Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor

I promised myself I would get back on the alphabet bandwagon for my Thursday mothering alphabet series but I had such a surreal moment yesterday I just had to share.

Cupcake, my eldest step-daughter, came by my school for some university counselling with our most awesome guru on the subject. When it was over I promised to drive her to the subway so she could meet up with her friends and her boyfriend. The traffice was really slow and she said she had to be there for 4:30 or she would miss him so, being the wonderful step-mom that I am, I drove her all the way.

Of course, the cell phone started ringing – hers – and she began fielding some very interesting calls. My side of the conversations went something like, "Yes I have the money." "Don’t worry you can pay me later." "He’s going to get it today." "I’ll have it for Saturday."

Naturally, being an overly-suspicious secondary school teacher, I said as light-heartedly as I could, "It sounds like your dealing drugs." chuckle chuckle

This led to a great swerve and dodge on her part and a conversation about the evils of ecstacy until the next call when she ‘fessed up. She was having a party Saturday night at her mom’s house (her birthday is coming up soon) and although her mother refused to buy alcohol, she allowed for it to be present as long as no one got out of control. There are so many conversations that can come out of that issue alone, but I don’t envy her having to make those decisions and this blog is not about whether or not we should let kids drink.

It is about the fact that little Miss Cupcake was ordering breezers, mickeys and 2-6es (whoever heard of a 2-6, in my day they were twenty-sixers) from a friend’s older brother while she was riding shotgun in my mini van. She even had a pretty little list in her agenda that was decorated with flowers.

There are all sorts of things I should have been thinking I’m sure. Mostly, I was remembering giving money to sketchy old men to buy us lemon gin at the liquor store beside Sporting Life that doesn’t exist anymore and the time one of our 15 year old friends carried a case of Budweiser from St. Clair West station all the way to Sir Winston Churchill Park for our bush bash, with the police laughing and trailing him all the way. I asked her permission to blog this because it was so surreal and she laughed and said she thought that I had to. She did agree that it was a very awkward car drive, but we managed it with humour and we’ve had so many dinner table conversations about drinking and drugs and behaviour that a lecture didn’t seem necessary at this point.

Underage drinking?  Rite of passage? Evil? Adolescent scourge? They’ll do it anyway, I’d rather it be in my house? Who knows what is right. It takes people much smarter than me to know the answers.

These are the things I do know. We trust Cupcake, She has good marks, is responsible, rarely stays out late or past curfew, holds a part-time job, doesn’t do drugs or smoke and has never come home falling down drunk or noticeably over-intoxicated. And she’s honest, at least about buying her breezers!

PS – although not remotely connected to this blog, but never far from my day-to-day life, here’s a link on a great article on msn.com today about adoption.