Parenting 102--updated

June 2, 2015

(A continuation of Parenting 101, FYI)

There is nothing okeedokee about drugs or about my kids doing drugs. Let me make that abundantly clear, because what I find funny may lead you to believe otherwise.

I was a high school teacher long enough to realize that kids smoke pot. A lot of kids. A lot of pot.  I was naive about it during the formative years of my career, but by the end I was fairly certain that a vast majority were high in class, were planning to get high after class, or had plans to take care of business come the weekend.  Good kids, morons, jocks, outcasts...weed doth not discriminate.

All that to say that when my son was born on April 20, my students had a great time making much of the irony. 4/20, for those of you pure of heart, is the code for some good old-fashioned pot-smoking fun. Again, this is a nugget I learned while teaching. It cracked my school kids up that the newest Wedgeworth was born on 4/20. "He is going to be a HUGE pothead," they would insist, whilst pantomiming the smoking of said pot. He was days old. I thought it was funny. We need not take anything too seriously:  even postpartum jabs at my own offspring are clearly fair game. 

I have relayed all this to both my kids in the intervening years. 4/20 Hahahaha. Great mothering indeed.

Today, Grace and I were discussing something that somehow circled around to a reference to marijuana. We both laughed, and then I said, "Please don't become a drug addict."

She laughed as she trotted down the stairs. "I won't," she quickly replied. "Don't worry about me. Just worry about Drew."

______________________

A few days ago, I was having a nice little conversation with a member of my extended family. Grace was sitting next to me. During the course of the conversation, I asked this person two very direct questions. Nothing threatening, embarrassing, accusatory. But the questions were direct. Rather than answer, he would just talk about something else. When the chat ended, I looked at my daughter and said, "did you hear that? Was that strange?"

"What the heck?" she agreed. "Yes it was strange. You clearly asked him the same question twice and it was like he didn't even hear you. I wish you had asked him, 'are you having a stroke?'"