Not going there techmom, but I’m sure that any adult who has never ingested alcohol or smoked cigarettes or pot during their lifetime has helped their longevity in some way.
Would any of you have thought it was cute for the mom to head to a liquor store and buy a bottle of Fireball and do shots in the back seat of the car while her father drove to get over the stress of dropping a child off at school? That’s legal to do too (well not the drinking part in a moving vehicle, but it’s not legal to do pot in a car either) but if someone said they’d gone to a liquor store to get a fix to get home after dropping kids off, we’d all think they have a problem.
I was more disturbed by the cigarette smoking than anything. Sorry, my car, my rules and ex or not, no smoking. Father could have flown to Colorado, met up with them in Ft. Collins, and flown back and still had the ‘drop off’ experience.
OP back to say, I hate cigarettes and am very anti-drug, even the legal kind. But to me the point of the article and what gave my heartstrings a little tug, was her reminiscing about her son’s childhood and the way she came full circle with her own Dad. The cigs and gummies were not the point.
@wisteria100 isn’t it funny the things that stick with people. I too thought it was a very nice article
Thanks! @wisteria . This touched me. While I will always love my kid as fiercely as can be, I am more ambivalent about parenting in general. But undeniably, one of the greatest parts of being a parent is that you have something in common with all parents. – the ones who came before and after you, the ones who are like you and the ones who are not, etc. This was a nice connection to what we have in common, even when it might seem on the face that it is very little.
Nicely said @gardenstategal.
@wisteria100 I too enjoyed the article, love she played the part of both parent and child in one trip, the long swing of the life pendulum.
As a mediator, I liked seeing how divorced parents were able to work together on behalf of a big step in their son’s life. And I appreciate her story as much as I appreciate the stories of the thousands of parents who post on this site. I think she just revealed more of her internal world than most do here.
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I think you are taking my comments to mean I have never tried anything in my life. I have actually done all 3 things, but I tried pot only once at age 16 and hated it. My kids know that and also know that the THC and stuff it’s cut with nowadays is a lot different than in the 70’s. I smoked cigs in bars a couple of times but (ala Bill Clinton) never inhaled because I couldn’t do it without choking and thereby sacrificing the cool factor that my 18 year old self imagined smoking imparted. I drink socially, which my kids know but they have never seen me drunk… I was toilet bowl hugging drunk plenty of times before kids, most notably after finishing the bar exam, but once I had my first child, my attitude changed. My point was that if I did drugs now and publicized it, it would be hypocritical if I was trying to dissuade my children from using drugs. Maybe the author doesn’t share that concern. Regardless, I still didn’t care for the article or the drug supporting sentiments. I also don’t get crying when your kid gets to college. I was SO happy that I could afford to send them away to school that I let them go with a huge smile and a small twinge of jealousy that I didn’t have the chance to go away to school. However, I shed NO tears.
It wasn’t the drug use I found appalling. It was how much the woman gave up-a route She didnt choose with no help driving from the men in the car with her ex showing no apparent interest in her comfort- he must have known the smoking bothered her and didn’t care? He didn’t bother accompanying her on the long drive back but needed to be dropped off at the airport and she pressed her dad into service instead. I would have made other arrangements.
Different people react differently to kids going to college. Some totally look forward to it and would drop them off months early if they could (I have heard some say the purpose of the teen years is so you will want them to move out of the house). Others are very emotional about it. And everywhere in between. Different people handle similar emotions differently. As long as it works for you (which doesn’t put you or others at risk).
Different people cope with stress/emotionally differently. Some smoke cigarettes (still legal). Some have a drink (also legal). Some turn to pot (legal in some states). Some turn to other medications (could be illegal but most I know go to legal, prescribed meds). Others focus on work or exercise or a hobby.
Seems to me the woman in the article was doing what she could to make the process work. We met my daughter’s roommate’s father and step-mom on move in day. Her mom came the next day. Apparently mom and step-mom cannot spend any time together. I know divorced people who cannot attend birthday parties, special events, etc. for their grandkids because they cannot be civil together for a couple hours on occasion. Here you had someone looking to make it work with both parents there. She was willing to put up with cigarettes in the backseat because she could tell her ex husband was stressed. And I suspect that she knew that drawing a line in the sand wasn’t worth it (likely from past experience). Also may well have ruined the trip for everyone.
I prefer to drive. If I am in a car, I am pretty much always the driver. I don’t sleep in things that move so it makes more sense to me to allow those who sleep to do so. I have driven 16 hours in a day on multiple days without issue. Often drive 8-10 hours in a day. Given music I like or people with good conversation, I can drive very long distances without issue.
I suspect the dad in that article doesn’t have a license. Before I had kids, I would say not driving highways would be unusual. But neither of my kids did that much before they hit 20. Maybe a failing on my part. But as I prefer to drive I didn’t view it as a problem. Son in the article may well have picked the route with the idea of creating some more memories with his parents together (I suspect there were a lot of together memories he expected that never happened because his parents got divorced). Sounds like the route they took created more memories than a straight drive through Nebraska would have.
She didn’t eat one of the gummies until after her son had been dropped off and ex was at the airport and her father was driving her home. With a rocker for a dad I suspect the kid has seen some drugs and alcohol. And from everything I have seen, younger folks seen to review pot as much less of an issue than us older folks do. Even kids who do not use seem ambivalent about it. Not necessarily sure that is a good thing but its reality.
“It was how much the woman gave up”
She knows from experience that this is what her ex has to offer. If she wants her son to have both parents involved in a milestone event, she has to give up on changing the ex’s behavior. This is who she married and who she divorced. She only has two choices: include him or not include him. She decided this was the better option for her son.
The NYT ran a good article, because it certainly elicited a number of different reactions. For me? I was appalled. She’s zoned out stoned in the back of the car while her senior citizen father pulls an all-nighter driving her? Wow.
Maybe it’s because I’m on the West Coast as well - in WA state, where recreational marijuana is legal. Or because I was a drug abuse researcher in another life. But I both 1) assumed that the author was definitely talking about marijuana with the “apparently it’s 1968 back there” comment and 2) was completely unbothered by any of this.
Eating some gummies is not the same as doing shots of Fireball. If the mother had said that she’d drank a glass of wine - or two, heaven forfend - to relieve some stress after dropping her kid off at school, then yeah, I would’ve thought it was normal.
Our kids went to college in towns where we had wonderful friends, who invited us to stay with them. After we did the drop off, friends pretty much met me at the door with hugs and a glass of wine or something stronger. And just kept pouring. Every single time. Another really sweet friend flew out to stay with me my first two weeks of being an empty nester.
I appreciated her story. She parents her child. Her father parents her. And she values it all. It’s lovely. Thanks for posting the article.
I thought it was a sweet story and I found the author’s situation easy to relate to, as a parent already anxious about the upcoming separation when my son leaves for college a year from now. I never smoked marijuana (I don’t even drink alcohol) and I am in an intact marriage, but that does not make me look down on a fellow parent, dealing with separation anxiety in her own way. She hurt no one (she wasn’t driving intoxicated). What her story showed was how parents will always be there for their children. Her son cried on her shoulder. Her father drove her (an adult) home. The theme was that the parent-child bond is uniquely wonderful, and eternal.
@techmom99 I think a lot of us can feel more than one emotion at a time…sometimes conflicting and intense. Now, even on the eve of daughter’s entrance to high school, I am excited for her, proud and yet a bit melancholy about the passing of time and her childhood. I will be SO happy and excited when she goes to college, but I WILL cry buckets, I feel sure I will have a lot of difficulty finding anything in my life that feels as meaningful to me as active parenting (and I did a lot of exciting things in the 46 years before I adopted DD.) I will do my best not to burden her with it, but, yes I shed a tear or two reading this story, four years before this scenario (sans the drugs ) will be mine. I found it touching. But, no way am I letting a smoker hijack MY car! >:P
I enjoy reading “slices of life” from people whose experiences, perspectives and values are completely different from my own.
I found this to be a charming telling of a mother’s experience that would never happen (in that way) to me or to anyone I personally know.
Thanks for posting it, OP.
[Jesus rides beside me
But he never buys any smokes](Google Play Music is no longer available)
Well, if Mr. Rock and Roll was toking in the back seat driving across South Dakota, that’s totally illegal and if she’d been stopped, I don’t think the cop would have understood that, well, Mr. Ex is just doing his thing.
How many eatable gummy bears = a glass of wine (or a shot)? That’s the problem, no one knows.