Tricky

I remember, before I was a mom, thinking that I would be awfully good at answering kid questions. After all, besides being pretty smart, I am also a very reasonable person- meaning that I am quite good at using common sense (something I feel our society is sorely lacking these days). I also knew I'd never talk down to my children or cause them to feel they were less than a whole person, even though they may be half my size.

But boy, it's a whole lot trickier than I once thought.

Case in point: Saturday night, a neighborhood baby shower was thrown for one of my dear friends, who happens to live next door. The party was thrown right across the street, and a bunch of us hired two babysitters to watch the gaggle of kids while we celebrated. Addie has always been very dramatic about goodbyes; he makes sure to hug me at least fourteen times, and then there's the kiss-blowing, followed immediately by the "I Love You" sign with his fingers. This ritual, when done exactly to his liking, can take about 15 minutes. Lately, he's been extra-sensitive about my departures, and thus my exit Saturday night was a three-act Shakespeare play. I had to explain to him that the party was strictly for adults, and that all his friends would be playing with him at our house and won't that be much more fun?

Once I was at the party, however, I noticed that many of the neighborhood kids that were supposed to be over at my house with the babysitter were running around enjoying the festivities. Only the babies were left at our house... and Addie. After about an hour, I decided to make his day and go back home, offering to let him come over and visit the party for a few minutes, since the other older kids seemed to have permission. Addie was over the moon.

Unfortunately, I walked him into the party right when all the men had just been handed their celebratory cigars, and had retreated to the backyard to enjoy them. Addie, scampering about the party with the other kids, saw his father smoking a cigar and came to me instantly, tears welled in his eyes, talking a mile a minute. He gets very philosophical when he's falling apart on the inside.

"Mama." (He says this in his best authoritative tone, hands on his hips.) "Daddy is over there SMOKING A CIGAR. He's going to DIE. He's going to get cancer and DIE. Are you going to let this happen? Wow, Mom. Wow."

His lip is trembling. He's very shaken up. And why? Because ever since he was old enough to ask about smoking, I have told him that it's VERY, VERY BAD and CAN KILL YOU.

Oops.

Well no, not oops, right?

I realize I am a rather dorky cigarette-drug-and-alcohol-free anomaly in the world. I never liked the way being under the influence of anything even slightly addictive made me feel, and always felt quite giddy and ready to have fun without the extra help. But I also am fully aware that part (not all) of the reason I always stayed away from the stuff is that my mother SCARED THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF ME. She regaled me with stories of a party she went to, where a high school friend of hers smoked a joint that she didn't know was laced with PCP, fell into a coma and never woke up. That was enough for me. Got it. When I was a teenager, theatre was my high. I didn't need to combine that drug with anything that would put me at risk for indefinite unconsciousness.

When it was clear to my mother that I probably was going to stay away from drugs (sometime in my mid-thirties), she casually informed me that she may have exaggerated the events of the PCP-laced joint. Her friend never slipped into a coma. I think she felt sick and her mom picked her up.

Now, it remains to be seen whether I will fabricate stories of comas with my boys as they get older, but I would be lying if I said it hasn't crossed my mind. I will do anything to keep them safe. And when Addie's questions started about the people he saw smoking cigarettes, I did not waver when I told him cigarettes were BAD BAD BAD for you. They give you LUNG CANCER and lung cancer can KILL YOU. There was no gray area in my admonition. I can't afford gray areas, especially in the formative years.

Which brings us back to the baby shower. I looked down at Addie's stricken face, and started to try to explain.

"Addie, yes. Daddy is smoking a cigar. Tonight is a special occasion, and this is the only time Daddy is doing this."

"But he's inhaling all that smoke!" Addie pleased. "He's filling his lungs with cancer! You can't even breathe over there, the air is so smoky!"

"I know, buddy. But listen to me. Daddy is not going to get cancer if he smokes one cigar."

As I'm speaking, I'm hearing myself and realizing I am hedging... going back on what I said before, if only a little bit. And perhaps I'm sending Addie the wrong message. It's only okay on special occasions? If you do it once it's okay? But I don't want him to do it, not even once. Once leads to twice leads to Addie dressed up in a leather jacket leaning against a motorcycle without a helmet, cigarette dangling from his lips, flask in his free hand, telling his mom to go fuck herself.

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!

How to explain the subtleties of cigar-smoking to a six-year-old, who isn't going to be able to grasp them? I try again.

"You know what, Addie? You're right. What Daddy is doing is bad for his lungs, and you're right to be concerned. But I want you to trust me when I say that when babies are born, it is a tradition for the dad to pass out cigars and for all his friends to smoke just one. It's like a ritual. And one cigar, in Daddy's WHOLE LIFETIME, is not going to give him cancer. Does that make sense?"

Why oh why did I pull him away from the babysitter?!

Addie would not let it go. I didn't think he would. No amount of convincing would deter him. He kept going to check on Stan, coming back and giving me the minute-by-minute update, hands on hips: "Still smoking. He puts it up to his mouth, like, every FIVE SECONDS."

I suppose I feel slightly more comfortable erring on the side of "Well, Daddy might just get cancer from this" than "Don't sweat it, Addie, it's fine"... but I don't want Addie worrying about his father's lungs either. These are the moments when you realize that there is no perfectly right answer. There is only "doing the best you can". Because some of the neighbors saw Addie's upset, they started offering their comfort... but everything that came out of their mouths was only complicating things. One of Addie's friends said, "Don't worry, Addie. It's only for special occasions. You can smoke once, or even twice, or however many times you have a baby. And it's okay."

Shut up kid.

I approach this dilemma, as I do most parenting snafus, with a sense of humor. But it's hard when you can see your kid in turmoil. He eventually calmed down and enjoyed the present-opening. And I know this too shall pass, like yesterday's cigar through the lungs, with hopefully very little damage.

It's just a reminder to me, to take ultimate care with the things that come out of my mouth. As Stephen Sondheim so beautifully wrote:

Careful the things you say
Children will listen.
Careful the things you do
Children will see... and learn

Children may not obey
But children will listen
Children will look to you
For which way to turn
To learn what to be
Careful before you say, "Listen to me..."
Children will listen...