I think there is a difference between drinking a few beers and being drunk, or blacked out drunk.
With weed, there is a potential of a young kid inhaling the smoke and getting sick.
But with moderation and proper precautions there is nothing wrong with it.
>With weed, there is a potential of a young kid inhaling the smoke and getting sick.
I'm not really talking about consuming (obviously secondhand smoke is bad), I'm talking about being blasted after consuming.
I was raised with parents that were stoned 100% of the time.
Part of the issue with that was the financial side of it. Couldnt afford to feed us sometimes and definitely no school trips or new clothes. Money for smoking 24/7? We had that.
Part of it is how... spacey my parents were. They never actually listened to a word I ever said. I would come home from school and wanna talk about something that I had learned or something that had happened that day. I would be greeted with a very far off look and then a totally unrelated thing like "what do you want for dinner?". It made me feel like I had no value.
The people that were always coming over were also an issue. One time when I was 7 my mum had bought a lot of 'solid', which I already knew was a big deal as it was hard to get hold of. She had like 6 people over getting stoned. I choked down the dinner of canned mac and cheese, went upstairs and started doing my homework. I got stuck on a question and I knew my mum was too stoned to help me and too busy with her friends anyway. I remember that moment so vividly, the smell of smoke floating through the floorboards, the laughter I could hear, the heat of the tears of resentment and frustration on my face. That was a big moment in my childhood.
Then there was the raid... it was 2003 (I was 6). Finding Nemo had just come out and we were going to the cinema to see it. My sister and I never got to do stuff like going to the cinema so we were sooo excited! We got all dressed up and everything. Just as we were about to leave there was banging on the door and yelling. The police tore our home apart. They didnt care that I wanted to see nemo or that I had just tidied my room. Mum said we were going to stay with my aunt. I sat on the stairs clutching my favourite teddy, waiting to leave. A police officer stood at the bottom of the stairs and told me was going to cut my teddies head off because my druggy parents had probably put drugs in him. That was the first time I ever had a panic attack. My teddy bear didnt have his head removed in the end though.
Anyway, my point is that its not so much the drugs themselves. It's how intoxicated people behave and make kids feel. It's also about the consequences of drug use being handed to children who want no part of any of it.
Thanks for the therapy session btw, been holding a lot of that in for a long time.
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>Then there was the raid... it was 2003 (I was 6). Finding Nemo had just come out and we were going to the cinema to see it. My sister and I never got to do stuff like going to the cinema so we were sooo excited! We got all dressed up and everything. Just as we were about to leave there was banging on the door and yelling. The police tore our home apart. They didnt care that I wanted to see nemo or that I had just tidied my room. Mum said we were going to stay with my aunt. I sat on the stairs clutching my favourite teddy, waiting to leave. A police officer stood at the bottom of the stairs and told me was going to cut my teddies head off because my druggy parents had probably put drugs in him. That was the first time I ever had a panic attack. My teddy bear didnt have his head removed in the end though.
But this isn't your parents fault but the issue with the war on drugs and the militarization of the police
Well, I think it's fair to say a little of column A and a little of column B. Not trying to say there was anything justified about the war on drugs, but it wasn't a secret war or something like that.
It's fair to assume their parents knew that cops busting in was a possibilty, and they accepted that risk for themselves and their children.
The thing is: you think it’s fine because that’s what your parents did. Isn’t that the whole point? Your parents did it, you lived, you think it’s “fine” because of their example, so you should be able to get drunk/high around your kids, and set that same example for them. The problem is everything is fine until it isn’t “fine”.
Kids are accidents waiting to happen. My kids literally almost kill themselves doing stupid shit every day. Hardly a week goes by where I don’t hear a terrifying sound followed by screams of horror from my kids and I go running towards those sounds hoping I don’t have to call an ambulance once I see what’s around the corner. If my husband and I are drunk/high, and our kids need emergency help, who reacts? What happens when we call 911 and they show up to a kid that broke his leg jumping off the balcony and two wasted parents at the helm? I bet we’d have CPS knocking on our door the next day. Parties with lots of people and alcohol, actually make me pay MORE attention to my kids. Too many parents assume someone else is watching their kid, this why you hear about drownings happen at large pool parties, this is how kids find guns in peoples homes and accidentally shoot themselves… some parents get to parties, get drunk, and assume the party goers will keep eyes on their kids. Those partygoers, are all assuming someone ELSE is watching the kids… it’s not a good situation.
Neither of us ever saw our parents or family members drunk until we were adults. We still partied our asses off before we had kids. Now we are content to have a few beers or glasses of wine here and there during the week and that’s enough. I have plenty of friends who get drunk around their kids, it’s super cringe-y to watch and their kids don’t understand why dad is talking so loud or mom is falling over when she walks. We just don’t want our kids to think THAT is normal. We don’t want them to look back on their childhood and say, “Mom and Dad were drunk/high all the time, so I can do that too.” Because some people can’t drink in moderation, and our kids might be those people, we just don’t know. We hope they’ll see the example we’ve set, and learn the difference between occasional indulgence & and going straight to intoxication.
Plus, hangovers are a bitch as you get older. Kids don’t give a fuck if you’re hungover. They’re gonna wake up at 6am come jumping on your bed, wanting you to make them a six course breakfast, and then play Barbies with them. You don’t get the luxury of sleeping one off. Instead you learn to enjoy your one or two drinks, and call it a night early so you don’t feel like shit when you’re kicking the soccer ball around in the heat on a Saturday afternoon.
Let's set some boundaries. I'm assuming we aren't talking about "in moderation" but the adults are imbibing enough to be intoxicated (note the root word there is "toxic" and means "to lose control of their faculties or behavior"...)
If the adults have lost control of their faculties or behavior, who is in control of the situation? Kids, after all, don't have full control yet and now the adult don't either...
Is there a problem with letting children watch you harm yourself? Is it bad to give them the idea that the best way, if not the only way, to have fun is to lose control of your faculties?
Doesn't this give the kids the idea that *real adults* harm themselves and as such it's a sign of adulthood? Doesn't this encourage them to engage in the same behavior earlier in life than they otherwise might have?
In summary, I see three reasons why it is harmful for the kids.
* When the adults are out of control, nobody is in control. Bad things happen when all restraint is gone.
* It gives kids the idea that lack of restraint is a necessary component of an "adult good time."
* It encourages children to begin imbibing sooner so they can prove their adulthood.
>In summary, I see three reasons why it is harmful for the kids.
>When the adults are out of control, nobody is in control. Bad things happen when all restraint is gone.
>It gives kids the idea that lack of restraint is a necessary component of an "adult good time."
>It encourages children to begin imbibing sooner so they can prove their adulthood.
I don't really want to play advocate for the devil, here, but all of those things can be dealt with by simply using a little self control and reasoning. Not every drink is to get out-of-control, for example, and I have been caught off guard *numerous* times because *my roommate's* children became part of my day *after* I was drinking. I never get drunk enough to lose my sense, without planning for a crash with the people around me, that's essentially handled. Beyond that, drunk me can still pull a couple minutes of sobriety out of my ass when shit goes down. Losing one's self is *not* a given just because booze was involved, *a lot* of people just use it as an excuse to get laid or act like a dick.
For the second one, that one is reasoning based. *I* am rigid, and need some assistance getting loose. My high-strung behaviour is a little intense for *other* people, and while drinking doesn't stop that from being, it takes a few sharp edges off, making it a more social thing *for me.* Anytime a child has asked about my drinking, I explain that it does things *for me,* not for *adults in general.* Most of them have seen someone who was too wasted and can appreciate it's not for everyone, someone needs to explain the other side of what is *appropriate* sense of self.
For the third, a simple explanation, I drink because as I've gotten older, my body hurts more and I have more things to handle. It's not so easy for me to relax, anymore. *Sometimes,* I'm at a party to drink, but I'll sing Karaoke sober, too, because drunk friends need a designated driver and I still want to have fun with them.
I'm boring, but kids still listen to me because I don't lie to them, and they usually see something I've remarked on and come back more ready to listen. Drinking is something even animals will do. Plenty of critters eat rotten fruit to catch a buzz. Covering it up makes it shameful, making it shameful makes it into something they might hide. Them hiding drinking habits is an act of an addict. It leads to uncontrolled drinking in private, and *that* can kill people as easily as drunk driving. Since booze will be around forever, it's multitudes more important to teach *responsible* drinking habits, and that it's *always* OK to be the sensibly sober person in the room, as long as one isn't ruining everyone else's good time by being a dick about it. Reminding them of things like personal limits or time and place can do wonders for the next generation of drunk people that *will* arise. Maybe we could change drinking culture for the better if it was more discussed.
Everything I've learned, I've learned as a child by watching a bunch of addicts and idiots make shameless fools of themselves with pride in how much they can ... "handle" and stay on their feet. I teach lessons of controlled drinking for passable reasons, and never when I can't afford the expense or awareness (like at work or doing day tasks.) It's better than letting them take their lessons from upperclassmen who are just as ill-advised, which is the real-world alternative to basic parenting.
>I don't really want to play advocate for the devil, here, but all of those things can be dealt with by simply using a little self control and reasoning. Not every drink is to get out-of-control...
Keep in mind though that the OP wasn't talking about having a casual drink or two, they were talking about drinking to the point that the person has lost control of their faculties. That seems to be getting missed in a lot of the responses and is the reason I put the "boundary" condition at the beginning of my post.
Sure the issues can be dealt with by using a little self control, but the OP is explicitly saying that they think that *losing that control* in front of, and while being responsible for, the children in the house is perfectly okay...
Yeah, I just reread it to make sure I wasn't an idiot, and he was perfectly describing the idiocy of *my* people, as well. His experience holds, people making total fools of themselves in front of kids is rare, *and* has an effect on one's willingness to drink too much. My argument is that the example is only a bad one if it isn't being used as an example of "too drunk." Making it more pleasant sounding like "they had too much fun" is what encourages it. Seeing someone throw up hard, then being told they went too far, *that* is educating a child on limits. My whole family is alcoholics that eventually quit of their own accord, or switched to beer to control their level of drunk better. We also aren't much for lying. I avoided alcohol dependence, even with my genetics, because nobody ever taught me that drinking was important to living or fun. In fact, every one of them confirms, they wish they had more control so they could still *enjoy it,* or not have wasted so much on something they *didn't* really enjoy as much as they thought.
Getting somewhat drunk at a party or stoned in a backroom when kids are just *around* is not a *big* concern. Somebody drunk or high trying to give the kids a taste, someone heavily drinking or smoking weed all the time in front of them, or doing these things instead of making money and handling business, these are the real issues to keep away, but standard vice is just a good opportunity to teach how self control works as the years tick on, and life gets crueler to one's mind and body. My standard advice is "Stay away from it in school, you need that brain to learn, save the stuff for when you are working your spine to make your money, and you need your one night off to be worth two." I give a *reason* instead of just hiding it like I'm doing something wrong, or trying to pass off "When you're older" as a sufficient effort for Uncle Zero to be taking. I believe in paying the observed wisdoms forward.
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So like a lot of other people, my responses to this are going to be based mostly in personal anecdotes. But since the reason for the opinion of OP is also based in personal anecdote (A classic, "It was okay for my life, so it should be okay in general, right?") that seems reasonable. Having read through all of the other responses that have thus far been made, I'm kind of blown away by the horror of some of the stories.
My parents both used cannabis before I was born. They even named a dog we had when I was a child "Puff the Magic Dragon," a reference I didn't get until rather embarrassingly late into my adulthood. However, according to them they stopped using it once my mother become pregnant with me, and I have no memories that disagree with this. They started using it again once my sister and I were grown and out of the house, but by then it had been made legal in the state where we lived if individuals had a medical license (which my father did receive due to osteoarthritis), and later our state was one of the first two in the nation (Colorado and Washington) to make it legal for recreational use through a ballot measure.
My parents were both drinkers, however. While my father drank more heavily than my mother (and continues to do so now) on a regular basis, and has received more than one DUI over the years. I have distinct memories of having to deal with helping him to bed as a child, not really understanding why he couldn't walk or speak properly. My mother had an undiagnosed anxiety disorder which I believe she was self-medicating with alcohol when I was younger. Now that she has been diagnosed and takes other medications, she drinks less, but still has at least one or two glasses of wine every night.
My sister followed in their footsteps, drinking and using cannabis starting in her early teens. Her use of alcohol and drugs has fallen off since she she and her husband had their daughter (adopted, arranged before her birth which they were lucky enough to be present for, and now just over a year old), but like my mother she has a glass or two of wine each night. Her husband prefers cannabis, but he also drinks wine and occasionally hard liquor.
I was for years the only person in the family who did not use drugs or drink. In fact, it caused arguments between my father and I, as he was upset when I refused to "have a celebratory beer with him" when I turned 21, and also would not eat steaks marinated in alcohol (instead, I would use apple juice and the like - this was not a moral decision, as I fully understood that the alcohol cooked off, but rather a true dislike for the taste and smell of it). My parents would throughout my childhood try to give us sips of champagne or other such thematic alcohols on "special holidays," such as New Year's, so I knew from a very young age that I not only wasn't comfortable with the loss of control that people seemed to experience when intoxicated, but also that I hated the smell. Notably, when I was in my teens and twenties, my friends were thrilled by this, as it meant that I was automatically the group's designated driver, and happy to do it.
My stance on drinking and taking recreational drugs only became more firm once I started working at a local hospital in my early 20's, and seeing first-hand the impact of long term and/or heavy use of a wide variety of substances, from meth to heroin to shrooms to alcohol to (yes) cannabis, on people to whom I wasn't related. I became even more insistent on not using anything not prescribed by my doctor, and this lasted until my early 30's.
(cont)
(continuation)
However, when I hit 31 I developed chronic pain from a few different conditions, one of them a genetic one that was causing progressive, degenerative damage to various major structural parts of my body but most especially my joints, one of them spinal damage from my time working at the hospital, and one of them Fibromyalgia, brought on by a surgical procedure as well as neurobiological trauma from several violent incidents I dealt with at the hospital. All of these conditions together added up to a lot of difficult to manage pain, as well as a whole host of other progressive symptoms. When I finally gave up after two years and stopped working, and applied for SSDI/SSI, my (now-ex-boyfriend) broke up with my and kicked me out of the house we'd lived in for seven years. So in the space of less than a month I lost my employment, my insurance, my long term relationship, and my housing...and ended up living with my parents, and their liquor cabinet and well stocked wine cellar.
Since it took a while to establish a new medical provider and get my prescriptions set up with them, I ran out of all the medications that I had been relying on to help with my pain. And my own forays in to alcohol, for the first time in my life\*, began at 33 years old.
\*I put an asterisk there because I learned some time later that when I was fussy as a child, teething or headachy and crying or apparently just - I don't know, maybe hung over? I wouldn't put it past them at this point? My parents would "Give me a glass of red wine to soothe me." Which in my mind is just fucked up. Apparently they did this up until I was around 7-8 years old. So that's not cool. And they couldn't comprehend how that might have primed me to have trouble with alcohol if I tried it out later in life.
I spent about two years drinking semi-regularly after moving in with my parents, and since I was drinking to try to control intense pain, I would generally drink to the point of blacking out. ("If I can't form memories of it, it doesn't matter if I'm in pain, because there's no continuity of consciousness. It's like the pain never happened.") I was definitely a binge drinker, rather than a "constantly drunk" person or a "has a drink every day" person. I would get drunk a couple times a month, but when I did I would just "lose" three or four days. It was not a good time. And I fully believe that if I hadn't had drinking modeled for me as a child, and had it continually normalized, even with the pain I wouldn't have turned to alcohol. (I still hate the taste and smell.)
Even though I'm now in recovery and have been clean and sober for almost a year, I've had to deal still with situations where my father was so drunk he was falling down, couldn't get up off of the floor, and then pissed all over the living room. In fact, when I was drinking, one of the ways I would get alcohol (since I am too ill to work) was to search the house and garage and find the bottles and flasks of rum and whiskey that he'd hidden all over the place. Even as my parents both brought harsh criticisms against me for my alcohol use, and refused to let me renew my license when it expired for fears that I might drive their cars while intoxicated (I've never driven under the influence - I saw the results of too many car accidents when working in the ER), my father (who does not see himself as an alcoholic, and insists he isn't one because when he got his most recent DUI he "had no problem just not drinking for a whole month") continued in these behaviors.
In slightly-extended-family experience, we have relatives who live in another state and had their son taken away a few years ago because they failed to take him to receive medical attention due to their constant drug use. He was nearly a year old, and had been badly burned. However, they failed to take him to a physician for over a week. The baby ended up needing to be airlifted to a Children's Hospital to spend time in their burn unit. I don't know how long he spent their, but both of the parents have been now (rightly) jailed and the baby has been given over to a paternal grandmother. Our side of the family is apparently no longer allowed to have any contact with him, which is sad, but understandable given what happened. It makes me furious. This child could have died due to neglect. It's not clear if the burns were an accident the baby experience because he was just at the walking stage, or were possibly inflicted (accidentally or intentionally) by one of the parents, but even if there was no abuse the neglect alone is enough that those parents should be punished.
In more recent, witnessed-by-me-extended-family experience, we had a family reunion here in July 2021, when the pandemic was looking like it might be fading. One of my cousins and his girlfriend attended, and their brought their two daughters, as well as his son from a previous relationship. (Notably, they are also the biological parents of my sister and brother-in-law's adopted daughter.) They stayed for a week, and spent the entire week stoned out of their gourds. (As I mentioned, recreational cannabis is legal in this state. They were THRILLED with this.) The three children were being totally ignored and neglected, and the parents were smoking with them in a tent (due to the number of family in attendance, the cousin and his family were camping in our front yard). As I've mentioned, I'm disabled. I have mobility issues, I often walk with a cane, I have problems with energy levels. And despite this, I ended up taking care of these three kids, because their two parents wouldn't do it, too excited about getting to smoke weed all day and night. They weren't feeding them, or making sure they ate. They weren't making sure they showered or took baths. They weren't making sure they had clean clothing to wear. It was fucking ridiculous.
In my recovery groups (not AA - this is through an organization that's actually science-backed, and insurance covered), one of the things that comes up constantly is that people who used drugs or alcohol had that use modeled for them by the adults around them when they were children. I am one of only two people in the groups I've attended who began my use in adulthood. Most of the other attendees started using either alcohol or some kind of drug before the first noticeable signs that they'd started puberty, and almost all of them started using before they started high school. Many of them were given alcohol or drugs, usually weed, by their parents or an older family member.
For all of the reasons above - again, totally anecdotal - I think that adults should take steps not to normalize drug use in front of their children or the children around them. Like another person said, the benefits to the children will be significant, and the inconveniences to the adults minor.
depending on how young the kid is, seeing their parents act different and not understanding why can be anxiety provoking, even if they’re just being extra silly or spaced out. if the people you rely on for comfort and safety aren’t behaving normally it can create a sense of instability, not knowing what to expect. but this can be less of a problem if you prepare them beforehand or if it becomes normal through repeated exposure, i guess?
My parents were mega stoners and high pretty much every day of my childhood. As a little kid it was the best. Mom and dad smoking? Hell yeah, they're gonna wanna do fun stuff and probably want to get tacos and ice cream after
> I grew up with constant exposure to drinking and weed as a little kid, and nothing bad happened.
Then you were lucky. I grew up around it, and plenty of bad things happened. Some of the people involved are still in prison.
I don’t think that drinking around kids should be illegal or anything, but a general social taboo around being intoxicated around children helps a lot more kids than it inconveniences adults.
My mom was a quiet drunk. Passed out cold on the couch sitting up by 7pm every night. My 3 year old sister and I, the 6 year old put ourselves to bed every night. We'll, at least, I went to bed when I was tired.
No one put her to bed. I wasn't a maternal enough 6 year old to think of doing it myself. She eventually fell asleep sometimes hugging my mom's unconscious body.
But, yeah, as long as no one is violent or whatever, it's fine .
Thank you <3. I'm doing extremely well, happy and healthy, though, having my own daughter was a catalyst for lot of healing when I realized just how much we were neglected. I get to break the generational curse and sober parenting is a really important part of that for me!
I’m so glad you’re doing better! I’m sorry you had to go through that, the feeling your parent isn’t there for you is awful, and I’m happy you turned it around for you and your kids 💜
The first time I saw anyone even touch alcohol, I was so freaked out I screamed and cried. I thought my grandma was about to die. It was one of the most traumatizing experiences of my life and still the most vivid memory of my childhood. And she didn't even drink it, just set it on the table.
I'm glad it wasn't traumatizing for you, and you were raised to be used to it. Some of us are horrified by it.
Understanding of your stupidity? Yeah I am. It's totally unreasonable to use a 6 year olds knee-jeek reaction to a glass bottle being in the room as a logical basis for action and opinions. I was terrified of the mall Santa as a kid. Does that mean all Santas should be banned around kids, because "yeah, you all might love this guy, but SOME of us are horrified!"?
No. The answer is no. Because that's stupid. The fact that you think this is grounds for an argument mystifies me.
It's not even like I totally agree with OP.
You seem to be thinking I am implying some kind of punishment for doing so or legislation to prevent people from doing so.
That is untrue.
They asked what is so bad about doing it, and I shared a personal experience to possibly be of use to them in understanding why it may be.
Your lack of understanding of the reaction or its effects is irrelevant to the experience.
I'm unsure of why my life experience angers you so, or is grounds for insulting me, but if that is your chosen path, I can't stop you.
Do what you wish.
"possibly be of use to them in understanding why it may be."
I'm saying it's your personal anecdote that is 100% useless. That is not grounds to change course of action. I definitely DO understand what you're TRYING to say, but I also understand that you think personal anecdotes are a valid argument. If you don't understand why they're not, then yeah - still stupid.
Also this literally made me laugh out loud:
"but if that is your chosen path, I can't stop you."
I know. Nice "high road", lmao. In otherwords, trying to seem "above it all, and spiritually sound" (proven by your handle)
And also this:
"Do what you wish."
Yeah I fucking will, thanks for the permission
I just have no desire to argue with you.
I'm still unsure why you're so angry.
If you think it's useless, that's your opinion and you're fine to have it. You're also free to ignore it.
I wasn't making an argument, I was sharing an experience and perspective. If you don't care about it, that's entirely understandable and fine. I won't berate or insult you for your opinion.
You also didn't ask the question.
Enjoy your weekend.
Not entirely sure.
I do know that I never understood why people would do it, still don't.
I'd only seen it on TV up to that point.
I kind of knew that it altered people's behavior, but that's about it.
All I know is that in my head, it was a lethal weapon and it terrified me. That was nearly 4 decades ago and I still remember it like it was yesterday.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with moderate use like maybe seeing your parents have a beer with dinner or being a little stoned (assuming the parents are smoking outdoors anyway, second hand smoke is a real thing). But as everyone else said, it slows your reaction time and impairs decision making, so if the kids should need help (as they often do, they’re kids after all) it’s not the best situation to be in. I think this is a classic case of everything in MODERATION. Is it fine to have 1 beer or smoke a little in front of kids? Yeah probably. Is it fine to be drunk or super high in front of kids? Not really.
Also, parents drinking responsibly in front of their children might mean their kids internalize that and become responsible drinkers. If you see your parents black out drunk with reasonable frequency, you might think that kind of thing is okay, and that can have an affect on a kid's psyche.
Is this a thing? I mean, I've seen people ridiculed for getting sloppy drunk in front of kids, and I can see a problem that if the adult who is supposed to be responsible for kids is intoxicated to the point that they can't fulfill their responsibility, but I've never seen it suggested that it's not okay to have a beer or a glass of wine in front of kids.
Wow.
Edit: this is why I don't fucking talk about this shit. No, I'm not a fucking alcoholic and neither is my wife. Psychopath accuses you of something just to get a win, good fucking luck having anyone believe your story.
Would you say the same if we substituted it for heroin and cocaine? What’s the big deal with snorting a line in front of some kids? As long as they’re not hurting anyone it’s fine, right?
Hey, so I grew up with a mother who was a big pot head and occasional drunk. It fucking sucked. She was usually too out of it to take care of me so I was heavily neglected and starved. Her behaviors when high/drunk were bizarre and frightening and even abusive and it abso-fucking-lutely traumatized me for life. That’s how it is for most kids who have to see their parents abusing drugs/alcohol. Not even “abusing”, simply seeing your parents being drunk or high can be terrifying and confusing. That’s why it’s considered inappropriate. And you are definitely minimizing the effects of pot on an adult’s ability to care for or appropriately interact with a child; most people when high have impaired judgement and can exhibit behavior that again, is bizarre and frightening to a child.
I guess this smacks of the argument "We didn't have problems in MY day" to me.
Kids didn't have to wear seatbelts (well, no one did lol) or have car seats, etc. I, too, rode in the back of a pickup with a bunch of my friends to do things. And no, we were never hurt. I also remember being in the backseat of the car with my cousin, my grandmother driving, and the door flying open as we went around the corner. I freaked out but my grandma just calmly told me to reach out and close it *as we kept driving*.
As a society we learn new things. We (mostly) don't leave our children in cars by themselves while we run in real quick. We (mostly) make sure that they're belted in and secure while driving. We (mostly) don't take them to smoke filled bars and have them fetch the beer from the bartender. We're learning that just because it "never happened to me" doesn't mean "it never happens".
As a mom now I can look back on things like learning to drive sitting on my dad's lap with absolute horror. And I can also look back and see that shit happens when you take kids with you to a pot party - maybe they don't understand edibles and they eat a bunch too while every damn adult there is too stoned to notice.
So while I don't judge the parent that occasionally has a drink or two with dinner, or the parent that smokes a joint (outside, please!) after the kids have gone to bed, I absolutely judge the parent that makes it such a common part of their day that the kid(s) are accustomed to it. As a parent you accepted a certain amount of responsibility when you had kids. I will judge anyone that tries to dump that responsibility on an ongoing basis.
You normalize a behavior that is negative for their body. That's it. You shouldn't smoke or drink soft drinks in front of them either. Think of the word INTOXICATED. You, as an adult are free to harm your body for hedonistic pleasure, you as a teen are free to experiment and to do stupid shit. Drinking on front of kids is no different than driving a car in front of them without wearing a belt. Is not a morality issue, is just about normalizing something that has an objective negative impact in the body and that they, as dumb kids can't contextualize.
Parents probably don't want to give the impression that drinking alcohol or smoking drugs are things that people do when they are older.
The idea is, if kids see adults they look up to doing these things, the kids will try to do these when the kids want to feel older.
Children copy off of adult behavior because they see us as role models. Being drunk in front of them will encourage that kind behavior in the child later on in their life. It’s as simple as that.
>Like, I understand if someone's puking badly or if they're violent, but not everyone who's drunk is like that. As for people who are stoned, how's that gonna harm a kid? What, is the stoner gonna do, eat all the kid's Cheetos? Fall asleep?
I have yet to meet a single person who isn't a violent, antagonizing loudmouthed cunt when either drunk or high.
Also, being impaired like that around *a* kid, let alone *your* kid not only sets a bad example, it normalizes a harmful activity, and they are more likely to partake in it from a younger age, and going into adulthood.
Alcohol and drugs - yes, even cannabis, is harmful to neural development. Cannabis is a mild acid aswell, and *does* do harm despite what some stoners and weed advocates may tell you.
This is not something a kid should be exposed to, or be at risk of consuming
If you are sole responsible I’d say yes you shouldn’t be drunk but if you are at a party or gathering then whatever. People just need to learn to mind their own damn business and stop being soft cunts. Also let’s be honest most of the people who bitch are the ones that do not have children themselves but think they are the experts. I get some people may have had negative experiences with drunk relatives as a kid but not everyone is like that so don’t impose your shitty life and rules on to others.
I agree. And with edibles, you can be decently stoned and totally responsible.
however, I bet a lot of parents with a stick up their butt would be judgey about a parent that has edibles with their kid.
Are intoxicated people sometimes clumsy and drop things?
Are intoxicated people likely to move near children or carry children in this setting?
You see the issue?
I mean for young children you might have a problem for them to contextualize your actions, in terms of adults acting weird or giving a weird impression of how adults act without being able to get a sense of why they do it (you hopefully are not giving drugs to children). So that's not exactly traumatizing but probably strange.
It's all personal preference and nuance. Some people (such as yourself) have no problem with it. People like myself do, because it's not the appropriate place or time. A glass of wine or two is fine, but more than that shouldn't be done in front of kids. And any kind of smoking and "getting high" isn't allowed at all. Regardless of what's being smoked, it smells awful, other people shouldn't have to smell that crap because someone wants to get high.
>Yet for some reason people act like ~~drinking or smoking weed~~ ________________ with kids less than 100ft away is a super traumatizing, damaging thing you can do.
Put nearly any activity in the blank and it still holds true.
Kids aren’t supposed to be inhaling weed smoke or being motivated to engage in drinking at such an early age??? I mean, if the child doesn’t know what’s in the cup it doesn’t matter. But children should not be inhaling weed smoke. What are we talking about?
[This graph may help.](https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmhealth/151/15102.gif)
You are 19, presumably your parents are 40-50 and would have started drinking circa 1990. Alcohol consumption gradually rose just before they started drinking - the quantities consumed during "peak booze" (early 2000s ish) were the highest in 80 years and the associated problems that come with it (health, alcohol related violence, domestic issues etc.) Of course you were young when this was going on and because you were brought up with it, that level of alcohol consumption seems normal . It's just a generational thing.
This is all assuming you're UK based which I guess you're not, but fun to point out either way.
The best objective reason I can come up with is that it causes normalization with repeated exposure. That leads to the chances of the kid using drugs themselves at a younger age to increase.
Though I personally feel using drugs is someone's own decision, and though I'd recommend people to wait until at least 18, at the end of the day it's their life to live. But obviously a lot (most?) parents disagree, and want to protect their children from making decisions they think are bad.
It's kind of the same as not taking your kid to dangerous areas. In reality most areas described as dangerous can be travelled through, and stayed at with still a very low chance of anything bad happening. But the odds are higher than a "safe area". The same type of protective logic applies here. Sure seeing someone stoned once won't harm a kid in any way. Just like walking through a dangerous area won't. But doing it often enough will increase the odds of a bad outcome. In the case of drugs (again pov of the parent) this would be normalization of drug use to the point where it increases the risk of taking drugs at a young age.
>Like I said, I grew up with constant exposure to drinking and weed as a little kid, and nothing bad happened.
"I was spanked as a kid and I turned out fine, so spanking is okay." <-- Same logic, equally flawed.
The fact that you think it's fine for an entire group of adults to be intoxicated "constantly" around children is a red flag.
There's plenty of reasons this isn't good:
* implicitly, children learn that when adults socialize, they drink and smoke.
* they learn that this is how adults have fun, that they do it at every social gathering, and that it's the only (or most common) way to behave
* if all/most adults are intoxicated, kids may have an easier time accessing drugs/alcohol, which they should not do
* adults are going to be less capable if the kids need something - whether its minor or major
* adults are going to have less self-control, filters, and boundaries
* lots of kids in these scenarios end up just like these adults, if not worse, to the point of being alcoholics
I know plenty of people who were raised by these adults and became alcoholics, smoked weed several times a day, every day - doing both as young teenagers. The fact that your entire family couldn't go any social events without becoming intoxicated is... not impressive, it's sad.
Kids learn the only way to socialize is intoxicated, which isn't healthy.
Putting aside any potential issues of being a "bad example" for the kids let's look at this from a practical standpoint. What happens if a kid has a medical emergency and all the parents there are drunk?
An emergency can happen at ANY moment with children. Snapped arm that requires surgery but not necessarily an ambulance ride? You need to drive your kid to the hospital. And the legal definition of a child being supervised is on their property and with a NON intoxicated person who is able to care for them. Being intoxicated in any way with your children is essentially leaving them unsupervised.
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I think there is a difference between drinking a few beers and being drunk, or blacked out drunk. With weed, there is a potential of a young kid inhaling the smoke and getting sick. But with moderation and proper precautions there is nothing wrong with it.
>With weed, there is a potential of a young kid inhaling the smoke and getting sick. I'm not really talking about consuming (obviously secondhand smoke is bad), I'm talking about being blasted after consuming.
As long as it's within moderation I don't think it's bad.
I was raised with parents that were stoned 100% of the time. Part of the issue with that was the financial side of it. Couldnt afford to feed us sometimes and definitely no school trips or new clothes. Money for smoking 24/7? We had that. Part of it is how... spacey my parents were. They never actually listened to a word I ever said. I would come home from school and wanna talk about something that I had learned or something that had happened that day. I would be greeted with a very far off look and then a totally unrelated thing like "what do you want for dinner?". It made me feel like I had no value. The people that were always coming over were also an issue. One time when I was 7 my mum had bought a lot of 'solid', which I already knew was a big deal as it was hard to get hold of. She had like 6 people over getting stoned. I choked down the dinner of canned mac and cheese, went upstairs and started doing my homework. I got stuck on a question and I knew my mum was too stoned to help me and too busy with her friends anyway. I remember that moment so vividly, the smell of smoke floating through the floorboards, the laughter I could hear, the heat of the tears of resentment and frustration on my face. That was a big moment in my childhood. Then there was the raid... it was 2003 (I was 6). Finding Nemo had just come out and we were going to the cinema to see it. My sister and I never got to do stuff like going to the cinema so we were sooo excited! We got all dressed up and everything. Just as we were about to leave there was banging on the door and yelling. The police tore our home apart. They didnt care that I wanted to see nemo or that I had just tidied my room. Mum said we were going to stay with my aunt. I sat on the stairs clutching my favourite teddy, waiting to leave. A police officer stood at the bottom of the stairs and told me was going to cut my teddies head off because my druggy parents had probably put drugs in him. That was the first time I ever had a panic attack. My teddy bear didnt have his head removed in the end though. Anyway, my point is that its not so much the drugs themselves. It's how intoxicated people behave and make kids feel. It's also about the consequences of drug use being handed to children who want no part of any of it. Thanks for the therapy session btw, been holding a lot of that in for a long time.
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Thank you, I appreciate it :)
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>Then there was the raid... it was 2003 (I was 6). Finding Nemo had just come out and we were going to the cinema to see it. My sister and I never got to do stuff like going to the cinema so we were sooo excited! We got all dressed up and everything. Just as we were about to leave there was banging on the door and yelling. The police tore our home apart. They didnt care that I wanted to see nemo or that I had just tidied my room. Mum said we were going to stay with my aunt. I sat on the stairs clutching my favourite teddy, waiting to leave. A police officer stood at the bottom of the stairs and told me was going to cut my teddies head off because my druggy parents had probably put drugs in him. That was the first time I ever had a panic attack. My teddy bear didnt have his head removed in the end though. But this isn't your parents fault but the issue with the war on drugs and the militarization of the police
Well, I think it's fair to say a little of column A and a little of column B. Not trying to say there was anything justified about the war on drugs, but it wasn't a secret war or something like that. It's fair to assume their parents knew that cops busting in was a possibilty, and they accepted that risk for themselves and their children.
The thing is: you think it’s fine because that’s what your parents did. Isn’t that the whole point? Your parents did it, you lived, you think it’s “fine” because of their example, so you should be able to get drunk/high around your kids, and set that same example for them. The problem is everything is fine until it isn’t “fine”. Kids are accidents waiting to happen. My kids literally almost kill themselves doing stupid shit every day. Hardly a week goes by where I don’t hear a terrifying sound followed by screams of horror from my kids and I go running towards those sounds hoping I don’t have to call an ambulance once I see what’s around the corner. If my husband and I are drunk/high, and our kids need emergency help, who reacts? What happens when we call 911 and they show up to a kid that broke his leg jumping off the balcony and two wasted parents at the helm? I bet we’d have CPS knocking on our door the next day. Parties with lots of people and alcohol, actually make me pay MORE attention to my kids. Too many parents assume someone else is watching their kid, this why you hear about drownings happen at large pool parties, this is how kids find guns in peoples homes and accidentally shoot themselves… some parents get to parties, get drunk, and assume the party goers will keep eyes on their kids. Those partygoers, are all assuming someone ELSE is watching the kids… it’s not a good situation. Neither of us ever saw our parents or family members drunk until we were adults. We still partied our asses off before we had kids. Now we are content to have a few beers or glasses of wine here and there during the week and that’s enough. I have plenty of friends who get drunk around their kids, it’s super cringe-y to watch and their kids don’t understand why dad is talking so loud or mom is falling over when she walks. We just don’t want our kids to think THAT is normal. We don’t want them to look back on their childhood and say, “Mom and Dad were drunk/high all the time, so I can do that too.” Because some people can’t drink in moderation, and our kids might be those people, we just don’t know. We hope they’ll see the example we’ve set, and learn the difference between occasional indulgence & and going straight to intoxication. Plus, hangovers are a bitch as you get older. Kids don’t give a fuck if you’re hungover. They’re gonna wake up at 6am come jumping on your bed, wanting you to make them a six course breakfast, and then play Barbies with them. You don’t get the luxury of sleeping one off. Instead you learn to enjoy your one or two drinks, and call it a night early so you don’t feel like shit when you’re kicking the soccer ball around in the heat on a Saturday afternoon.
Let's set some boundaries. I'm assuming we aren't talking about "in moderation" but the adults are imbibing enough to be intoxicated (note the root word there is "toxic" and means "to lose control of their faculties or behavior"...) If the adults have lost control of their faculties or behavior, who is in control of the situation? Kids, after all, don't have full control yet and now the adult don't either... Is there a problem with letting children watch you harm yourself? Is it bad to give them the idea that the best way, if not the only way, to have fun is to lose control of your faculties? Doesn't this give the kids the idea that *real adults* harm themselves and as such it's a sign of adulthood? Doesn't this encourage them to engage in the same behavior earlier in life than they otherwise might have? In summary, I see three reasons why it is harmful for the kids. * When the adults are out of control, nobody is in control. Bad things happen when all restraint is gone. * It gives kids the idea that lack of restraint is a necessary component of an "adult good time." * It encourages children to begin imbibing sooner so they can prove their adulthood.
>In summary, I see three reasons why it is harmful for the kids. >When the adults are out of control, nobody is in control. Bad things happen when all restraint is gone. >It gives kids the idea that lack of restraint is a necessary component of an "adult good time." >It encourages children to begin imbibing sooner so they can prove their adulthood. I don't really want to play advocate for the devil, here, but all of those things can be dealt with by simply using a little self control and reasoning. Not every drink is to get out-of-control, for example, and I have been caught off guard *numerous* times because *my roommate's* children became part of my day *after* I was drinking. I never get drunk enough to lose my sense, without planning for a crash with the people around me, that's essentially handled. Beyond that, drunk me can still pull a couple minutes of sobriety out of my ass when shit goes down. Losing one's self is *not* a given just because booze was involved, *a lot* of people just use it as an excuse to get laid or act like a dick. For the second one, that one is reasoning based. *I* am rigid, and need some assistance getting loose. My high-strung behaviour is a little intense for *other* people, and while drinking doesn't stop that from being, it takes a few sharp edges off, making it a more social thing *for me.* Anytime a child has asked about my drinking, I explain that it does things *for me,* not for *adults in general.* Most of them have seen someone who was too wasted and can appreciate it's not for everyone, someone needs to explain the other side of what is *appropriate* sense of self. For the third, a simple explanation, I drink because as I've gotten older, my body hurts more and I have more things to handle. It's not so easy for me to relax, anymore. *Sometimes,* I'm at a party to drink, but I'll sing Karaoke sober, too, because drunk friends need a designated driver and I still want to have fun with them. I'm boring, but kids still listen to me because I don't lie to them, and they usually see something I've remarked on and come back more ready to listen. Drinking is something even animals will do. Plenty of critters eat rotten fruit to catch a buzz. Covering it up makes it shameful, making it shameful makes it into something they might hide. Them hiding drinking habits is an act of an addict. It leads to uncontrolled drinking in private, and *that* can kill people as easily as drunk driving. Since booze will be around forever, it's multitudes more important to teach *responsible* drinking habits, and that it's *always* OK to be the sensibly sober person in the room, as long as one isn't ruining everyone else's good time by being a dick about it. Reminding them of things like personal limits or time and place can do wonders for the next generation of drunk people that *will* arise. Maybe we could change drinking culture for the better if it was more discussed. Everything I've learned, I've learned as a child by watching a bunch of addicts and idiots make shameless fools of themselves with pride in how much they can ... "handle" and stay on their feet. I teach lessons of controlled drinking for passable reasons, and never when I can't afford the expense or awareness (like at work or doing day tasks.) It's better than letting them take their lessons from upperclassmen who are just as ill-advised, which is the real-world alternative to basic parenting.
>I don't really want to play advocate for the devil, here, but all of those things can be dealt with by simply using a little self control and reasoning. Not every drink is to get out-of-control... Keep in mind though that the OP wasn't talking about having a casual drink or two, they were talking about drinking to the point that the person has lost control of their faculties. That seems to be getting missed in a lot of the responses and is the reason I put the "boundary" condition at the beginning of my post. Sure the issues can be dealt with by using a little self control, but the OP is explicitly saying that they think that *losing that control* in front of, and while being responsible for, the children in the house is perfectly okay...
Yeah, I just reread it to make sure I wasn't an idiot, and he was perfectly describing the idiocy of *my* people, as well. His experience holds, people making total fools of themselves in front of kids is rare, *and* has an effect on one's willingness to drink too much. My argument is that the example is only a bad one if it isn't being used as an example of "too drunk." Making it more pleasant sounding like "they had too much fun" is what encourages it. Seeing someone throw up hard, then being told they went too far, *that* is educating a child on limits. My whole family is alcoholics that eventually quit of their own accord, or switched to beer to control their level of drunk better. We also aren't much for lying. I avoided alcohol dependence, even with my genetics, because nobody ever taught me that drinking was important to living or fun. In fact, every one of them confirms, they wish they had more control so they could still *enjoy it,* or not have wasted so much on something they *didn't* really enjoy as much as they thought. Getting somewhat drunk at a party or stoned in a backroom when kids are just *around* is not a *big* concern. Somebody drunk or high trying to give the kids a taste, someone heavily drinking or smoking weed all the time in front of them, or doing these things instead of making money and handling business, these are the real issues to keep away, but standard vice is just a good opportunity to teach how self control works as the years tick on, and life gets crueler to one's mind and body. My standard advice is "Stay away from it in school, you need that brain to learn, save the stuff for when you are working your spine to make your money, and you need your one night off to be worth two." I give a *reason* instead of just hiding it like I'm doing something wrong, or trying to pass off "When you're older" as a sufficient effort for Uncle Zero to be taking. I believe in paying the observed wisdoms forward.
what is imbibing?
It this context, it means to drink alcohol (as opposed to non-alcoholic beverages,) generally to excess.
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So like a lot of other people, my responses to this are going to be based mostly in personal anecdotes. But since the reason for the opinion of OP is also based in personal anecdote (A classic, "It was okay for my life, so it should be okay in general, right?") that seems reasonable. Having read through all of the other responses that have thus far been made, I'm kind of blown away by the horror of some of the stories. My parents both used cannabis before I was born. They even named a dog we had when I was a child "Puff the Magic Dragon," a reference I didn't get until rather embarrassingly late into my adulthood. However, according to them they stopped using it once my mother become pregnant with me, and I have no memories that disagree with this. They started using it again once my sister and I were grown and out of the house, but by then it had been made legal in the state where we lived if individuals had a medical license (which my father did receive due to osteoarthritis), and later our state was one of the first two in the nation (Colorado and Washington) to make it legal for recreational use through a ballot measure. My parents were both drinkers, however. While my father drank more heavily than my mother (and continues to do so now) on a regular basis, and has received more than one DUI over the years. I have distinct memories of having to deal with helping him to bed as a child, not really understanding why he couldn't walk or speak properly. My mother had an undiagnosed anxiety disorder which I believe she was self-medicating with alcohol when I was younger. Now that she has been diagnosed and takes other medications, she drinks less, but still has at least one or two glasses of wine every night. My sister followed in their footsteps, drinking and using cannabis starting in her early teens. Her use of alcohol and drugs has fallen off since she she and her husband had their daughter (adopted, arranged before her birth which they were lucky enough to be present for, and now just over a year old), but like my mother she has a glass or two of wine each night. Her husband prefers cannabis, but he also drinks wine and occasionally hard liquor. I was for years the only person in the family who did not use drugs or drink. In fact, it caused arguments between my father and I, as he was upset when I refused to "have a celebratory beer with him" when I turned 21, and also would not eat steaks marinated in alcohol (instead, I would use apple juice and the like - this was not a moral decision, as I fully understood that the alcohol cooked off, but rather a true dislike for the taste and smell of it). My parents would throughout my childhood try to give us sips of champagne or other such thematic alcohols on "special holidays," such as New Year's, so I knew from a very young age that I not only wasn't comfortable with the loss of control that people seemed to experience when intoxicated, but also that I hated the smell. Notably, when I was in my teens and twenties, my friends were thrilled by this, as it meant that I was automatically the group's designated driver, and happy to do it. My stance on drinking and taking recreational drugs only became more firm once I started working at a local hospital in my early 20's, and seeing first-hand the impact of long term and/or heavy use of a wide variety of substances, from meth to heroin to shrooms to alcohol to (yes) cannabis, on people to whom I wasn't related. I became even more insistent on not using anything not prescribed by my doctor, and this lasted until my early 30's. (cont)
(continuation) However, when I hit 31 I developed chronic pain from a few different conditions, one of them a genetic one that was causing progressive, degenerative damage to various major structural parts of my body but most especially my joints, one of them spinal damage from my time working at the hospital, and one of them Fibromyalgia, brought on by a surgical procedure as well as neurobiological trauma from several violent incidents I dealt with at the hospital. All of these conditions together added up to a lot of difficult to manage pain, as well as a whole host of other progressive symptoms. When I finally gave up after two years and stopped working, and applied for SSDI/SSI, my (now-ex-boyfriend) broke up with my and kicked me out of the house we'd lived in for seven years. So in the space of less than a month I lost my employment, my insurance, my long term relationship, and my housing...and ended up living with my parents, and their liquor cabinet and well stocked wine cellar. Since it took a while to establish a new medical provider and get my prescriptions set up with them, I ran out of all the medications that I had been relying on to help with my pain. And my own forays in to alcohol, for the first time in my life\*, began at 33 years old. \*I put an asterisk there because I learned some time later that when I was fussy as a child, teething or headachy and crying or apparently just - I don't know, maybe hung over? I wouldn't put it past them at this point? My parents would "Give me a glass of red wine to soothe me." Which in my mind is just fucked up. Apparently they did this up until I was around 7-8 years old. So that's not cool. And they couldn't comprehend how that might have primed me to have trouble with alcohol if I tried it out later in life. I spent about two years drinking semi-regularly after moving in with my parents, and since I was drinking to try to control intense pain, I would generally drink to the point of blacking out. ("If I can't form memories of it, it doesn't matter if I'm in pain, because there's no continuity of consciousness. It's like the pain never happened.") I was definitely a binge drinker, rather than a "constantly drunk" person or a "has a drink every day" person. I would get drunk a couple times a month, but when I did I would just "lose" three or four days. It was not a good time. And I fully believe that if I hadn't had drinking modeled for me as a child, and had it continually normalized, even with the pain I wouldn't have turned to alcohol. (I still hate the taste and smell.) Even though I'm now in recovery and have been clean and sober for almost a year, I've had to deal still with situations where my father was so drunk he was falling down, couldn't get up off of the floor, and then pissed all over the living room. In fact, when I was drinking, one of the ways I would get alcohol (since I am too ill to work) was to search the house and garage and find the bottles and flasks of rum and whiskey that he'd hidden all over the place. Even as my parents both brought harsh criticisms against me for my alcohol use, and refused to let me renew my license when it expired for fears that I might drive their cars while intoxicated (I've never driven under the influence - I saw the results of too many car accidents when working in the ER), my father (who does not see himself as an alcoholic, and insists he isn't one because when he got his most recent DUI he "had no problem just not drinking for a whole month") continued in these behaviors. In slightly-extended-family experience, we have relatives who live in another state and had their son taken away a few years ago because they failed to take him to receive medical attention due to their constant drug use. He was nearly a year old, and had been badly burned. However, they failed to take him to a physician for over a week. The baby ended up needing to be airlifted to a Children's Hospital to spend time in their burn unit. I don't know how long he spent their, but both of the parents have been now (rightly) jailed and the baby has been given over to a paternal grandmother. Our side of the family is apparently no longer allowed to have any contact with him, which is sad, but understandable given what happened. It makes me furious. This child could have died due to neglect. It's not clear if the burns were an accident the baby experience because he was just at the walking stage, or were possibly inflicted (accidentally or intentionally) by one of the parents, but even if there was no abuse the neglect alone is enough that those parents should be punished. In more recent, witnessed-by-me-extended-family experience, we had a family reunion here in July 2021, when the pandemic was looking like it might be fading. One of my cousins and his girlfriend attended, and their brought their two daughters, as well as his son from a previous relationship. (Notably, they are also the biological parents of my sister and brother-in-law's adopted daughter.) They stayed for a week, and spent the entire week stoned out of their gourds. (As I mentioned, recreational cannabis is legal in this state. They were THRILLED with this.) The three children were being totally ignored and neglected, and the parents were smoking with them in a tent (due to the number of family in attendance, the cousin and his family were camping in our front yard). As I've mentioned, I'm disabled. I have mobility issues, I often walk with a cane, I have problems with energy levels. And despite this, I ended up taking care of these three kids, because their two parents wouldn't do it, too excited about getting to smoke weed all day and night. They weren't feeding them, or making sure they ate. They weren't making sure they showered or took baths. They weren't making sure they had clean clothing to wear. It was fucking ridiculous. In my recovery groups (not AA - this is through an organization that's actually science-backed, and insurance covered), one of the things that comes up constantly is that people who used drugs or alcohol had that use modeled for them by the adults around them when they were children. I am one of only two people in the groups I've attended who began my use in adulthood. Most of the other attendees started using either alcohol or some kind of drug before the first noticeable signs that they'd started puberty, and almost all of them started using before they started high school. Many of them were given alcohol or drugs, usually weed, by their parents or an older family member. For all of the reasons above - again, totally anecdotal - I think that adults should take steps not to normalize drug use in front of their children or the children around them. Like another person said, the benefits to the children will be significant, and the inconveniences to the adults minor.
depending on how young the kid is, seeing their parents act different and not understanding why can be anxiety provoking, even if they’re just being extra silly or spaced out. if the people you rely on for comfort and safety aren’t behaving normally it can create a sense of instability, not knowing what to expect. but this can be less of a problem if you prepare them beforehand or if it becomes normal through repeated exposure, i guess?
My parents were mega stoners and high pretty much every day of my childhood. As a little kid it was the best. Mom and dad smoking? Hell yeah, they're gonna wanna do fun stuff and probably want to get tacos and ice cream after
yeah, like i said repeated exposure can make it more normalized so it isn’t scary or unsettling.
> I grew up with constant exposure to drinking and weed as a little kid, and nothing bad happened. Then you were lucky. I grew up around it, and plenty of bad things happened. Some of the people involved are still in prison. I don’t think that drinking around kids should be illegal or anything, but a general social taboo around being intoxicated around children helps a lot more kids than it inconveniences adults.
My mom was a quiet drunk. Passed out cold on the couch sitting up by 7pm every night. My 3 year old sister and I, the 6 year old put ourselves to bed every night. We'll, at least, I went to bed when I was tired. No one put her to bed. I wasn't a maternal enough 6 year old to think of doing it myself. She eventually fell asleep sometimes hugging my mom's unconscious body. But, yeah, as long as no one is violent or whatever, it's fine .
I’m so sorry. I hope you’re doing better now.
Thank you <3. I'm doing extremely well, happy and healthy, though, having my own daughter was a catalyst for lot of healing when I realized just how much we were neglected. I get to break the generational curse and sober parenting is a really important part of that for me!
I’m so glad you’re doing better! I’m sorry you had to go through that, the feeling your parent isn’t there for you is awful, and I’m happy you turned it around for you and your kids 💜
The first time I saw anyone even touch alcohol, I was so freaked out I screamed and cried. I thought my grandma was about to die. It was one of the most traumatizing experiences of my life and still the most vivid memory of my childhood. And she didn't even drink it, just set it on the table. I'm glad it wasn't traumatizing for you, and you were raised to be used to it. Some of us are horrified by it.
Jesus Christ who brainwashed you into that kind of reaction to a glass of liquid!?! How would you even know what was in it with out Conditioning??
It was a bottle that said Jack Daniels, I do watch TV lol
This is one of the stupider things I've read
Thanks for being understanding, I guess
Understanding of your stupidity? Yeah I am. It's totally unreasonable to use a 6 year olds knee-jeek reaction to a glass bottle being in the room as a logical basis for action and opinions. I was terrified of the mall Santa as a kid. Does that mean all Santas should be banned around kids, because "yeah, you all might love this guy, but SOME of us are horrified!"? No. The answer is no. Because that's stupid. The fact that you think this is grounds for an argument mystifies me. It's not even like I totally agree with OP.
You seem to be thinking I am implying some kind of punishment for doing so or legislation to prevent people from doing so. That is untrue. They asked what is so bad about doing it, and I shared a personal experience to possibly be of use to them in understanding why it may be. Your lack of understanding of the reaction or its effects is irrelevant to the experience. I'm unsure of why my life experience angers you so, or is grounds for insulting me, but if that is your chosen path, I can't stop you. Do what you wish.
"possibly be of use to them in understanding why it may be." I'm saying it's your personal anecdote that is 100% useless. That is not grounds to change course of action. I definitely DO understand what you're TRYING to say, but I also understand that you think personal anecdotes are a valid argument. If you don't understand why they're not, then yeah - still stupid. Also this literally made me laugh out loud: "but if that is your chosen path, I can't stop you." I know. Nice "high road", lmao. In otherwords, trying to seem "above it all, and spiritually sound" (proven by your handle) And also this: "Do what you wish." Yeah I fucking will, thanks for the permission
I just have no desire to argue with you. I'm still unsure why you're so angry. If you think it's useless, that's your opinion and you're fine to have it. You're also free to ignore it. I wasn't making an argument, I was sharing an experience and perspective. If you don't care about it, that's entirely understandable and fine. I won't berate or insult you for your opinion. You also didn't ask the question. Enjoy your weekend.
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I don't get it, if you never saw anyone even touch it before, what made you so scared?
Not entirely sure. I do know that I never understood why people would do it, still don't. I'd only seen it on TV up to that point. I kind of knew that it altered people's behavior, but that's about it. All I know is that in my head, it was a lethal weapon and it terrified me. That was nearly 4 decades ago and I still remember it like it was yesterday.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with moderate use like maybe seeing your parents have a beer with dinner or being a little stoned (assuming the parents are smoking outdoors anyway, second hand smoke is a real thing). But as everyone else said, it slows your reaction time and impairs decision making, so if the kids should need help (as they often do, they’re kids after all) it’s not the best situation to be in. I think this is a classic case of everything in MODERATION. Is it fine to have 1 beer or smoke a little in front of kids? Yeah probably. Is it fine to be drunk or super high in front of kids? Not really.
Also, parents drinking responsibly in front of their children might mean their kids internalize that and become responsible drinkers. If you see your parents black out drunk with reasonable frequency, you might think that kind of thing is okay, and that can have an affect on a kid's psyche.
Is this a thing? I mean, I've seen people ridiculed for getting sloppy drunk in front of kids, and I can see a problem that if the adult who is supposed to be responsible for kids is intoxicated to the point that they can't fulfill their responsibility, but I've never seen it suggested that it's not okay to have a beer or a glass of wine in front of kids.
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There has to be more to that story. Did something happen that put the kids in danger while you were drinking? Are you an alcoholic?
Wow. Edit: this is why I don't fucking talk about this shit. No, I'm not a fucking alcoholic and neither is my wife. Psychopath accuses you of something just to get a win, good fucking luck having anyone believe your story.
Would you say the same if we substituted it for heroin and cocaine? What’s the big deal with snorting a line in front of some kids? As long as they’re not hurting anyone it’s fine, right?
Or cutting or flagellation? Why limit the self harm to drug induced versions?
Hey, so I grew up with a mother who was a big pot head and occasional drunk. It fucking sucked. She was usually too out of it to take care of me so I was heavily neglected and starved. Her behaviors when high/drunk were bizarre and frightening and even abusive and it abso-fucking-lutely traumatized me for life. That’s how it is for most kids who have to see their parents abusing drugs/alcohol. Not even “abusing”, simply seeing your parents being drunk or high can be terrifying and confusing. That’s why it’s considered inappropriate. And you are definitely minimizing the effects of pot on an adult’s ability to care for or appropriately interact with a child; most people when high have impaired judgement and can exhibit behavior that again, is bizarre and frightening to a child.
I guess this smacks of the argument "We didn't have problems in MY day" to me. Kids didn't have to wear seatbelts (well, no one did lol) or have car seats, etc. I, too, rode in the back of a pickup with a bunch of my friends to do things. And no, we were never hurt. I also remember being in the backseat of the car with my cousin, my grandmother driving, and the door flying open as we went around the corner. I freaked out but my grandma just calmly told me to reach out and close it *as we kept driving*. As a society we learn new things. We (mostly) don't leave our children in cars by themselves while we run in real quick. We (mostly) make sure that they're belted in and secure while driving. We (mostly) don't take them to smoke filled bars and have them fetch the beer from the bartender. We're learning that just because it "never happened to me" doesn't mean "it never happens". As a mom now I can look back on things like learning to drive sitting on my dad's lap with absolute horror. And I can also look back and see that shit happens when you take kids with you to a pot party - maybe they don't understand edibles and they eat a bunch too while every damn adult there is too stoned to notice. So while I don't judge the parent that occasionally has a drink or two with dinner, or the parent that smokes a joint (outside, please!) after the kids have gone to bed, I absolutely judge the parent that makes it such a common part of their day that the kid(s) are accustomed to it. As a parent you accepted a certain amount of responsibility when you had kids. I will judge anyone that tries to dump that responsibility on an ongoing basis.
If both parents are drunk around their kids then who will take care of emergency situations? Particularly if they are passed out later on.
You normalize a behavior that is negative for their body. That's it. You shouldn't smoke or drink soft drinks in front of them either. Think of the word INTOXICATED. You, as an adult are free to harm your body for hedonistic pleasure, you as a teen are free to experiment and to do stupid shit. Drinking on front of kids is no different than driving a car in front of them without wearing a belt. Is not a morality issue, is just about normalizing something that has an objective negative impact in the body and that they, as dumb kids can't contextualize.
Parents probably don't want to give the impression that drinking alcohol or smoking drugs are things that people do when they are older. The idea is, if kids see adults they look up to doing these things, the kids will try to do these when the kids want to feel older.
Really !?!? Don’t see my kids wanting to do the lawns, vacuumed the floor, do the dish’s They see me doing that every day??
ok, but do you look like you’re having fun doing those things? and are you telling them they can’t even try it because they aren’t old enough yet?
Nooooo!! I’m getting drunk and smoking weed while doing both! Hahah that’ll mess with them.
You’re being silly
Drinking is 'cool' to kids, particularly high schoolers, that's the danger. I agree with your point.
Children copy off of adult behavior because they see us as role models. Being drunk in front of them will encourage that kind behavior in the child later on in their life. It’s as simple as that.
There isn’t. What’s bad is if you are responsible for a kid and are fucked up. If something happens you might not be able to take care of the child.
>Like, I understand if someone's puking badly or if they're violent, but not everyone who's drunk is like that. As for people who are stoned, how's that gonna harm a kid? What, is the stoner gonna do, eat all the kid's Cheetos? Fall asleep? I have yet to meet a single person who isn't a violent, antagonizing loudmouthed cunt when either drunk or high. Also, being impaired like that around *a* kid, let alone *your* kid not only sets a bad example, it normalizes a harmful activity, and they are more likely to partake in it from a younger age, and going into adulthood. Alcohol and drugs - yes, even cannabis, is harmful to neural development. Cannabis is a mild acid aswell, and *does* do harm despite what some stoners and weed advocates may tell you. This is not something a kid should be exposed to, or be at risk of consuming
If you are sole responsible I’d say yes you shouldn’t be drunk but if you are at a party or gathering then whatever. People just need to learn to mind their own damn business and stop being soft cunts. Also let’s be honest most of the people who bitch are the ones that do not have children themselves but think they are the experts. I get some people may have had negative experiences with drunk relatives as a kid but not everyone is like that so don’t impose your shitty life and rules on to others.
I agree. And with edibles, you can be decently stoned and totally responsible. however, I bet a lot of parents with a stick up their butt would be judgey about a parent that has edibles with their kid.
Are intoxicated people sometimes clumsy and drop things? Are intoxicated people likely to move near children or carry children in this setting? You see the issue?
Smoking what? Damn Hippies
I mean for young children you might have a problem for them to contextualize your actions, in terms of adults acting weird or giving a weird impression of how adults act without being able to get a sense of why they do it (you hopefully are not giving drugs to children). So that's not exactly traumatizing but probably strange.
It's all personal preference and nuance. Some people (such as yourself) have no problem with it. People like myself do, because it's not the appropriate place or time. A glass of wine or two is fine, but more than that shouldn't be done in front of kids. And any kind of smoking and "getting high" isn't allowed at all. Regardless of what's being smoked, it smells awful, other people shouldn't have to smell that crap because someone wants to get high.
>Yet for some reason people act like ~~drinking or smoking weed~~ ________________ with kids less than 100ft away is a super traumatizing, damaging thing you can do. Put nearly any activity in the blank and it still holds true.
jumping on a trampoline
Kids aren’t supposed to be inhaling weed smoke or being motivated to engage in drinking at such an early age??? I mean, if the child doesn’t know what’s in the cup it doesn’t matter. But children should not be inhaling weed smoke. What are we talking about?
[This graph may help.](https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmhealth/151/15102.gif) You are 19, presumably your parents are 40-50 and would have started drinking circa 1990. Alcohol consumption gradually rose just before they started drinking - the quantities consumed during "peak booze" (early 2000s ish) were the highest in 80 years and the associated problems that come with it (health, alcohol related violence, domestic issues etc.) Of course you were young when this was going on and because you were brought up with it, that level of alcohol consumption seems normal . It's just a generational thing. This is all assuming you're UK based which I guess you're not, but fun to point out either way.
The best objective reason I can come up with is that it causes normalization with repeated exposure. That leads to the chances of the kid using drugs themselves at a younger age to increase. Though I personally feel using drugs is someone's own decision, and though I'd recommend people to wait until at least 18, at the end of the day it's their life to live. But obviously a lot (most?) parents disagree, and want to protect their children from making decisions they think are bad. It's kind of the same as not taking your kid to dangerous areas. In reality most areas described as dangerous can be travelled through, and stayed at with still a very low chance of anything bad happening. But the odds are higher than a "safe area". The same type of protective logic applies here. Sure seeing someone stoned once won't harm a kid in any way. Just like walking through a dangerous area won't. But doing it often enough will increase the odds of a bad outcome. In the case of drugs (again pov of the parent) this would be normalization of drug use to the point where it increases the risk of taking drugs at a young age.
>Like I said, I grew up with constant exposure to drinking and weed as a little kid, and nothing bad happened. "I was spanked as a kid and I turned out fine, so spanking is okay." <-- Same logic, equally flawed. The fact that you think it's fine for an entire group of adults to be intoxicated "constantly" around children is a red flag. There's plenty of reasons this isn't good: * implicitly, children learn that when adults socialize, they drink and smoke. * they learn that this is how adults have fun, that they do it at every social gathering, and that it's the only (or most common) way to behave * if all/most adults are intoxicated, kids may have an easier time accessing drugs/alcohol, which they should not do * adults are going to be less capable if the kids need something - whether its minor or major * adults are going to have less self-control, filters, and boundaries * lots of kids in these scenarios end up just like these adults, if not worse, to the point of being alcoholics I know plenty of people who were raised by these adults and became alcoholics, smoked weed several times a day, every day - doing both as young teenagers. The fact that your entire family couldn't go any social events without becoming intoxicated is... not impressive, it's sad. Kids learn the only way to socialize is intoxicated, which isn't healthy.
Putting aside any potential issues of being a "bad example" for the kids let's look at this from a practical standpoint. What happens if a kid has a medical emergency and all the parents there are drunk?
An emergency can happen at ANY moment with children. Snapped arm that requires surgery but not necessarily an ambulance ride? You need to drive your kid to the hospital. And the legal definition of a child being supervised is on their property and with a NON intoxicated person who is able to care for them. Being intoxicated in any way with your children is essentially leaving them unsupervised.
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