Melancholy? I thought it was appalling that this woman prattled on about her ex’s drug use and then got high herself. What a terrible example for her son.
Weird little article about people smoking cigarettes in the car and drowning their sorrows in marijuana.
Perhaps some people will identify with it, but I think that most of us will find it too different from our own experience to be relevant.
@Marian -
I thought the ex was smoking what my mom used to call “funny cigarettes” in the car.
I guess reasonable minds may differ. I found the article appalling, offensive and a bunch of drivel. What parent brags about getting high to deal with the reality of leaving your child at college? What a great example of how to cope with stress for the son, who is probably embarrassed and humiliated. Maybe I fell this way because I have no clue who The Replacements are.
I thought is was a very sweet essay. The Replacements was an alt rock band in Mpls. back in the day. I thought the gummies was funny and her ex smoking in the back seat also pretty funny. I highly doubt their son was “embarrassed.”
I too was appalled. I did think she really needs to therapy to deal with the dysfunctional men in her life which she seems to proudly enable. Hope her son turns out better.
The ex smoking in the back seat was a trigger for the ex-smoker mom. Couple that with a stressful situation, and no wonder a weak individual would look for a way to medicate her cravings. Kudos to her for leaving that condom box, but I if she has never had “the chat” with the kid, I would dock a few points.
BTW - I think the smoking in the back seat was cigarettes, not any drug. At least, it certainly doesn’t say clearly that it was a drug.
Thanks for sharing. I enjoyed the essay. I liked how she delighted in the memories of her own childhood on the way home.
Now I need to bump The Replacements up on my playlist.
It sounds like they were the “vanilla” nicotine kind, the legalized drug. But the gummies were a different story. Anything to dull the craving to reach for a cigarette. Nicotine is a powerful drug.
The writer is the ex-wife of Paul Westerberg (The Replacements) – truly a “rock star, in the literal sense.” Whether you are Laurie Lindeen, or Rob Lowe (http://www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2014/05/rob_lowe_on_sending_his_son_off_to_college_an_excerpt_from_love_life.html), or any one on CC, we all find our own ways to cope with the empty nest.
I don’t cry much, but I squeezed tears two times in all tlhree kids’ lives…when I watched them get on the school bus to go to kindergarten and when we drove away from their freshmen dorms.
My cousin and his ex drove their son to college together. No drama. no other people with them, no article in NYTimes. Many divorced parents put in the effort to make things work as smoothly as possible for their kids.
You know when I went to Denver this summer so many people asked me if I was going to partake in the legal marijuana scene there. Upstanding “normal” middle class people in my age bracket. I got the feeling that there are a whole lot more people partaking than I had ever assumed.
So a middle aged writer formerly married to an alt rock band member went to a legal dispensary, it wasn’t surprising at all. I doubt that it was surprising to her college aged son who chose to go to college in a state where marijuana is legal.
She was married to Paul Westerberg who as rock stars go was not all that crazy. They stayed married for quite some time and only divorced a few years ago. That in itself is more stability that most of those guys can stand.
She was also a guitarist in a band and probably just lives a very different life style, so their college drop-off is not going to look a lot like any of ours. I could relate to the ache of dropping your son off and loved her description of their last moments together before she left. There appears to be a very healthy and loving relationship there. I saw pics of her son recently in the press and he is adorable – very mainstream looking and not what you would expect.
Under any other circumstances the cigarettes in the back of the car would have been a “no go” for me, but she managed to rise above it – I assume for the sake of her son. Why turn his drop-off into a battle royale? Think she did the right thing there, although I would find a way to get out of driving him anywhere going forward.
Hate the whole idea of edibles – think they are just a disaster waiting to happen when you have them lying around for some unsuspecting person. What 4 year old would not stuff a gummy bear into their mouth?
Nice opinion column in the NYT (BTW, her ex husband is Paul Westerberg, former lead singer of The Replacements): https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/25/opinion/sunday/johnny-goes-to-college.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share
Must be a decades thing as I’m a tad surprised at some of the responses…anyone who was in college in the early seventies and an adult in the late seventies/early 80s would not be shocked at all by the idea of buying legal gummies in Colorado and a visit down memory lane.I have quite a few friends who sent kids to college in Colorado and lived and laughed to tell abou edibles and today’s THC vs 70s THC. She’s an author already so no surprise she would write about the drop-off. Great that they have a history that allowed them to do this together - cigarettes and all. She does college essay writing coaching also LOL.
A few points:
- Westerberg was banned for life from SNL after he performed drunk and used the F word, so maybe a little crazy. ;) I'm sure his son knows what he's getting when with his dad.
- A friend of mine's housekeeper unknowingly ingested some edibles that he brought back from CO and left on his night stand, so you're right about an accident just waiting to happen with these. His wife was none too pleased.
- I thought it was a fun essay about a non traditional drop off---at least very different from my two.
@momofthreeboys - I kind of disagree on the decades thing. I graduated from HS in 1976 and lived in NYC my entire life to that point. I also attended college and law school in NYC. I am shocked and dismayed by the idea of adults using pot (setting aside legitimate medicinal uses) and took Colorado off my retirement list because of the legalization. I find it crazy that parents would use drugs when we so badly want our children not to do them. I also find it distasteful that someone would write about it in the way that this woman did. I mean no disrespect to anyone, this is my POV and I have worked hard to keep my kids from using drugs. Doing them myself or condoning those who do would undermine my credibility, at the very least. Other people may take a different approach.