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A
All of it is supported by Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. In a small groundbreaking clinical trial, 100% of participants with a specific type of rectal cancer saw their tumors disappear using immunotherapy alone. Researchers at MSK are now studying this approach in cancers of the stomach, liver and more. And a majority of tumors are disappearing. For MSK Giving day, all gifts will be tripled. Learn more@msk.org all of it.
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This is ALL of It on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. As most mothers would attest, the days in and days out of parenting can be exhausting, to say the least. No matter how much you love your kids, there are moments when you want to pull your hair out to cope with the stress. Some moms turn to cannabis. A growing number of parents online say smoking weed is actually helping them to parent better. They're more relaxed, more patient, less quick to yell. But parenting while high can come at a cost. Sarah Levy is the author of Drinking A Memoir. She recently wrote a piece for the Atlantic called A New Generations of Moms who Get High. And Sarah joins us now. Hey, Sarah, nice to meet you.
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C
Hi. So nice to meet you. Thanks for having me, listeners.
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B
Are you a mom who smokes weed? How does it help you? Do you ever smoke during the day or after your kids go to bed? Or maybe you feel strongly that you should never be high around your kid? We want to hear from the moms out there. What's your relationship with weed and parenting? Give us a call at 2124-3396-9221-2433. WNYC. So you looked at an online community that call themselves garden moms, and they say smoking weed can actually make them better at parenting. Who's in these videos? What kind of lifestyle are they promoting?
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C
Yeah. So, you know, a lot of these moms I found are primarily full time stay at home moms. They have young kids in, you know, they're in school during the day. And I spoke to moms all over the country, everywhere from Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, California, Arizona. And the pattern that emerged was pretty similar, at least in this specific subculture of garden moms. A lot of them wake up in the morning before the rest of the house. So before the kids get up and this is their me time, they go out to the garage with usually like a bong or a vase and take a few hits of cannabis before, you know, starting the day with their kids. So that was a little different than some of the other moms I spoke to who were maybe Having an edible after their kids go to bed at night to kind of unwind from the day. These moms were really, they really use cannabis as a way to prepare for the day, and they see it as a tool that helps them to be calmer, more present parents with. With their kids.
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B
Yeah. How is being framed as self care?
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C
I think for a lot of these moms, they're pretty isolated. They don't have a ton of additional support, whether that's childcare or. You know, One of the moms I spoke to had her first child in the peak of COVID so she was, you know, very isolated. And this was a real, and can be a real form of self care. For a lot of these moms, it's time to themselves, it's, you know, a breath they can take just away from the demands of, you know, a screaming toddler. And for some of the moms who are struggling with mental health, they are using cannabis to wean off of antidepressants. They, they really feel that it's helping with their baseline anxiety and, and depression. And I think it's just, you know, something that's just for them. In an era of intensive parenting where a lot of moms feel like they have a responsibility to give all of themselves to their kids, this is something that the moms view as, you know, just theirs.
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B
It's kind of interesting because substances have been helping parents become sort of calmer, have been around forever. In the 50s, there were tranquilizers that were given women. In the 60s, there was Valium that was given to women. And lately it's been sort of, you know, the Y mom. You hear about that quite a bit. Is this really that different?
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C
You know, I think that the question throughout is the same, right. Which is why do what, what kind of pressure do we put on moms that we need. I'm a mom myself, that. Right. That we need to pick up substances to kind of get through the day or get through parenting. I do think that cannabis is different in that, you know, compared to the THC content in a lot of the products now can be up to 90% versus 4% in the 90s. So I think cannabis is stronger than it was, you know, 30 years ago. And I think the fact that, you know, a lot of these moms are using cannabis throughout the day poses a different set of risks in terms of, you know, responsiveness and ability to, you know, respond quickly to your child and, you know, if there's a, an emergency or they're in a dangerous situation. I think Wine mom culture in particular has been, has become very normalized. And, you know, we would have a different reaction collectively to a mom getting on TikTok maybe and drinking wine at 5:30, 6, 30 in the morning and, you know, continuing throughout the day. So, you know, in that sense, they're different. I think what the garden moms would say is they're using cannabis much more intentionally than they see, you know, wine moms using alcohol. And they, you know, they're, they view it as a tool that's helping them to be better parents versus maybe alcohol, which is just seen as something that you do recreationally and, you know, unwind, relax with, with your friends or with your spouse at the end of the day. They really described cannabis as something that helps them to be better parents.
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B
We're talking about a new generation of moms who say smoking weed helps them parent better. Sarah Levy wrote about it in the Atlantic. She's our guest. We'd like to hear, are you a mom who smokes weed? How does it help you? Do you smoke weed during the day or the night after your kids go to bed? Or maybe you feel strongly that you shouldn't be hiding around your kids? Give us a call at 2124-3396-9221-2433. WNYC. Some of the experts you spoke to for your article said that sense of relief or calm that moms say they get from smoking might actually be a sign of addiction and that they're smoking is kind of, it's treating withdrawal symptoms. Could you explain that?
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D
Yeah.
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C
So, you know, one of the, one of the experts who I spoke to described the, the idea that cannabis, you know, you think that it's helping with anxiety, but there's actually a very strong placebo effect and for things like anxiety, sleep. So if you think that you're experiencing relief from cannabis, you know, you very well might feel like you are, but in fact, you're likely dependent on cannabis. And so you're, you know, if you're experiencing irritability or anxiety, that is because you haven't, you know, you're withdrawing from cannabis itself. And so what feels like the substance helping with anxiety may actually, actually be the substance treating the withdrawal symptoms that, that it created. And at least one in ten regular cannabis users develops dependency, which is comparable to alcohol. And morning use, in particular, like wake and baking, is flagged as a particularly concerning pattern among cannabis researchers and experts. So you're not really getting relief. You're rather maintaining a baseline that the drug itself lowered.
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B
I'M curious, when you were reporting this story, were any of the moms nervous to share their smoking habits with you?
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C
Most of the, some of them were hesitant about having their names published in the story. They didn't want it publicly shared. But a lot of the moms I spoke to who are posting about being garden moms on TikTok were actually really excited to share about it, and we're really excited to have the stigma broken around cannabis use.
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B
Did any of the moms you spoke to seem nervous about becoming overly dependent on weed?
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C
No. Most of the moms were really just strong advocates of the positive changes that the drug has had for them and in their lives and felt like their lives were better because of it.
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B
Another thing that experts brought up to you was the idea that kids are always watching us, that they model us. Did anyone you talked to, were they concerned about weed, about the kids watching their parents smoke?
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C
You know, most of the parents I spoke to felt very confident in the systems that they had in place. So, you know, having their kids be asleep or, you know, not in the same room when they were smoking, keeping things locked and out of reach, keeping supplies, you know, inaccessible to their kids. But the, you know, the research does show that children who grow up in homes where, you know, parents are using cannabis in particular, are just more likely to take up drugs and alcohol themselves. There was a Harvard study of 25,000 parent child pairs that found that, you know, youth affected by parental substance use are more than twice as likely to develop a substance use disorder by young adulthood. So I think that these moms are aware of, of the fact that they would like to keep cannabis out of reach of their children and, you know, don't want them picking up cannabis until hopefully they're older. But one of the moms I spoke to said that her mom is also a cannabis user and that she started using it as a teenager, you know, in her, you know, with her mom. And so I think a lot of it is dependent on the family and, you know, the circumstances in the home.
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B
Let's take a couple of calls. Jay is calling in from New Jersey. Hi, Jay, thank you so much for making the time to call all of it. You're on the air.
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E
Hi. Thank you. I'm so, I was just walking past my radio and heard this topic come up. And yeah, I am about to turn 48, I live in New Jersey. I have a 12 year old daughter and I have a medical cannabis card for New Jersey for years now. But I, you know, I was a smoker before that, and it absolutely does help keep me. I say it at 100%, helps me be a better parent. As far as withdrawal, like, I have never in my life I've heard of people saying they get withdrawal from cannabis. Like, oh, I get grouchy. I get a headache. I don't know that I've never, ever had any of these things affect me at all. It helps, you know, and I've taken. I have, you know, I've had issues with depression and anxiety, my life. And I've taken prescriptions for that. And the cannabis is by far better than any prescription medication I've taken for anxiety. And I've had plenty of time not using it either to compare it with.
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D
Yeah.
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B
So how did it make you a better parent?
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E
Well, when you're. When I am frustrated with, you know, a lot going on, it helps me be more present with my child and forget about some of the other, you know, whatever's going on, things that are hectic, and it's like my kid wants to play a game. I don't feel like it. You know, it helps. It can help at times bring out that, you know, childlike, you know, desire to just play and be silly, you know, when you're feeling. Whereas, like, you know, if I took a Xanax or something, it would just knock me out. That's not what I want. I want to be able to be engaged and calm and, you know, playful, but not to a, you know, degree of being irresponsible and stupid. You know, like, I always, you know, the dose. The dose makes the poison, they say. So it's also a matter of knowing how much you're gonna use. It's much easier to titrate your dose than it is with, you know, prescription. I have medical background. Yeah. As well.
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B
Jay, thank you so much for calling in. I wanted to get your response, Sarah, to our caller.
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C
Yeah, I think a lot of the moms I spoke to said the same thing. And one of the experts I spoke to who studies stress in parents in particular, made an interesting distinction, which is that according to his research and to the research that he's seen, being chemically calm is not the same thing as being fully present with a child. And something he said is, parenting requires reading a child in real time and responding with sensitivity to what they need in a particular moment. And his. His view, substance can interfere with that fuller response, even when the parent seems unruffled. So I thought that was an interesting distinction. And, you know, all the moms I spoke with genuinely believe they're More patient, more present with cannabis. And the experts didn't fully dismiss that feeling, but they, they did all say that feeling calm and being ready to act and respond, you know, quickly and readily, both in the case of an emergency, a child running into the street, choking. Right. Something of that nature, and, you know, being. Being ready to. To act, to mirror frustration or, you know, an appropriate emotional response to a child are two different things.
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B
Legalization has made cannabis way more mainstream than it once was. When you think about a trend like this, how much of it is about changing attitudes and how much of it is about the cannabis industry actively marketing
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C
itself to moms, I think that's a really interesting distinction. Daily users represent over 40% of the cannabis market and account for about 80% of all sales. And the cannabis industry is a $30 billion industry. So I think that they have a direct financial incentive to cultivate garden moms as a customer segment, and they're actively doing so through influencer partnerships and brand deals with a lot of the garden moms on TikTok. So I do think that's just something to. To keep in mind when having this conversation.
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B
And the bigger picture issue after reading your. Your piece and having been a mom is that there isn't a lot of help for moms. Right. At the end of the day, people are taking this because they feel stressed out.
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C
Yes. And under resourced. And the demands on moms in every generation have been high and I think continue to get higher and higher. And one of the experts I spoke to, you know, was saying that parents are under. Parents certainly feel like they're under more stress today and that they're looking for more coping methods. And this is certainly one. And, you know, part of my interest in the piece, you know, stemmed from being a mom and really empathizing with what I was seeing in a lot of the posts from these moms was a desire for a reprieve, a desire for, you know, support time for yourself and the sense that, like, parenting is incredibly demanding, being a mother is incredibly demanding, and that often it feels like there just aren't enough resources available.
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B
Is there anything in your piece that people have been missing?
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C
I think the distinction for me in the garden mom subculture in particular is this is these are not moms who are occasionally using cannabis. Right. Like having an edible with friends, going to book club, going to dinner, and using cannabis recreationally the way someone might have a drink now and then. But these moms are using cannabis to parent and see it as an essential tool in the way that they're parenting and using it first thing in the morning and throughout the day with their kids. And I think that this piece is not a anti moms using cannabis piece and specifically reporting on a specific subculture of moms who are using cannabis to in their minds be better parents and more emotionally responsive parents.
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B
You should read about it in the Atlantic. It was written by Sarah Levy. Sarah, thank you for sharing your reporting with us.
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C
Thank you for having me.
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