By Julia Sergison
We spent a little time recently with Jaimee D., Executive Director of a Monterey County nonprofit focused on maternal mental health. Outside of that role, Jaimee is an educator, a trained doula, a certified lactation counselor, and a single mom to a five-year-old daughter.
Jaimee told us about the mental health benefits of her cannabis consumption and how it helps her manage the demands of life, caring for herself and caring for her child. Though she described a cannabis-friendly Californian community, she still faces challenges in navigating the taboos and attitudes that many people still have towards cannabis.
When Jaimee joined our video call, she was nestled comfortably in her partner’s home office in Santa Cruz. Before we officially started our conversation, she lifted the laptop to point out the home garden full of cannabis plants directly outside the window behind her. California, right?
Despite her access to locally grown cannabis now, Jaimee grew up on the opposite coast, in a somewhat conservative small town on Long Island. Her parents were educators and coaches, so cannabis was always a forbidden fruit—from use to even just open discussion. As happens in youth, Jaimee’s first experiences with cannabis were smoking whatever buds that teenagers could get their hands on in the backyards or basements of friends’ whose families were a little more laissez-faire or 420-friendly.
Jaimee started to hone in on using cannabis with more understanding, more intention, and even ceremoniously.
After growing up with pretty hushed usage, Jaimee eventually found herself living in California right after adult use became legal. Having the expertise and recommendations of her local budtenders and dispensaries, Jaimee started to hone in on using cannabis with more understanding, more intention, and even ceremoniously. It became her preferred medicine for stress relief, sleep aids, and sometimes just a recreational alternative to cut down on or take breaks from alcohol.
One thing that hasn’t changed since she was young is her preferred method: edibles. Her current favorites are Big Pete’s Treats Cannabis-Infused Mini Cookies, opting for sativa to be present in the moment and indica for winding down at night.
Aside from overall not enjoying the mechanism of smoking for health reasons, Jaimee also doesn’t want to smell like cannabis around her daughter. “I don’t like the smell… which I think is a bit of a conditioning thing,” Jaimee told me. “I don’t want [my daughter] to come cuddle me and smell weed. But I don’t care if she comes and cuddles me, and I smell like wine, you know?”
Jaimee knows that her own relationship with cannabis is responsible and intentional and has seen how it also supports birth givers and other parents she meets through her work. Like so many others in our CannaCurious community, she still can’t deny there’s the chance someone—maybe even parents of her daughter’s peers—will judge.
With that in mind, Jaimee has been thinking about the conversations she’ll have with her daughter—possibly sooner rather than later. She doesn’t want to paint cannabis in the wrong light, using it in secret after bedtime in the cover of darkness, nor does she want her daughter to misuse it or face criticisms from those that don’t participate.
Jaimee faces a dilemma many canna-moms do, which is why we’re happy to share her story with those that can relate. If you’re a California girl like her, too, check out her favorite dispensary: East of Eden.
Sound familiar? Have something to add to the conversation? We want to hear your story, too!
