WHEN A KINDERGARTNER'S THOUGHTS TURN TO DRUGS

Recently, my kindergartener emerged from elementary school wearing a
shiny red ribbon pinned to her sweater. It was flapping in the cool
wind as I held her hand to cross the street, so I couldn't read the
embossed gold words.

"What's that ribbon for, sweetie? Did you win something?"

What's this?

"No, Mom," she said as we hurried across the crosswalk. "It says,
'Drug Free My Choice For Life.' " She regurgitated this sentence in
robotic staccato, the words like machine-gun fire to my heart.

I guess I'm not quite ready to consider the fact that my innocent
5-year-old daughter might need to be advised about her illegal drug
use options.

The truth is, I had already tried to shield her from the whole idea
of illegal drugs and drug abuse. When the school announced that it
would be participating in Red Ribbon Week, the national
drug-prevention campaign, I had tried to steer my daughter's
attention away from all the posters with "Drug Free" on them. I even
deliberately pulled the "Drug Free" T-shirt order form out of her
take-home folder just so she wouldn't ask me questions about what it meant.

But my plan had backfired. My relentlessly curious daughter had found
the "Drug Free" form lying on the table and read it, and then the
dreaded conversation was upon me. "What does 'drug free' mean, Mom?"
she asked. "It means you don't put bad drugs into your body," I
answered, trying to keep it simple.

The conversation led, of course, to the difference between good drugs
and bad. Aware of my daughter's incessant curiosity, I decided to
skip the whole description of things like methamphetamines, crack and
heroin, and what addiction meant. But I did have to reassure her that
the antibiotics she was taking for her sinus infection were not bad,
and I emphasized that I would be in charge of all the drugs she got.

"Then why do they say that it's my choice?" she asked.

Gulp. I realized I was quickly getting in over my head. Why were we
even having this conversation? Where was the parent pamphlet "How to
talk to your 5-year-old about illegal drugs"?

I knew it was a good thing to talk to your kids about the dangers of
drugs. But did it have to be while they still think SpongeBob
SquarePants is funny and Santa Claus is real?

I wondered what my daughter must be feeling, hearing her mother imply
that she would be tempted to use illegal drugs? She knows I still
buckle her into her booster seat, and that I won't let her cross the
street by herself. But does she think I'll leave her to face drug
dealers alone? What kind of choice is that?

Feeling myself growing more and more frustrated, I had ended the
conversation quickly, saying "Well, choosing to be 'drug free' just
means that you can always choose to be healthy and take care of your
body." I had hoped that was the end of it.

But it wasn't. National Drug Awareness week arrived. And there was
that shiny Red Ribbon pinned to my 5-year-old's chest, popping that
protective bubble I had planned to keep around her for a few more years.

I know that I cannot protect my daughter forever. And I know that, as
much as I'd like to believe otherwise, illegal drugs might at some
point enter my daughter's reality. I just hope that, by then, she
will have asked me enough tough questions to protect herself instead
of experimenting with drugs. And I guess that's the whole point of
the drug awareness and prevention campaign.

But as we walked home hand-in-hand yesterday, I didn't want to think
about my daughter and illegal drugs in the same sentence. I just
wanted to pluck that red ribbon off her chest and let it blow away in
the wind, leaving her innocence solidly in my grasp.