Right next to our house is a Little Caesar’s Pizza shop. We love it. We go there at least once a week (you can’t beat a $5.99 pizza, right?). Well, right next door to it is a special store.
Anyway, my 6-year-old just started reading a few months ago (not just easy words… but REALLY READING), so he READS EVERYTHING out loud. He finally realized that the little store between Little Caesars & Kragen Auto Parts says “Smoke Shop”. So yesterday, after his T-ball practice, he says, “SMOKE SHOP. Mom, what’s a smoke shop?”
“It’s a place where you can buy cigarettes and stuff to smoke,” I tell him.
“Do all people who smoke do drugs?” he then asks.
“Where’d you get that idea?” I laughed.
“I don’t know. I just thought people who smoke do drugs.”
“Well you know that doing drugs is bad… and smoking is bad… and drinking is bad, too! That’s why it seems like all people who smoke do drugs,” I told him.
“I’m NEVER going to do any of those things!”
YES! A mother can only hope! =)
Thinking about our conversation, I was kind of amused at how my 6-year-old son would find a correlation between the two (or think there was a correlation between the two). We don’t really know a lot of people who smoke… and I don’t know how at 6-years-old, you would know what drugs are! I’m 27-years-old, and I’m pretty clueless about “drugs” because I didn’t grow up around it. But then I got a little nervous, because it’s kind of scary to think that kids would know what drugs are at such an early age! =( I don’t know if I should be happy that my son is being taught at an early age what drugs are… or if I should be afraid that kids are probably starting earlier, that it’s necessary to teach them at a younger age.
