The parent rap

My father and I smoke pot together
Hope Peters, 25

My father and I have always been close. As a child, I was told to steer clear of his “poison plants,” which were drying all over the house. In actuality, they were pot plants that my dad used to grow in our tiny Queens backyard. I had no idea at age nine or ten.

I remember connecting the dots when I started high school at 14; I saw some kids smoking pot outside my school. I thought, That smells like my house. I never said anything to him, though. A year later I started smoking pot with my friends.

My father became aware of my smoking habits when I was a junior in high school, though it was a silent knowledge. We would steal pinches and roach clips from each other, but we never spoke about it. My friends would come over and say, “Hey, it reeks in here and we haven’t even smoked yet!”

My mother found a bowl resting on top of my book bag one day when I was 17 and said, “I really wish you wouldn’t travel with that.” She doesn’t smoke but knew that both my father and I did separately. My father had a Ph.D., a good job, and was always responsible with the mortgage and the family, and I was maintaining a full scholarship, supporting myself and living on my own—how could she disapprove? I kind of think she just feels she needs to play parent.

I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but it was when I was in college that my father and I started to talk more freely about our shared love of the ganja and started smoking together when I came home to visit—behind my mother’s back. Then one night I was home and my parents had some friends over. I was in the backyard with my father and four of his friends passing around a joint when my mother poked her head out of the back door and saw. That was her first knowledge of the father-daughter hobby. She tsked really loudly and left in a huff. Now we’re more open about it—we don’t try to hide our smoking from her. I guess at this point she’s just accepted it. She’s the stoic soccer mom.

My exes have brought my father bags of pot as gifts, my friends have smoked with my father, and we even shared a dealer for a short while.

When we smoke, we get philosophical. We talk about politics and the universe. I think we are closer for it. It’s something we do together that we don’t do with any other family members. I’ve always been Daddy’s little girl. I don’t think it makes him any less of a father figure, though: We’ll smoke a joint together and five minutes later he’ll be yelling at me to get my elbows off the dinner table.

—As told to Kate Lowenstein