As a child I perceived my parents and parental models as godlike, as most children probably do, and I assumed they could do anything, knew everything, and were incapable of error. Surely they didn't succumb to bad thoughts or behaviors, and certainly they had never done anything like smoke or get drunk or have premarital sex.
When I came to the point in life where cigarettes were available, and when I saw a close friend emulating her chain-smoking mother in times of duress, I tried it too, but I felt simply awful because I believed my parents hadn't fallen into that trap. But then, by chance, I found a pack of cigarettes sequestered away in my mother's car, and I felt betrayed. She had even told me not to smoke, and that it was bad for me - and yet she was doing it!
When I also gave into my hormones as a young girl (while going very steady with a sweet boy my age) my mother told me she suspected me of having sex and scolded me harshly. Again I felt terribly guilty and and wondered what was wrong with me. I had done the math, and I had been conceived well after my parents' wedding, appearing just a week after their first anniversary. So in my fifteen-year-old mind, I was 'legit', and my folks, by some unlikely miracle, had kept their drawers on in an otherwise hornball-infested world.
Years later, my mother spoke (in a roundabout way) of a moment when her things and 'a man's things' were mingling on a side table, and she found herself sketching the objects, because she knew the object might not be together like that again. As it dawned on me that my mother hadn't been as celibate as I had always imagined, again I felt a sense of betrayal and even disappointment, but it also alleviated the pressure I had felt within myself to be so morally perfect. I understood that in being secretive about impulses and passions, my mother was trying to present a good example for me to follow. But when I did learn that others made mistakes and fumbled around in the fog just as I was, I felt far less faulty.
So when 'J', a little boy I had been a nanny to for many years, spoke with me about the downsides of smoking, I found myself in a situation I hadn't anticipated, and realized the unique opportunity present in that moment.
We were sitting in my old silver Civic, with his car seat buckled in just behind me so that I could see his alert and adorable little face framed perfectly in my rear-view mirror. He was four at the time, nearly five, and was one of the most articulate, bright and thoughtful children I had ever known.
"Well, everybody knows that smoking is a bad thing. I mean you - you would never smoke a cigarette, Jorie. You just know better!"
"Actually," I said, "I used to smoke."
I gave a glance to the mirror, and J's jaw had dropped, his pale blue eyes boggling incredibly.
"You're pulling my leg!" he retorted.
"Nope. I was a lot younger then, and I saw other people doing it, so I thought that's just what people did."
"But didn't anybody tell you it was bad for you?"
"Sure, but making mistakes is part of life, and figuring out what's right and wrong is hard for everybody, big, little or in-between."
His brows were a unforgettably angelic knot of concern. "So... You don't smoke anymore... Do you?"
"Oh no, I stopped doing that a long time ago. Now I do know better."
J blinked, absorbing it. "Oh." The world had altered a little in his mind, and the 'rearrange' of it was visible on his precious face. But then, after a moment of thought, he brightened, and said. "Okay."
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