Pot for Parenting: Navigating Motherhood With Weed

[00:00:00] Ellen Scanlon: This podcast discusses cannabis and is intended for audiences 21 and over.

[00:00:13] Ellen Scanlon: Support for How to Do the Pot comes from Cann. Instead of a glass of wine, have you tried a cannabis beverage yet? Drinkable, delicious cannabis that’s as refreshing and sociable as your favorite drink? But hold the booze. Use promo code. Do the pot for 20% off when you visit. Drink can.com. That’s drink CANN.

[00:00:39] Ellen Scanlon: Try a can today and relax at the end of the day without worrying about parenting with a hangover.

[00:00:55] Ellen Scanlon: I had a long journey to becoming a mother and faced many years of unexplained infertility. If motherhood is a difficult topic for you, please know that in this episode, we will be talking about it.

[00:01:10] Laurel Pantin: It helps me be a better mom. It helps me be more present. Five years in, I’m finding the most important part of being a good parent is just not worrying about your phone, not worrying about the future, just being.

[00:01:22] Laurel Pantin: There and available and open minded for your child, whatever gets you there is 100 percent worth pursuing.

[00:01:30] Ellen Scanlon: Welcome to How to Do the Pot, a podcast helping you feel confident about cannabis. I’m your host, Ellen Scantlin.

[00:01:42] Ellen Scanlon: You just heard from Laurel Pantene, a California based stylist, creative director, and writer of the popular newsletters, Earl Earl and Your Mom. It can be a little disheartening how society seems to give a thumbs up to moms who enjoy a drink, but not so much to those who like cannabis. I wish it weren’t the case.

[00:02:09] Ellen Scanlon: And as we approach this Mother’s Day, I want to bring together supportive voices from moms all across the country who take loving, responsible care of their kids and who also enjoy weed. In today’s show, we’ll hear from moms who like cannabis for its many benefits, for relief from chronic pain, support for an autoimmune disease, for better sex, and to get through those days when you feel very overwhelmed.

[00:02:44] Ellen Scanlon: Each of these moms will tell you how cannabis provides them with both physical and emotional support and how that makes them better parents. If you’re a regular listener of the show, this will not come as a surprise to you. Could this be the perfect moment to share this episode with a mom friend who might benefit from it?

[00:03:09] Ellen Scanlon: I am here to help everyone feel confident about cannabis whenever you’re ready for it. I have an exciting news update, too. On April 30th, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the DEA, announced its proposal to reclassify cannabis as a less dangerous substance. The proposal, which is still under review, recommends moving cannabis from its current status as a Schedule I drug to a Schedule III substance.

[00:03:43] Ellen Scanlon: This is a historic change, and I am so thankful for the many advocates for legalization who have fought so hard for changes like this. It is still in its early stages, so I’ll keep you posted about what it means for legalization. Right now, it’s very good news for the industry and opens the door for cannabis businesses to operate much the way that all other businesses do.

[00:04:13] Ellen Scanlon: A great moment to celebrate.

[00:04:20] Ellen Scanlon: Want to keep the conversation with us going? Sign up for our twice monthly newsletter and have a direct line into my inbox. The newsletter is full of resources that will help you feel confident about cannabis for health, wellbeing, and for fun. And you can hit reply and let me know what you’d like to hear more of on the show.

[00:04:43] Ellen Scanlon: To join the thousands of subscribers already receiving it, head to do the pot. com to sign up. Thank you so much for your support. We couldn’t do this without you.

[00:05:02] Ellen Scanlon: Washington based Kia Baker is a military veteran and the host of the Female Veterans podcast. She deals with chronic pain, which is very hard on its own and incredibly challenging when you’re trying to parent. I know firsthand how tough it can be to navigate sickness while you’re caring for a little one.

[00:05:26] Kia Baker: Chronic pain makes you cranky. You’re always suffering. You’re suffering 24 7. You’re always hurting after a while. It takes a toll on you mentally, physically, emotionally, and that toll that it’s taking on you is going to trickle down to impact your Children. So you’re stressed at work. You’re going to come home and that’s going to trickle down and affect your Children.

[00:05:47] Kia Baker: Right? So imagine if there’s a magic pill, if you will, that you could take that would diminish that anxiety, that depression, that pain that you’re feeling, that stress from that day of work, and would leave you feeling relaxed, pain free, and centered. Then you approach everything in life with a much better perspective.

[00:06:09] Kia Baker: And that’s what it does for me. And I will admit fully and completely that smoking makes me a better mother. Anyone who doesn’t believe me should smoke and then try parenting. It’s so much better. My teenager and I have wonderful conversations, and I don’t smoke around them, but as they come home from somewhere, And I’m up and I have had pain, so I’ve medicated myself.

[00:06:36] Kia Baker: This is how I found out. I would be like, wow, I’m way more calm. It would be like I would be seeing my behavior from a different perspective. I’m like, I’m so much more calm. I have energy. I’m not in pain.

[00:06:48] Ellen Scanlon: For Christy Palmer, the California based co founder of cannabis edibles brand Kiva Confections, before kids, weed was fun.

[00:06:58] Ellen Scanlon: Now it’s a life saving device.

[00:07:02] Kristi Palmer: Back in the day, I used cannabis for fun, eat an edible, watch Game of Thrones, wake up in the morning, like, oh, did we watch Game of Thrones? Watch it again the next day. Totally for fun, totally for relaxing, or, you know, pair it with a glass of wine, whatever. Now, it’s like a life saving device that makes sure that no one else gets hurt.

[00:07:25] Kristi Palmer: I’m a pretty calm person, I think. Like, I’m pretty patient, but man, those kids, you know, there’s dishes in the sink. The dishwasher is full. Dinner needs to be made. You know, you owed somebody answers to something for some work thing. And then the kids are like on your legs, like, what are we eating? What? And it’s like, okay, hold on a second, everyone.

[00:07:50] Kristi Palmer: I’m going to lose my mind. I don’t even know what that would look like. Like what I fall on the ground and cry. I don’t know. Maybe, but I don’t have to get there because all my kitchen counter. Under my oven hood is a joint or a bowl or an edible or whatever. It makes me not murder anyone.

[00:08:10] Ellen Scanlon: Shanitria Anthony is the California based editor at HuffPost and host of the podcast Blunt Blowin Mama.

[00:08:18] Ellen Scanlon: As a mom who loves weed, Shanitria was happy to see more media stories about moms and cannabis beginning a few years ago. She realized though, the moms were always white. And since data shows that black and white people smoke weed at the same rates, she knew it was time to create a space for women of color too.

[00:08:41] Shonitria Anthony: I started thinking about all the articles I had edited over my career or read about. Moms who smoke weed and in 2017, early 2018, even 2016, there was this fascination about this growing group of mothers who are smoking weed and are not hiding it. And every time I saw that image, it was always of a white mom.

[00:09:05] Shonitria Anthony: And I was just like, Okay, but never really thinking much of it, which is kind of like, that’s, that’s a bit odd, because I’m pretty sure white moms aren’t the only moms who smoke weed and who are advocating for it or who are being open about it, and I thought about myself and I’m like, I’m a mom and I smoke weed, so why am I not seeing Um, women who look like me.

[00:09:25] Shonitria Anthony: And I was, after being laid off from my job, I was like, you know, I’m kind of tired of asking for permission and waiting for people to give me the opportunity. Why don’t I just create that opportunity myself? And I was just like, okay, but where’s the black mom? Like, where are Latino moms? I just couldn’t find them.

[00:09:43] Shonitria Anthony: And so I just said, you know, I’ll have to do it myself. And so that’s how Blunt Blowing Mama came about.

[00:09:50] Ellen Scanlon: New York based Dr. June Chin is a cannabis expert and the chief medical officer at LeafWell. She encourages her patients, who are moms, to think about cannabis as medicine.

[00:10:03] Dr. June Chin: As a mother and as a physician, it comes back to intent.

[00:10:06] Dr. June Chin: And how you use cannabis as, as medicine. So if I’m nauseated or if I’m in pain and I have a two year old who’s going crazy and making me so irritable that I’m yelling at the kids, I’m yelling at my partner. And if taking a puff, you know, if microdosing relaxes me and makes me nicer and makes me more present than sure I’d use it.

[00:10:26] Dr. June Chin: And I tell my patients the same thing.

[00:10:29] Ellen Scanlon: And now a message from our friends at the Cannabis Media Council.

[00:10:35] Cannabis Media Council Ad: This is Mary Jane reporting from downtown the scene of Happy go lucky retirees have taken over moving and grooving just like the good old days. Witnesses say they’re on it again, but I see no hippie burnouts, just throngs of happy adults.

[00:10:49] Cannabis Media Council Ad: Oh, no. Oh, they’re inviting me to play something called Pickleball. Uh, send backup. Oh, it’s a gateway. All right. Get the low down at I’m high right now. Dot com. A message from the Canada’s Media Council.

[00:11:04] Ellen Scanlon: Tameka Drew is the California based founder of Beko Flower, and she has been a medical patient for more than 20 years.

[00:11:13] Ellen Scanlon: Tameka has Crohn’s disease, and you can hear her incredible story in episode 146. Thanks. Before she found cannabis, she was near death. Now she is a healthy mother of four children and is helping to change the face of what a cannabis consumer can look like.

[00:11:33] Timeka Drew: These conversations are incredibly important for normalization because I was I was very scared for so long of telling anybody that I used cannabis to treat my Crohn’s disease.

[00:11:43] Timeka Drew: Um, especially once I started having those kids, I was told I was never going to be able to have. Um, now all of a sudden I’m a mother who uses cannabis and how are people going to think about that? And so I, I really had to come. Full circle with that moment now being a part of the legal industry and, and being out there and, and speaking out, but I think it’s, it’s important and more of us need to do it and show that there are, there are successful put together mothers who use cannabis and are a part of the cannabis industry.

[00:12:12] Timeka Drew: And it is just as respectable for us to do so as, as the men that we see lifted up for, for doing the same thing.

[00:12:19] Ellen Scanlon: Brett Heyman is the New York based founder of fashion brand Edie Parker and the cannabis lifestyle brand Edie Parker flower. Brett loves cannabis for enhancing sex with her husband of 15 years.

[00:12:33] Ellen Scanlon: And what’s a better Mother’s Day present than better sex?

[00:12:37] Brett Heyman: Women’s pleasure has never been prioritized in sex. We never talk about And I think I never really thought about cannabis in that way until a few years ago. But I think it’s one of those things that once you realize what cannabis does for you and that it just makes you so sensitive to everything.

[00:12:56] Brett Heyman: It’s like, how could you not want to try? I still think my husband is super hot and sexy after 15 years, but if we’re not going to get high and have sex, it’s pretty perfunctory. It’s like we have 30 seconds where a kid’s not coming in and sure, like, you know, get one out and have a great time. But if I want to enjoy sex, it’s really about like, we’re going to get high.

[00:13:16] Brett Heyman: We’re sending the kids to bed. It’s somewhere and we’re going to really enjoy our time.

[00:13:21] Ellen Scanlon: We have a very popular series about sex and cannabis. It’s episodes 189 through 191. Episode 190 focuses on sex and parenting. Laurel Pantene, who you heard from at the beginning of the episode, shares how hard the shifts that come with motherhood were for her.

[00:13:43] Ellen Scanlon: Much like Kea Baker, Laurel’s view is, if there’s something that helps me, isn’t that a good thing?

[00:13:52] Laurel Pantin: At the end of the day, I think that parenthood, should you choose to do it, is amazing and unbelievably challenging. And you can’t explain to someone before they go into it how literally everything they do down to how the way they go to the bathroom is going to change seemingly overnight.

[00:14:10] Laurel Pantin: Whatever you can find to make yourself feel a little bit cared for is worth pursuing, whether it’s weed, exercise, anything that can help you come to terms with becoming a new person is helpful. It’s such a huge shift in all the practical aspects of your life, and then in every aspect of your identity.

[00:14:34] Laurel Pantin: And I think as a woman, I got really caught up in the beginning and like what I call the unfairness spiral. Even if you have the most helpful partner in the world who’s sharing the labor with you 50 50 It’s still your body and it’s still an identity shift that like you have to come to terms with and so Just giving yourself the permission to explore whatever it is.

[00:14:53] Laurel Pantin: That’s going to make you feel better is really valuable It helps me be a better mom. It helps me be more present. Five years in I’m finding the most important part of being a good parent is just not worrying about your phone, not worrying about the future. Just like being. There and available and open minded for your child, whatever gets you there is 100 percent worth pursuing.

[00:15:15] Ellen Scanlon: However you choose to celebrate, I wish you a very happy Mother’s Day. If you like this episode, please share it with a friend. We love new listeners and are here to help everyone feel confident about cannabis.

[00:15:35] Ellen Scanlon: Thank you for listening to how to do the pot. For lots more information and past episodes, visit do the pot. com. And Are you one of the thousands of people who love how to do the POTS newsletter? If you’re not getting it, please sign up@dothepot.com. And if you like how to do the pot, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts.

[00:15:58] Ellen Scanlon: It really helps people find the show. Thank you to producers Maddie Fair and Nick Petri. I’m Ellen Scanlan, and stay tuned for more of how to Do the Pot.