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."
About 12 years ago my then-high school student told me which parents were stoners..........this is nothing new
She’s unbelievably selfish. The kids will suffer.
Actual medpot I have no issues with. But she is going AWOL as a mom.
“Mom, we’re having McDonalds AGAIN?”
I agree but it is too effing late. Half the parents and half the teachers are stoned.
Marijuana shouldn't be illegal. What vegetables you may grow, eat, or smoke is none of the government's business, and there is no Federal warrant for such "authority" whatsoever.
Just just because a thing shouldn't be illegal, that doesn't mean you should do it. Growing up in the late sixties and early seventies many (most, in fact) of my friends did drugs. They made one of three choices: they stopped, they amounted to nothing, or they died.
Why get started doing something whose best outcome is that you stop?
It used to be alcohol. Or Rx tranqs.
New day new drug.
Short sightedness, ignorance.
It is a tragic time due to a concerted selfish rejection of the Lord. I didn’t say religion. Donald Trump doesn’t have a lot of religion and yet he is doing great. I said the Lord.
This is interesting. If a mom sent the kids to school and then started happy hour, people would say she has a problem.
For your interest.
I am sure her children are getting the best of her as a mother....not
Because that mom, just like this blogger mom, does have a problem
There’s a fourth.
I know at least a dozen in the tech business that are highly successful. I cannot sense that they are high at work, but they are not bashful about getting high in the evening and on weekends.
It’s well known in this business.
The closest I ever heard of something like this was one of my gramdmosther’s bridge club meetings that got out of hand. The hostess started serving Manhattans, and most of the ladies had to get rides home. They were still talking about 25 years later.
“It used to be alcohol. Or Rx tranqs.”
Folks who smoke dope are more functional than the other two, generally.
I absolute despise the smell of pot.
Exactly. Getting high doesn’t make one a “better mom”. Sacrificing selfish desires makes one a better mom:
Changing wet sheets and bathing a three year old at 2 in the morning with a loving spirit rather than irritation at the bed wetting accident.
Cleaning vomit off a child, yourself and the couch while comforting the sick and crying child.
Waking early to make a child’s favorite breakfast on his/her birthday.
Our son just told us that a recent survey found that 51% of adults in the US use pot regularly. Very sad.
What a drag it is getting old.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.