Pubdate: Fri, 03 Jun 2016
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Copyright: 2016 The Globe and Mail Company
Contact:  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168
Author: Leah McLaren
Page: L1

PUFF DADDY

Nobody blinks when moms joke about 'wine o'clock.' So why, Leah
McLaren asks, do stay-at-home dads who light a doobie during playtime
get accused of crossing the line?

The first stoner dad I met was my neighbour, Joe. Joe is in his
mid-30s, lives with his wife (a checkout clerk at our local grocery
store), and is the primary carer for their two-year-old daughter.

Most mornings, after Joe's wife leaves for work, he sits in the
backyard while his daughter plays, drinking a mug of coffee while
languidly smoking a large, pungent joint. The smell wafts in through
my office window, but Joe - who, in his dungarees, goatee and trucker
cap, looks like something out of a Cheech and Chong movie - has never
done anything to hide his morning weed habit. If I catch his eye over
the garden fence, he just smiles and waves, as if it were the most
normal thing in the world to be hauling on a fatty while singing The
Wheels on the Bus at 9 a.m. on a Tuesday morning.

At first I judged him. But after observing Joe for more than a year, I
must acknowledge he's a great dad: attentive, cheerful and engaged
without hovering or being anxious. His daughter, a smiling, confident
little chatterbox, does not show signs of being the neglected child of
a chronic drug user. In fact, she seems closer to her father than most
kids that age.

Watching her flourish under his benevolent, weed-baked gaze has made
me wonder: Is marijuana the new Mother's Little Helper for the
emerging generation of stay-home dads?

Since meeting Joe, I've spotted stoner dads everywhere. The guy on
paternity leave, loping down the street, pushing a buggy with one hand
and smoking a doob with the other. Two dudes on the park bench
overseeing an afternoon play date and passing a pinner. A group of
fathers at a Sunday afternoon backyard barbecue, sharing a joint on a
picnic blanket before dispersing to change diapers or jump on the
trampoline with the kids while their wives drink wine and chat over
the grill.

Statscan doesn't track numbers of pot-head parents in Canada (funny
that), but it has tracked the rising number of stay-athome dads in
Canada in recent decades. In 1976, dads stayed home in only 2 per cent
of couples with at least one child under 16; by 2014, that number
climbed to 11 per cent. As well, one-fifth of Canadians stated in a
recent phone poll by Forum Research that they smoked pot last year,
and 59 per cent said they support some form of legalization.

Matt Austin, a Toronto-based writer-director and father of a toddler
and an eight-year-old, said he sees no harm in using pot to relax
while tending to his kids at the end of a long day. "When I'm a little
stoned, I'm thinking less of all the things in my life that cause me
anxiety, and I'm able to be present and creative with my children," he
said. "For me, it's an end-of-day thing, when I know I don't need to
be on full parent and responsibility alert."

Then there's my friend Kevin (not his real name). Kevin and his wife
moved to Los Angeles from London last year after she got a job in a
new design firm. As Kevin waits for his American work visa to come
through, he's become primary carer for the couple's five-year-old
daughter - a job he unapologetically combines with the occasional
(read: almost daily) mid-afternoon joint around the backyard pool. "It
sounds a bit wanky to say," he said, "but it helps me get right down
to her level and play, like I did when I was her age." Kevin added
that he's always conscious of his intake and that, after years of
pot-smoking, he knows how to moderate his dose for maximum effect. "By
the time bedtime rolls around, my buzz has worn off and I'm back to
nagging her to brush her teeth like any boring parent."

Plenty of mothers smoke pot, too, of course, but many do it at adult
parties, on the sly or after the kids have gone to bed. For mothers,
the stereotype has long been "mommy juice," the cheeky bottle of
chardonnay, cracked open at the end of the after-school play date or
during the preparation of buttered pasta before dinner. That or the
soul-calming effects of anti-anxiety pills such as Xanax and Lorazepam.

The difference with some of these pot-enthusiast dads is that they
don't view their drug of choice as a mere escapist crutch. In
moderation, they see it as an effective aid in the difficult and often
emotionally taxing job of being a parent.

"The fact is, weed makes playtime more fun, suppertime more delicious,
bathtime more relaxing and storytime more interesting," one
Toronto-based pot-smoking father of two who wished to remain nameless
told me in a phone interview this week. "What's not to like?"

Given that pot is now legally used in a medicinal capacity in many
countries in the world, including Canada, it is no more taboo than
alcohol consumption where parenting and daily life is concerned. And
yet, old social habits die hard. If I saw a group of parents standing
around at a toddler's birthday party sipping mimosas, I'd applaud (and
probably reach for one myself). If they were passing around a bong,
however, I'd find it hard to conceal my horror. This isn't because I
don't smoke pot (it makes me queasy), but because I associate it with
illegality.

But with the Liberal government keen to decriminalize or even legalize
pot completely, that view seems soon to be outdated. After all, most
of us shamelessly drink around our kids, and yet excessive alcohol
consumption is strongly linked to all sorts of dysfunctional behaviour
and social problems (domestic abuse, child neglect, excessive verbal
conflict, to name a few). According to a report by the U.S. National
Institute on Drug Abuse, the main social problem caused by chronic
cannabis use is increased professional absences and decreased
productivity and work performance. Which raises the question: Outside
of an office environment, could small doses of marijuana actually help
parents relate better to their children?

Writing in The New York Times a couple of years back, the art dealer
Mark Wolfe argued that since receiving a prescription for medicinal
marijuana, his back pain and insomnia had improved and, surprisingly,
so had his parenting: "I swear I am a more loving, attentive and
patient father when I take my medication as prescribed."

Cannabis, he added, enhances the user's ability to relax, slow down
and perceive beauty in otherwise mundane aspects of life. This
mood-altering effect, he wrote, "can be enormously salutary to the
parent-toddler relationship. Beyond food, shelter and clothing, what
do small children need most from their parents? Sustained, loving,
participatory attention."

Canadian doctors aren't yet prescribing pot lollipops for
parenting-related stress, but the future for ganja enthusiasts is
looking bright. In the meantime, on the back decks of the nation,
Daddy's Little Helper persists. As Austin points out, "Why is it okay
for moms to joke about 'wine o'clock' but we can't talk about taking
the edge off with pot?"

You've got a point there, dad. Now pass the PB&J and stop harshing my
mellow.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Matt