Dad, I Smoke Pot Now!

Dad, I Smoke Pot Now!

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A

One Act Play

By

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JeromeProphet
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- Curtain Rises -

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Daughter: I smoke pot now. All the kids do it so you shouldn't be concerned.

Father: I thought you said you had stopped?

Daughter: But it makes me feel good, I'll admit it I'm not going to stop.

Father: First it's illegal, and you've had two run ins with the cops already this summer.

Daughter: You said you did it when you were a teen.


Barney to Blunts in Sixteen Years

Father: Yes, and I also told you what a complete waste of time, money, and brain cells it was! I told you how it adversely affects grades, how it makes you lazy, and gets you to overeat.

Daughter: One girl I know does coke, at least I'm not.

Father: You chose to go out, and pick the friends you did, but you don't have to live like this. You tell me you're not doing coke now, but everything you told me that you wouldn't do just six months ago you're already doing. A month from now are you going to be doing cocaine? Can't you trust us on this?

Daughter: It hasn't done any of those things to me - except maybe last Tuesday.

Father: What happened last Tuesday?

Daughter: Well I smoked, and then went in an took a test and flunked it.

Father: Oh great, you have bronchitis, can hardly sleep at night but your smoking pot?

Daughter: Just don't take my car away because I'm being honest with you.

Father: Ever since we got you the car you've shown us nothing but disrespect.

Daughter: No I haven't. You show me disrespect all the time.

Father: You called your mother a mother f*&()% this afternoon, and told her to get your shoes as if she were a dog!


At Least I Don't Snort Coke Yet

Daughter: Just shut up.

Father: And you're telling me to shut up? You're losing your car.

Daughter: I need to go to work.

Father: And you're losing your cellphone too. Everyone I know that I've shared this with tells me to take the car away. That you need to learn that there are consequences, before it's too late. Before you end up in jail or worse.

Daughter: Are you going to do what they tell you or what you decided?

Father: I would have taken the car away already, it's your mom's idea to let you keep driving it.

Daughter: Well if you take the car away I'll move out.

Father: So be it, but you won't be taking the car, and I'll be canceling the cell phone too.

Mother: Don't tell her to move out - that's my daughter!

Father: She's the one that's laying down the ultimatums not me.

Daughter: Just let her go to work, she needs to get to work.

Father: So the new way in this house will be that your daughter will call you a mother f*&()%, and tell me to shut up, and there won't be any consequences?


Independence But At What Cost?

Mother: You're just making it worse.

Father: Unbelievable, I'm out of here! I feel like I've been set up once again. You know you have just 18 months until you turn 18. That's going to go by so fast, and what are you going to do then if you've burnt all you bridges? You better be looking for a full time job between now and then because you're going to need one.

Daughter: No I won't, because Jay and Mary* said they'll help me in any way they can.

Father: But they don't know the real you do they? They don't know you do drugs. What do you think they'll do for you then? You'll be eighteen by then. An adult doing drugs under the same roof as their teenage boy. You're not even related to them, do you think they'll want to support you when you tell them what you are doing? When you tell them the same thing that you just told us, that you have no intention of stopping? Do you think they'll tolerate you calling Mary a Bi%^$, or a Mother *&^%$#? Or perhaps since they have more money to spend on you - you're planning on not treating them in the same way?

Daughter: Don't tell them. Mary thinks I've stopped.

Father: You know, I'm glad you're honest with us, but there's no way a loving parent can be silent while you chose such a self destructive lifestyle.

Mother: She needs counseling.

Father: Yes, she does, and so don't we all.
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- Stage Fades To Black -

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Setting

Typical lower middle class family U.S. living room. The year is 2007.
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Characters

Daughter: Sixteen year old white female with part time job.

Father and Mother: Stressed out lower class parents.



Let Us Save Your Daughter

Jim and Maria: Jim and Maria are two local teachers. They play man and wife although not married - yet. Maria can no longer have children, and has spent $1000's over the past year wooing this real other family's daughter into moving in with her - to be her "adopted" daughter - so that she could experience what it is like to be a mother of a daughter. Maria has a teenage son from a previous marriage.

The net effect of this unnatural coveting has been disastrous upon the poor family. It has undermined the real parents parental authority. The real parents who struggle with their real daughter's real personality and real problems have to contend with these enablers who in no way know the real parents, have never made any attempts to know the real parents - and yet have come to play a significant role in their daughter's life. Their goal is singular in fashion - grab up the other family's daughter as their own.


Poor Parents Are Bad Parents
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Manipulating Teenage Vulnerabilities Through Generous Gifting

The real parents who are poor work hard just to pay for the necessities. Paying their daughter's car payments, cell phone bills, food for their daughter, health insurance, utility bills, putting a roof over their heads (the non-sexy things in life) are about all the poor parents can afford.

They wear clothing at home that has holes in them, and wear shoes with holes in them even at work. They never go anywhere, or spend money on themselves so that they can give as much as they have to their disrespectful daughter.

Instead of garner a sense of respect for her parents for sacrificing for her the daughter has concluded that her parents are complete losers - because they are poor.

They find themselves completely unable to compete with Jim and Maria who take their daughter on shopping runs at the local mall to buy expensive brand name clothing, to restaurants which the parents have never been to before, or by giving their daughter spending money, etc.

The real parents have noticed as the "generosity" has grown beyond anything considered normal, and looks to them like some type of attempt to purchase their daughter's affections - and it's working.

In the meantime their daughter uses this alternative place to flop as a means of creating fear among her real parents that she'll simply move out if she is confronted about drug use, breaking curfew, sexual activity, and a growing level of disrespect for her real parents.

The daughter recently stating, "You're poor - I have no intention of being like you", and "Maria has a room for me now", and "I'm moving out when I'm eighteen, but you don't need to worry - Jim, and Maria said they'll pay my way through college".

The pseudo parent Jim actually pretended to be the daughter's father when he picked the daughter up from an incident with the police - the first of two such drug related events over the same summer.

The real parents are very concerned, but find themselves stymied by their greater concern - that the daughter will increase her drug use, and sexual activity if she hangs out with her teenage friends - instead of with Jim and Maria. It's a Faustian bargain, but the real parents love for their daughter has prevented them from moving against what appears to be the monetary seduction of their beloved daughter - into the hands of another family.

The real parents also find themselves heartbroken to see that their daughter, who they raised from childhood would chose another family based upon money instead of understanding that loyalty to poor parents who love her is more important that a few thousand dollars in gifts - but sadly it seems money speaks louder than love for some - including their own child.

This sense of rejection- the sense of failure as parents, has led the parents to fight and squabble creating a sense of despair. Each parent blaming the other for alleged failings. The once tight knight little family has come apart at the seams.

A choice seems to have been handed to the parents - continue to feel the pain, and depression over the rejection by their daughter of their once loving family - or to further disconnect from their daughter - only accelerating the dissolution of all the dreams the parents had of continuing to guide their daughter through her high school and college years. It is as if a death were taking place - slowly - painfully - and inevitably - and all the parents can do is wait, and hope for some type of resurrection, which they increasingly doubt will ever occur - especially due to the presence of Jim and Maria - who have other plans for their daughter, and the money to finance it.