cannabisnews.com: So, What Did You Smoke, Mom? So, What Did You Smoke, Mom? Posted by FoM on November 11, 1999 at 07:04:54 PT By Celeste Fremon, Special To MSNBC Source: MSNBC With all the ongoing public discussion about which presidential candidate did or did not indulge in what illegal substance, I suppose it was inevitable that my 13-year-old son should finally ask me the question I’d always dreaded: What did you smoke in the ’60s, Mom? Actually, Will’s question was a bit worse. “OK, Mom, tell me every drug you’ve ever taken and how many times you took it,” was, I believe, the precise way he phrased it.I responded as any sensible parent would. I hoped fervently for an earthquake. Not a city-leveling quake, just something large enough to distract my son’s attention. Since no seismic activity saw fit to come to my rescue, I was forced to consider more practical options. Like many boomers who grew up during the Age of Aquarius, my friends and I have often discussed how best to handle The Drug Question if and when it ever arose. Some friends liked the Bill Clinton approach — namely, lie like a rug and deny everything. Others favored George W. Bush’s strategy of confronting any and all drug-related inquiries with a firm, “I don’t believe that’s any of your business.” Turning 50 with the Boss It all started with a well-intended act of love and generosity. I wanted to do something special for my best friend, who was feeling a bit bluesy about her upcoming 50th birthday. I learned that Bruce Springsteen was playing in Los Angeles on Oct. 17 — the very night of Janet's birthday. I figured it was a sign. Yet I remained unsure. I knew I couldn’t embrace the Clinton choice. Call me crazy, but lying to kids has never felt right — mainly because, in most cases, a lie does much more damage than even the most unsettling truth. For example, I have these neighbors who are weekend marijuana smokers. I don’t begrudge them their mode of relaxation, nor do they look askance at my occasional evening glass of Pinot Grigio. However, when this couple’s teenager asked if they smoked bud, they both swore up and down they never touch the devil weed. Now their kid is no dummy and I suspect he knows in his gut (and probably his olfactories) that mom and dad are regular stoners. Thus, their denial, however well-intended, put their son in an unholy dilemma: If he believed his parents, he had to discount his own instincts; if he honored his intuition, he was forced to conclude that his parents were dope-sneaking liars. Both were conclusions guaranteed to wreak a lot more havoc with an adolescent’s emerging sense of self and morality than a sober discussion of why adults might choose to do something that their minor children can’t. POISED ON EDGE OF DANGER We of the peace-and-love generation don’t want our kids to do what we did. It’s a different, scarier world out there. Lying is tempting, I admit it. Reasonable or not, we of the peace-and-love generation don’t want our kids to do what we did. It’s a different, scarier world out there — at least that’s the way it looks through parental eyes. But from the time my son was old enough to understand such concepts, I’ve talked to him about how crucial trust is in a relationship. So could I lie to him for this “good” cause? The answer is, I couldn’t. On to selection No. 2, the George Jr., dodge-the-ball strategy — a tactic I felt had real merit, depending upon the circumstances. Let’s say, for instance, my son asks me how many men I slept with during the early ’70s. This is a no-brainer. I’d take the Fifth. (For the record, I did not do the wild thang with entire armies, but there was one particularly frisky summer.) By the same token, if the drug issue had come up when Will was a bit younger, I’m sure I would have skated that, too. Instead, it came up at a moment when I saw my boy poised right at the edge of danger. Each year, our little town puts on a country fair, which all the local kids can attend in relative safety. This year at the fair, however, one of the high school guys offered some of the younger boys — my kid included — a joint. Fortunately news traveled fast and, in less than an hour, a passel of stern faced mothers were dragging their guilty sons home for Big Talks. I administered my own lecture using lots of phrases like “really disappointed,” and “major consequences.” Around 45 minutes into the harangue — which was sporadically interrupted by distraught apologies on my son’s part — Will suddenly popped the question. RISKING HONESTY On the other hand, Will has never been a kid for whom the Nancy Reagan Just Say No approach has been all that effective. I scrambled for an appropriate course of action. On one hand, I reasoned, if I told him about my past, wouldn’t that signal tacit approval for his own experimentation? On the other hand, Will has never been a kid for whom the Nancy Reagan Just Say No approach has been all that effective. He is a pusher of envelopes, a junior mad scientist, a boy who wants to find out for himself. I remember a long time ago when he first began crawling, I dutifully went out and purchased all the recommended childproofing devices. But when I began to install those little plastic safety plugs in our electrical outlets, Will crawled cheerfully along right behind me and pulled each one of them right back out again. “Well, I guess you’d better to teach your son about electricity,” a contractor friend advised me when I mentioned the childproofing debacle. “If you don’t, the minute your back is turned, he’ll try to learn it on his own. Thus it came to pass that Will could tell a 110 volt outlet from a 220 before he entered kindergarten. So was it too much of a stretch to think a similar principal applied here? If I came clean, would he be more or less likely to seek drug experiences of his own? Behind which door was the lady? And which the tiger? I took a breath. “Sit down,” I said. And then I went through the whole list: marijuana and mescaline in college, acid and magic mushrooms in my 20s, cocaine a few times during the years before we understood it was the worst kind of poison. I explained to Will that the term “recreational drugs” was a tragic misnomer, that amphetamines and opiates were malignant soul killers, and that designer drugs were the scariest of all because no one knew for sure what was in them. To illustrate, I related the case of the young actor, River Phoenix, who had taken the latest new pleasure pill and died on a Hollywood sidewalk before anyone could call the paramedics. WILL MAKES A DECISION I said that if he ever again wanted to try pot — or anything else, for that matter — to please, please, please talk to me first. Will asked additional questions and I did my best to answer. I admitted that smoking bud was unlikely to kill anybody, but to use any kind of drug or alcohol while your brain is still developing is to play Russian Roulette with your potential. Last, I said that if he ever again wanted to try pot — or anything else, for that matter — to please, please, please talk to me first. Obviously, the jury is still out as to the ultimate effect my honesty will have on my son. But, in the weeks since our discussion, I’ve noticed a new pipeline of communication has opened between us. I’d trusted him with risky knowledge. He seemed to be doing his best to be worthy of that trust. And there are other hopeful signs. This past Halloween night Will happened to be again with that same group of boys with whom he’d gotten into the marijuana trouble. However, this time when trouble arose — when eggs were thrown, bottle rockets set off — he didn’t join in. Nor did he stand by and watch. He just muttered, “You’re stupid,” and walked away. One crisis down, a million more still ahead. So here’s what I know: I can love my son with all my heart, teach him important lessons, model appropriate behavior, enforce judicious boundaries. But one day he’s going to be faced with the kind of choices that can end or save his life, demolish or redeem his future. And I won’t be there. The mother cloak of protection I’ve wrapped around him since he was born will have grown too small. Yet, when that time comes, as it most assuredly will, my hope-wish-prayer is he’ll have used the knowledge (risky and not) that I, and the others who love him, have given — to weave a new, strong cloak of his own.Celeste Fremon is a single mother and a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times Magazine, LA Weekly, Good Housekeeping, Utne Reader and Salon. Published: November 11, 1999 Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #2 posted by FoM on November 11, 1999 at 16:56:46 PT I agree kaptinemo, very well said. [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by kaptinemo on November 11, 1999 at 15:47:55 PT Honesty...and pain How refreshing. Too bad this is not what MISTER McCaffrey and his ilk want. Nope, they want you to lie like a dog. They also want you to say that alcohol and nicotine are not drugs, and that people who use them are not drug users.Problem is, your son or daughter might be reading these words, if not at your house, then at their friend's place, or at the local library. They aren't stupid, and after having been manipulated for years by parents, by the educational system, and their friends, are able to spot behavioral modification techniques on an almost instinctive level.They know what's going on...better perhaps than you might think. So, ugly truth to tell, they will find out sooner or later. And *will* doubly resent any falsehoods. It might cause you some degree of pain to 'fess up, but you are a survivor, and have a - perhaps cautionary but no less important - tale to tell.On a personal note, alcohol has never held any fascination for me *because* my parents demystified it and removed from it any charm whatsoever. They did so by telling me the effects of it, and the costs one will pay in abusing it. Then they told me that they would rather I learned the effects of it at home rather than at some bar. It was stressed that public drunkeness was shameful. It was also stressed that drunk driving has NO excuse whatsoever, and I'd deserve whatever I got if I did it.All during adolesence the liquor bottles were always in easy reach. There were never any pencil marks on the labels to gauge whether any booze (and this was the hard stuff) had been consumed.I never touched it, nor was I even more than just a tad curious about it. My parents had been painfully, if not brutally honest (Daddy was a Marine; no punches pulled, here) with me...and it paid off. It probably will for you and your kids. [ Post Comment ] Post Comment Name: Optional Password: E-Mail: Subject: Comment: [Please refrain from using profanity in your message] Link URL: Link Title: