Dr Lou Natic said:
It's automatically a detriment to the child to have stoner parents. I'm sorry but I've done the rounds, and stoner parents aren't just like normal parents who occassionally smoke weed secretly in the suv when the kids are asleep.
They'll live in a run down messy apartment or house with shit everywhere and the kid will entertain itself while the parents argue about everything and smoke bowls on the dirty cofeee table that has a 4 foot tall mountain of cigarette butts in a plate or hubcap that doubles as an ashtray because they broke the real ashtray and they simply can't be fucked to get another one, or empty this one.
The parents won't be parents at all.
If they're still making a habit of "getting high" they're obviously still mentally children themselves, smoking weed to escape from the fear of needing to grow up.
Lou, you watch a tad too much TV. Recreational users are usually professional people who can afford to buy the drugs and live comfortable and good lives and who, most importantly, provide for their children. I know of several lawyers and at least 3 barristers who have children, the jag and the nice waterfront home who are regular users. I know of at least 2 doctors who are in a similar boat, and one of them is a surgeon. Going to their house, seeing their children and seeing them with their children, one would never guess that they were regular users.. and I'm not just talking about weed.
Sure there are many parents who are drug addicts and who do live in abject poverty and they do use a hubcap as an ashtray. But do the rounds properly and you'd see that many poor drug uses with children actually do not mistreat or neglect their children. They work, provide for their children and then when the kids are in bed, they shoot up. The next morning the child is none the wiser and the parent, having spent many hours on a high, functions in what can be considered normal capacity.
Alcoholic parent vs stoner parent is no contest. Alcoholic parent isn't ideal, but they can be parents, even a bad parent is better than a non-parent. Alcoholics have those moments of clarity, being a stoner alters your mental processes 24 hours a day everyday. You need to stop smoking for 3 weeks to get the moment of clarity that an alcoholic will get the morning after a particularly nasty bender. And stoners simply can't go without for that long, so they're permanently bad parents and completely oblivious to the fact they're bad parents because their brain is eternally clouded with bong smoke and thus whats important is getting weed and not falling asleep before late night with conan o'brien comes on (or at least having the vcr ready to tape).
The alcoholic will feel remorse often and is more likely to try and help himself for the sake of his kids, the stoner doesn't see the problem. As long as the kid watches sesame street is should turn out all right, the government makes them have special lessons in sesame street that make children grow up good.
LOL! Do you know any true alcoholics Lou? When I was young, my parents lived next door to a family. The wife and daughter rarely ventured outside. She would drop her daughter off at school before walking to work. The father was an alcoholic. On a daily basis he would go through two 4 litre casks of wine, as well as scotch and anything else he could get his hands on. At night he would beat up on his wife and daughter, before he passed out. He did not work. He beat his wife every night so she would give him the money to buy his fix. He was over 6 feet tall, and she was around 5'5".. tiny and very petite. He was never remorseful and when she tried to runaway with the daughter, he would track them down and drag her back. Sure he'd apologise and beg for forgiveness, but the first night she'd be home, he'd start again. I have lost count of the amount of times my father would break into their house to pull his wife and daughter out of the house and call the police. I have lost count of the amount of times I'd get home from school and my parents would be at work, only to have the wife come beating on the door, asking for help to drag her naked husband who'd passed out in a doorway or hallway into his bed before their young daughter came home. He felt no remorse or embarrassment. He was put into rehab, after being caught driving with his terrified daughter in the back while so drunk he could not even walk, so many times that finally, the court and the police realised that it would never work because he would not give it up. Last I heard, she'd divorced him after hiding for months in a women's shelter and he'd gone to Asia and married some poor Asian girl and brought her back.. the cycle begins again. And he is not the exception Lou.
I know of countless other stories about alcoholics Lou. Having seen the result of their addiction on their family's, believe me, many times a stoner would make a better parent. An alcoholic must always drink. They drink from when they wake until they pass out. An alcoholic will drink anything in the house, even mouthwash. A stoner has a hit, gets high, a few hours later can have several hours if not days of clarity, before the need for the next hit arises.
Alcoholics have those moments of clarity, being a stoner alters your mental processes 24 hours a day everyday.
Alcoholics have moments of clarity to try and see when they can get their next drink. Alcoholics drink every waking moment. They don't stop. A drug user will use once in a day, for example, and after a few hours when the high has worn off, they have moments of clarity. Alcoholics are never sober enough to actually have moments of pure clarity.
A couple of stoners in a run down dingy hell hole scavenging through their giant ashtray and yelling at eachother for always scrunching the old joints up so they can't be salvaged should not have a child screaming in a cott in the background of their horrible life.
No they should not. But comparing them to alcoholics as though the alcoholic is better will never fortify your argument. A drug addict, who cannot take care of their child the way their child should be taken care of, should not have children. Just like alcoholics should never have children, because they cannot take care of anyone, especially a child.
