Posted on 04/23/2017 4:55:02 PM PDT by Ennis85
As legalisation spreads across the US, the web is lighting up with advice on how to mix marijuana and motherhood. She looks like a model suburban housewife, beaming into the camera as she sifts through a pink leather handbag, explaining to her youtube viewers that she carries her children's inhalers with her at all times because "you gotta be prepared".
Inside Kathryn VahEaton's own "medicine bag", though, is a pink pipe and a set of dainty purple pots-where she stores her stash. To her fans she is the Stoner Mom, a 34-year-old mother of four from Colorado whose blogs, videos and podcasts explain how to manage motherhood and marijuana. To countless others she is a reckless and grossly irresponsible parent. Nevertheless, with eight American States having already legalised cannabis and campaigns calling for others to follow suit.
VanEaton has certainly tapped into the imagination of a new generation of stressed, working mothers. Her posts range from "Eight Easy ways to be a Responsible Stoner Parent" to reviews of odour-resistant handbags, complete with compartments for storing travel-sized bongs. Thousands of subscribers tune into her videos, in which she offers a variety of how-to-tutorials from putting on make-up to keeping drugs hidden-all while high. One shows her reeling off the items she packs in her children's schoolbags. "Markers...and more markers...So many boxes of pencils, Bong," she jokes picking up a purple pipe. "no, that's not on the list." She highlights in one video that she "very, very, very rarely" films while her children are in the house, although when they are not there she is free to "smoke a huge amount of weed". Unsurprisingly many are outraged. "Do you honestly feel that that is what a good parent does? The safety and wellbeing of your child is what is important. Not the fact that it is legal for you to get high." wrote one mother on Facebook.
Her fans have taken to social media, posting selfies with #StonerMom, while groups such as CannaMoms Uncensored have sprung up across the internet. After California became the latest state to legalise Cannabis in November, several Los Angeles-based television producers have homed in on the trend. Among them are Deena Adar and Kai Collins, whose online comedy series Cannabis Moms Club follows a group of highly strung career women and domestic goddesses letting loose their inner potheads. "I miss pot" laments one character. "You know I saw Phish[the US Rock band] 137 times and lived out of a Subaru Outback in my twenties. Now I have a kid on my boob 24/7."
Adar, 39, who has two young children, came up with the idea after another mother posted a facebook picture of a glass of red win, asking "who's with me, mums?" "All the other mums were telling her to go on and I was wondering what the reaction would've been if she was holding a joint," said Adar. Collins, 40, who co-wrote the script and plays one of the lead characters, said she was surprised by the positive reaction. "we thought it was relief-thank goodness, other people know what I'm talking about," she said.
Staci Lawrence, 41, who also stars in Cannabis Moms Club, says smoking marijuana helps her be a better parent. "I have crippling anxiety that makes me angry, short with my children, impatient and unable to hear them and see what they need. If this helps me be a better parent. then who are you to say it's not right?" VanEaton's appearance on a Denver television station this month sparked a wave of debate on social media. "I smoke marijuana. I work two jobs and take care of my kids without a problem." Wrote Nikki Ferrao from Boston.
Yet the stream of condemnation shows the stigma remains "Because it's perfectly ok to take care of kids while you're stoned out of your mind," said one sarcastic post from a Texan mother. "There's not much expectation any more is there? As long as you cooked dinner and didn't forget to pick your kid up from school."
She’s broadcasting to the entire world that she does drugs. Attention seeking and pathetic.
“Our son just told us that a recent survey found that 51% of adults in the US use pot regularly. Very sad.”
I thought it was 13%?
I’m afraid the horse has left the barn on this issue.
Two thoughts:
1) Government should stop charity — don’t take care of people. It’s not a proper role for a LIMITED government. If someone uses drugs (including alcohol) and functions well enough to take care of themselves, that’s fine. If they screw up? Well, the solution to that is not in MY wallet.
2) I do not like “extenuating circumstances”. I committed crimes “because I grew up in the ghetto”, “because my father left home”, because “I have mental problems”. I don’t care WHY they did what they did — it’s what they did that I don’t like. Marijuana is the same thing — if you’re getting high and NOT getting in trouble, then good for you. If you get high and do something regrettable? The fact that you were stoned is NOT a defense. At all.
Bring back personal responsibility. We need it.
They're living off the depreciation of their brain cells, and they started out as gifted people. That they're (still) functional doesn't make what they're doing good for them.
They made one of three choices: they stopped, they amounted to nothing, or they died.
^^^^^This
Alcohol does more damage to the brain than pot.
And where did I advocate they should be recreational drunks instead of stoners?
Moms needing wine is a widespread internet meme. I've always found this troubling - but maybe I'm just an old fart.
Exactly.
One thing I absolutely despise is the glorification of pot smoking.
It's so damned awesome and it makes you cool, too.
Imagine if an alcoholic was portrayed as being "cool" and "with it" or "hip"?
Does anyone think they would be lionized in the media?
No, there would be an ABC After-School Special about how mom is blotto by 10am.
And how it renders her incapable of properly caring for her kids.
Oh, wait.
They DID make an After-School Special about it.
In 1975
The signs of a crumbling civilization.
GMTA!
(I posted lyrics from that on an earlier thread that for some reason got pulled.)
And that was over 50 years ago.
Nothing new under the sun.
That said, I had to read the article to figure out what is a "spliff".
I’m not saying you did.
I’m just trying to set a baseline of relative harm to the individual.
For kids it’s far worse. It alters their brain chemistry even if it does not kill brain cells. I know a lot that have plowed through that, but there are also far too many who didn’t.
All in all, after my years on this earth, I have found more didn’t get past their binge drinking to become something/somebody than didn’t get past their pot smoking to be something.
And there’s NO WAY I would characterize that observation as an endorsement of pot...too.
Hell, my observations are probably not even statistically relevant.
I hope you are right!
She’s just another kind of alcoholic.
“how to mix vodka and motherhood”
“opens her own “medicine bag”, however, inside is a pink flask — where she stores her hooch”
“Our son just told us that a recent survey found that 51% of adults in the US use pot regularly. “
No disrespected intended to your son but I believe his source for this survey is WAAAAAY wrong.
http://www.popsci.com/survey-says-percent-americans-smoking-weed-has-doubled-since-2002
“If you’re an adult who has smoked marijuana in the past year, you’re one of about 30 million Americans who has done so, according to a new survey by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) that was published yesterday in JAMA Psychiatry. That number has doubled since the last survey in 2001-2002; then, only 4.1 percent of those surveyed had smoked in the last year, and now it has risen to 9.5 percent. The percent of people using marijuana to treat medical disorders has also risen in that period, from 1.5 to 2.9 percent of those surveyed.”
Thanks for the ping even though you left “the” out of my name lol.
My only issue with Kathryn VanEaton is she smokes cannabis & drives her kids around while medicated based on her videos & info on her web page.
I am 100% for the legalization of cannabis. I am also 100% against driving while high or medicated.
Outside of that I have zero issue with her using cannabis while mothering 2 kids with her husband who also uses cannabis as medicine. As someone who’s dealt with crazy anxiety for all of my adult life I get great relief with cannabis.
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