Saturday, May 26, 2012

Having The Rug Pulled Out From Under Me

That's exactly how I feel right now.  A few months ago (Late December or early January, I can't remember which) The Man and I discovered that Bud, our 15 year old son was smoking marijuana.  After the standard "Where did we go wrong?" feelings we sat him down for a talk.  He promised he'd stop, and we let it go at that.  Some might say that we were naive for doing such a thing, but you have to understand, Bud has always been an honest kid.  Sometimes brutally so.  Looking back, I wonder if this is why we believed him, or if it was because of "Not MY kid" sydrome.  We really wanted to beleive him.  We thought he was a curious kid who experimented a bit.  Most of my formative years were during the Reagan administration, and I embraced Nancy Reagan's "Just Say NO!" campaign whole heartedly.  The Man, who is eight years older than me, had a MUCH different time as a teenager.  We are two parents who, as teenagers, had very different experiences.  The Man can talk to Bud about all of the negative effects of certain drugs first-hand.  I can just say "Don't do it.  It's bad.  It's illeagal"  (Not very effective, I know.)

Fast forward to April.  April 20th to be exact.  You know what April 20th is, right?  Or should I say, 4-20?  Apparently, in the pot-smoking community, 4:20 is the universal time to light up, so 4-20 is an entire day to light up.  With the help of an at home drug test (CVS for around $15), my suspicions were confirmed.  He had smoked in the last 30 days.  Anger, hurt, betrayel and more "Where did we go wrong?" feelings came flooding at me.  This time we stressed about the value of trust and how he broke it.  We also made it perfectly clear that if he was ever caught, he was on his own.  We would not bail him out, come to his rescue, or anything like that.  Once again, a promise of not doing it again.  This time, we only half believed him, and cautiously, slowly, returned some privelages we had revoked.

Yesterday, at 2:14, only 4 minutes after school had been dismissed, I got a call from one of the deans.  They had caught Bud buying and he was currently high.  That's when the rug was pulled out from under me, the wind knocked out of me, you could have knocked me over with a feather, and a bunch of other cliches.  After scrambling to find a place for ladybug to go after school, I headed to the high school located in the next town.  WHY?  Why would he do this?  How could he continue to lie to us?  (And of course) WHERE DID WE GO WRONG?  Then, like a ton of bricks, it hit me.  We didn't go wrong anywhere.  We taught him about right and wrong.  We had told him that even if he didn't agree with the law, it was still the law and he had to obey it.  This was NOT my fault.  This was NOT my decision.  These were NOT my actions.  I am a good parent.  And so is The Man.  We have done our best, and made our fair share of mistakes.  But we are overall good parents.

And now, facing charges of possesion, he has the opportunity to basically be an "informant" to the local police.  Give them credible information about drug activity at the school, and they'll drop the charges.  The officer who was at the school when I got there basically said that they wanted to be able to curb some of the stuff going on.  Essentially, There's bigger fish to fry.  He told Bud to think about it.  He has plenty of time to think.  He's on a three day suspension.  Which means, because it's a holiday weekend, he doesn't go back to school until next Friday.  He turns 16 on Thursday.  I don't think it's going to be a very happy birthday for Bud this year.  I hope he remembers it.

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