadadadad.”