My kid caught me smoking pot

I had a dirty little secret, one that not many people on the west coast would seem that improper but to me it’s been a weight in my mind ever since I gave birth.

Most of my stay at home mom friends do not feel the need to hide their guilty pleasure and even flaunt the evidence by means of a half full wine glass and a build up of bottles in the recycling. They watch the clock until it’s 5 pm or there about then crack open a bottle and begin to swig it to a point that it just takes the edge off the day.

Due to the fact my habit is illegal in most states I’ve never felt comfortable telling many friends what I do at night to reel back in my sanity. It’s not illegal here in Oregon and was until just over a year ago in my previous state of California.

My close friends and my parents and close family are all aware that I am a daily cannabis smoker, and if I weren’t, I’d have probably been either locked up or sectioned to a mental institute by now.

The main difference I can see is that moms who drink can openly do so in front of their kids. It’s the norm, right? Dad’s too. It’s not out of the ordinary for a dad to crack open a beer in the afternoon while tending the BBQ, watching the game or just chilling out. But what isn’t considered normal is mom taking a bong rip right before she preps a salad or smoking a joint while waiting for the dishwasher to finish. Hence, my secret.

So far it has bode me well to keep to a strict routine at bedtime. I’ve had the same routine since my kid was born, and while it’s varied slightly in the eight years she’s been around, basically I am adamant my child is asleep by 8 pm so that mommy can be an adult for a few hours. That’s how I’ve explained it to her too. I tell her I’m clocking out for the day and the kitchen’s closed. Seemed to work up until recently that is.

I have to admit that the last hour of my day as a mother is the most stressful because I wish I were as relaxed as the wine drinking moms, or the gym bunny moms, or the moms who seem to have endless patience (unicorn moms) ((no, that is not a thing)). All I want the kid to do is stop talking and stop screaming “Mooom!”for a few hours so that I can remember what it’s like to pee uninterrupted, or check a text message without twenty minutes of being questioned on the abuse of my screen time, or to just remember that I have a name.
So the bedtime routine is this; teeth, two chapters of a book, songs, lights out.

Two minutes later…

“Moooooooooooom!”.

I don’t even need to get up as I haven’t sat down yet.

“Moooooooooom, I need water”.

I get water, with ice, because we all know what happens to mommies who don’t get ice? They immediately do about turn and walk back to the freezer to get ice.
After delivering the royal water, I dash outside to my secret stash and grab my box of delights, and begin to roll a joint.

“Mooooooom,the cat needs water”

So I get up and turn the faucet on for the cat. At this point you know exactly why I need to inhale copious amounts of top shelf bud.

Eventually everyone stops shouting and meowing and while my husband watches the door I take a drag and immediately chill the hell out.

Now this routine has worked well for the past eight years but I had a feeling my luck was going to change when we had a sleep over right before we moved. My best friend pre-motherhood is now a mom. A toking mom, and she came over with her kid for a sleep over after helping me pack up the house for our big move.

Her kid was restless in my kid’s Costa Rica themed room probably because it’s very jungly right down to the smell (we had 6 guinea pigs at the time). So, it’s not surprising that she needed her mommy to lay with her until she went down.

I took this opportunity to pop into the back yard to smoke.

Lounging back in my wicker chair – my smoking chair – I searched for something to watch on YouTube, pursed my lips, lit my joint aaaaaaaaaaaand inhaled. With the dark night closing in and the bright screen illuminating on my face, to my horror I looked up at the patio door and saw my innocent third grader with her usually brown face white as a ghost and her mouth dropped like a dump truck.

And exhale.

I went in the house and she was in shock. Partly because I’d showed her blackened lungs once when she’d asked about cigarette smoking.

“What? You don’t smoke!” She protested. 

I sent her back to bed and finished my joint. Then I went to face the music.

I actually had flashbacks of childhood guilt and really felt that I’d been caught smoking by my own mother when I was a teen.

I was now chill enough to go into her and explain what cannabis was. In order to justify my habit, I explained that it was just like wine, and it helped mommies be adults again after playing and doing things for kids all day long. I explained that I’m not a drinker, so my choice of ‘medicine’ was the green stuff.  I asked her to tell me how many moms she knows drink wine when cooking the family dinner, to which she said “Most.”

She asked me so many questions and I answered them as honestly as I could. She was concerned about the price and the health issues. After hearing all of my justifications she retorted “Why don’t you just eat it?”, to which I educated her on edibles and explained that one cookie can have much greater effect than one puff. But she was very concerned about the burning aspect.

Her final concern after asking me, “Is it a plant? Does it come in a jar? How much is a jar. How many thingies can you make?”, was the one which cracked me up the most.

“Well, I’m not surprised you don’t own a house”.

Now it was my duty to inform her of the finances of having a stay at home mom and being brought up in one of the most expensive areas in the world.

Somehow, I spun it into her needing to get straight As in school so she can have it all when she’s an adult.

The next day my kid asked, “Mommy will you be taking cannabis today?”

Then I started researching edibles.

About the Author
Jo Harper is a stay at home mom of one, home cook, baker and chief bottle washer. The eldest of a blended family with 9 kids. She cannot even throw away that tiny plastic tie you get on a bread bag. She is constantly thrifting vintage sewing patterns and fabric then starting a project but never completing it. A recent transplant from California to Oregon but is a Yorkshire lass at heart.

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