If you’re 50+ and still parenting I feel for you. It’s a difficult job on the best of days.
Parenting is unrelenting, demanding and daunting. It involves a near constant state of heightened awareness: when they are babies – are they breathing, when they are toddlers are they in danger of toppling down the stairs and when they are teenagers? Well that’s a whole new ball game. What are they up to? Who are they with? Are they capable of driving a car? Are they meeting school expectations? What the heck are they doing on social media anyway and the worst one of all, you just found their stash of weed, lost your marbles, confiscated it and now have to decide “Should I smoke it myself?” After all, if anyone deserves a Zen moment it’s you. Don’t laugh! It’s a real dilemma. You’re about to punish your kid for something you probably did as a teen and, now it’s legal. Isn’t it all just a bit self-righteous to confiscate the cannabis then take a toke yourself, furtively in the garage after the kid you copped it from finally goes to bed?
The whole legal pot issue has really thrown a wrench into parenting in the 21st century.
In an already challenging world, it’s become even more so to have discussions about drugs when one of those drugs is now legally and (more or less) socially acceptable to consume. There’s you, groping around the bottom of your teen’s school backpack, searching their closet and digging around under the seats of their car (gross at the best of times) in an effort to find their stash and punish them – for their own good of course and privacy be damned, I’m protecting them from themselves – then when you find the green stuff, the argument from your kid is legitimately; “It’s legal now Mom…all my friends are doing it, you can’t say or do anything.” Wanna bet? Lots of things are legal but it doesn’t mean I want my teenager putting him or herself in danger. Perhaps you take a more lax approach and not only don’t care if they toke but are joining them when they do. Perhaps you’ve never consumed cannabis in your life because your own parents put the fear of God in you and now, curious, with confiscated stash at the ready you’d like to try it but have no idea how to roll a joint? The dilemma is mounting – now you’ve decided to toke but have no idea how to roll a smoke! Do you ask the kid? Your neighbor? Google it? Sigh … what’s a modern day parent to do?
In a recent article posted online, Statistics Canada actually reports that over 400,000 seniors report having used cannabis in the last three months.
That’s a lot of weed going up in smoke. In fact, “seniors cannabis consumption is growing at a much faster rate than that of younger people” according to the agency. They describe the growth of the use of the drug in seniors as “explosive” and that many aged 65+ are first time users. (1) Over half of those who report using it for the first time claim to be doing so for “medical” reasons which makes me wonder – is “curiosity” a medical condition? If so – I might have a bad case of curiosity and the treatment might call for confiscated cannabis! After all, even though Stats Can also reports that most of these new users are purchasing their product from a legal source, why pay for something I can get for free when all I have to do is grope around under a few bags of unfinished McDonald’s meals in the bottom of my kid’s car? Those forgotten French fries will still be edible in the 22nd century by the way but that’s a whole other topic for another day. Besides, I hear smoking up makes you hungry – maybe those French fries will come in handy sooner than later!
Listen, all joking aside we’re not hear to preach about pot.
What you do is up to you. We’re just saying that it appears cannabis use is on the rise amongst those aged 45-64 and those who are 65+. So it begs the question – if you’ve invested all your time and energy ensuring your teen turns in to a responsible young adult – is it irresponsible to take a toke of the weed they purchased with the money from the part time job you made them go out and get? I’m leaning towards a hard “Nope.” They owe you for all those sleepless nights. If you need me, I’ll be out in the garage….because “it’s legal now, all my friends are doing it….”
Written by Sheralyn Roman
(1) https://www.advisor.ca/news/industry-news/cannabis-use-surges-among-seniors/
