There’s a new TikTok trend making headlines, and it’s all about moms smoking weed to survive taking care of their children.
They call themselves “garden moms.” Parents are calling pot a coping mechanism, describing their drug habits with zero shame. As the barriers to accessing marijuana crumble nationwide, with multiple states legalizing the drug both for medical and recreational use, users are bringing their daily use into the mainstream.
The Atlantic’s Sarah Levy recently reported that she found about 76,000 videos under the #gardenmom hashtag. She interviewed an influencer named Taylor Mitchem, who has 120,000 followers and started smoking pot daily when her son was two and a half. Her reasoning was simple: “If you can have something that can take the edge off a little bit, why not?”
There have been enough articles about the pitfalls of legalized marijuana, and it’s not worth rehashing that argument here. But one of the most interesting aspects of the phenomenon isn’t specific to weed. It’s the larger issue of why these moms feel the need to escape their children in the first place.
In this case, the stigma isn’t just around the substance. It’s more about admitting out loud that you find your own children exhausting enough to need daily relief from them, whether that comes in the form of wine, weed, or whatever the next thing is. A cute hashtag can’t hide that basic truth.
Before the garden moms — also referred to as “cannamoms” — there were the wine moms who bragged that “Mommy’s sippy cup” was a stemless tumbler filled with chardonnay. Decades ago, there was Valium (“mother’s little helper”), and even before that it was the tranquilizer Miltown, which Levy noted was often prescribed to housewives in the 1950s for anxiety.
For years, women have been coming up with ways to manipulate their minds to cope with the stress of motherhood. Weed is the latest vehicle. It’s not likely to be the last.
And the weed mom trend isn’t new, either. Motherly ran “High on Motherhood: The Rise of Cannamoms” back in 2024, quoting a mom named Susie who said weed gave her “the sweetest, most engaged moments” with her daughter while high. Writer Jamilah Lemieux told Romper the same year she thinks cannabis is headed toward the same social status as alcohol: “widely available, legal, and socially acceptable.” ABC News was asking “Are weed moms the new wine moms?” back in 2019. Dr. Edith Bracho-Sanchez, a pediatrician at Columbia, told the network she’s watched it happen in her own practice: more parents turning to cannabis products to “take the edge off” of ordinary life.
Advocates often frame smoking weed as an enhancement to parenting rather than an outright escape. “I got high so I could be more patient” sounds a lot better than “I got high because I wanted to feel good” even when the outcome is identical. And the outcome matters. Levy cites Kirby Deater-Deckard, a psychology professor at UMass Amherst, on how being chemically mellow slows your reaction time in an actual emergency. A relaxed parent isn’t necessarily a present one, and one who is overly calm could be dangerous if she needs to act quickly.
I’ve watched this shift happen in my own circle. Lately, weed is more prevalent, and, what’s worse, it’s a little too convenient. Ten years ago, getting high took effort: find a dealer, roll a joint, smell like a skunk, hide the paraphernalia from a toddler who notices everything. Also, it was mostly illegal back then. That kept a lot of would-be users from even trying.
Then came the THC gummies. They have no smoke, no smell, no complicated rituals. Because of the convenience, they’re showing up in places where White Claws used to dominate.
But there are still problems. This form makes it easier to lose track of how much you’ve had, and edibles are notoriously easy to over-consume. Romper reported that accidental child exposure to THC edibles has spiked over 1,300% in five years, which makes sense considering that they’re packaged like fruit snacks. The format that made cannabis more parent-friendly also made it harder to notice when “taking the edge off” has turned into being zoned out for several hours.
What almost none of this pro-weed content mentions is what happens when “a little bit” becomes a habit that’s not easy to quit. Slate writer Sammi LaBue described developing cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome after prolonged marijuana smoking. This involved a condition of violent vomiting tied to long-term regular use, nicknamed “scromiting” for the screaming that often accompanies it.
Alice Moon, a cannabis industry veteran, developed CHS herself after years of regular use. It took two years and several doctors before anyone diagnosed her because the condition wasn’t well understood yet.
You won’t find any of that in the #gardenmom clips. What you’ll find is a promise: a calmer, gentler version of parenting, one that doesn’t yell over spilled milk. The harder part to justify is feeling the need to check out in the first place.
Cannamoms did not discover a solution to stress-free parenting. They’re just repackaging the same escape mechanisms that, over time, were exposed for being cop-outs. Wine, weed, Valium: It’s all part of the same playbook that treats children like they need to be endured rather than enjoyed.
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