Jennifer thought her
daughter Kate was acting strangely. Kate was fifteen and had always been open
and talkative. She had never hesitated to confide in her mother. Jennifer knew
about the first time Kate had been kissed (by Jimmy Webster, at the pizza
party). She knew when the cool clique ostracized Kate because she was friendly
with an "unpopular" girl. She knew when Kate's best friend had gone
to the mall and bought the same outfit that Kate was planning to wear to the
dance.
But lately, Kate
wasn't quite herself. She avoided eye contact at breakfast. She always seemed
to be running off to do something. She gave quick, evasive answers to everyday
questions.
One day Kate left her
purse open on the kitchen table. Jennifer glanced inside and saw a wad of tin
foil. Jennifer, a child of the sixties, knew instantly the purpose of the tin
foil. She picked it up and smelled it. Sure enough, it was pot. Marijuana.
Weed. Call it what you will, it was an aroma that Jennifer hadn't encountered
since the Grateful Dead were popular.
Jennifer knew that
she and her husband Larry had to talk to their daughter. What Kate was doing
was not only bad for her, but it was illegal. What if she were caught? Everyone
in town would read the police report in the local newspaper, Kate would be
branded by the local cops as a pothead, and there would be dates in juvenile
court.
Mother, father, and
daughter had a family discussion. After the usual denials by Kate and the threats
of grounding and other sanctions by the parents, the truth came out. Many of
the kids in the theatre club at school were experimenting with pot. They got it
from a guy who grew it in his basement (no names given, and none demanded). The
kids thought it was a harmless activity. And, of course, they swore they would never get
caught. But even if they were, it was a juvenile offense. No permanent record.
Jennifer and Larry
were aghast. They had smoked pot in college, not in high school! Their
immediate response was to reassure themselves that innocent Kate had caved in
to peer pressure. Obviously she had been influenced by the group, and if she
had more self-determination she never would have experimented with an illegal
drug. They sternly delivered that time-tested question: “If your friends jumped
off a cliff, would you?”
It may have given
Jennifer and Larry comfort to believe that their child was motivated purely by
peer pressure, but Kate knew otherwise. She felt that her experimentation was
her choice, and she knew—perhaps more than her parents—that she and her friends
were on the same journey and that they were likely to arrive at the same
destinations at the same time. Kate and her peer group were like a flock of
birds that wheel and pivot in the sky without any apparent leader, and which
seem to be governed by one invisible mind. Is any individual bird acting
under peer pressure? Not really. It’s more accurate to say that all the birds
are motivated to do the same thing at the same time.
Kate knew that she
was conflicted. She knew that smoking pot was something that her parents would
find objectionable, and she did not want to make them angry. But she also knew
that she had a mind of her own and she felt entitled to make choices. Was there
an easy resolution? No, but Jennifer, Larry, and Kate all felt better about
getting the problem out in the open.
User Comments
blog comments powered by Disqus