Judgy Moms

Why I Stopped Explaining My Cannabis Use to Judgy Moms

For years, I had a whole speech prepared. You know the one — the defensive TED talk you give when another mom finds out you use cannabis and her face does that thing.

“Well, it's actually for my anxiety, and it's legal, and I never do it around the kids, and studies show, and actually wine moms—”

I was out here presenting a legal brief every time someone raised an eyebrow. Exhausting. And you know what I realized? The moms clutching their wine glasses at 3 PM while side-eyeing my choices were never going to be convinced. The speech wasn't for them. It was for me — because some part of me still believed I had something to apologize for.

So I stopped. Cold turkey on the explanations. (The irony is not lost on me.)

Here's my stance now, and it's the whole stance: I'm a present, sober-when-it-counts, deeply involved mother of six who uses a legal plant the way other moms use a glass of merlot — except I don't get hangovers and I don't yell at my kids about the dishwasher. If that's a problem for you, that's a you thing.

I'm not reckless about it. The kids know it as “mommy's magic flowers,” they know it's a grown-up thing, and they know their mom is the most locked-in person in the building. That's the whole story.

The funniest part? Once I stopped explaining, the judgy moms mostly stopped asking. Confidence is a language everyone understands — even the ones pretending they don't speak it.

To the moms still rehearsing their speech in the shower: you don't owe anyone a footnote on your life. What explanation are YOU retiring this year?