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So I’m eating oatmeal with my 5 year old this morning, and he asks me “So, do people in jail get to eat?” {what tha’??? my brain isn’t working yet, did you just ask me about food and jail??!!??}

“umm, yes, people in jail get to eat, if we didn’t feed them, they’d get sick and die…”

“Does Aunt T get to eat in jail to?” “Yes, she does”
“Is she in jail again?” “Yes, she is”
“Why is she in there?” {Oh boy, hard questions before 8 am. AGHHHHHH}

Thus begins the discussion regarding drugs versus medicine. How Aunt T cooked her own drugs at home because they weren’t legal, and so she got in trouble. How she stays in a room all day, and can’t go to the store, or movies, doesn’t have a kitchen to cook anything, doesn’t get to decide what she’s going to eat that day, yet she does have her own bathroom, the prison has a library, and even a television.

So he leaves the table knowing that some drugs are bad and will get you in trouble, but if mommy or daddy give you medicine, it’s to help your body feel better. And he thinks that maybe Aunt T isn’t in such a bad place because she does have a TV. But he’ll keep praying for her since she probably gets lonely. And he’ll pray that when she gets out that she won’t cook any more bad drugs that maybe instead, she’ll teach doctors how to cook good drugs to help people. {I’m so thankful he can see something good, even if it’s not based in reality}

And now I wonder how parents explain this to their little kids when someone closer to the child has to go to jail, like his own mom or her nana, how do they do it? And I go to say a prayer for all the parents explaining drugs to their little kids today.