The Moms Who Smoke Weed to Parent

Taylor Mitchem’s baby was born in March 2020. By the time they both left the hospital, the world had shut down. Mitchem had no extended family nearby, no friends who could visit. Her husband was around, but because he was nervous about the newborn’s fragility, she felt responsible for most of the child care. Her postpartum days were endless and isolating, the challenges heightened by the day-to-night transition of infant care, she said—“seeing the sun come up and then seeing the sun go down and knowing you’re in it, nowhere to go, no escape.”Eventually, infant pressures were replaced by toddler demands; she still felt isolated and yearned for support even more. Before pregnancy and breastfeeding, Mitchem told me, she sometimes turned to weed to feel more balanced when she struggled with anxiety and ADHD. So by the time her kid was two and a half, she decided to resume her old morning ritual: She began to smoke daily—“gardening,” as she calls it. Parenting, she said, became less stressful. “Life is hard,” she said. “If you can have something that can take the edge off a little bit, why not?”Mitchem, a 36-year-old based in Colorado, now calls herself a “garden momma.” She posts about her cannabis routine to more than 120,000 followers on TikTok, where more than 76,000 videos feature the “#gardenmom” label. “Coffee and coughy,” a morning ritual of smoking before the children wake up, is a common genre; other videos show moms using cannabis during nap time or before the dinner-bath-bedtime witching hour. For some, posting about the lifestyle has led to influencer status and brand partnerships; many garden moms use the same Millennial-chic glass gravity bongs, sharing discount codes and #ad hashtags. As these women frame it, cannabis is not escape but preparation, the “medicine” they need to take before their work as mothers begins.[Read: The unglamorous truth about the average tradwife]The potential risks of parenting while high are obvious. The American Academy of Pedi