Skip to main content

This Monday, July 30, 2012 photo shows Snoop Dogg, who now goes by Snoop Lion, posing for a portrait at Miss Lily's in New York.Victoria Will/The Associated Press

Is this a portrait of honest parenting?

Last Thursday, Corde Broadus, the oldest son of rapper Snoop Dogg, shared a photo on Instagram and Twitter that showed him lighting up a bong for dear old dad.

Debate erupted: Was it a parenting fail on the part of pop culture's proudest pothead? Or a candid moment between father and son – who's 18 and legally an adult?

"At least he isn't a hypocrite," Jezebel's Tracie Egan Morrisey wrote of Snoop Dogg, who has been rechristened Snoop Lion by a Rastafarian priest.

"Would you be surprised to see Lance Armstrong riding bikes with his kids or Paula Deen passing the butter to the left at the dinner table to hers?"

Morrisey also pulled out this old chestnut: "Most people never give it a second thought to have a glass of wine or a cocktail with their children when they are of age. For the Broadus family, it's bong rips."

Ya, except that weed is illegal and Corde's massive solar bong looks like it could deliver a little more zip than a glass of pinot noir.

Over at The Stir, blogger Jeanne Sager pounced on Snoop's parenting skills: "Once your kids stop looking at you as an authority figure, you're done for. You have no leverage as a parent. You might as well just be their friend for all the respect you'll get from them."

And then this haughtiness: "He decided to go the 'cool' dad route, and this is the monster he's created."

Commenters on The Stir weren't sold. "Do people really have a problem with people treating their adult children as friends and equals?" wrote one, Miriam Kennedy.

She has a point. Most people know that dad, the one who blasted his kid for smoking weed but kept his own stash hidden away in the study – the stash you'd merrily ignite with your friends. And by the looks of Corde's Instagram profile, much of his time seems to be spent hanging out with family (one photo shows a guy described as "grandfather" wielding a magnifying glass to light up the family's sun-fueled bong) and hitting up fastfood drive thrus.

It's all relatively harmless stuff, if not enormously productive, as a sampling of Corde's Twitter feed suggests. There's classic paranoia: "It's so much out their that we don't even have a clue about but that's how the government made it." Big, expansive thinking: "The galaxy is too big and their is too many planets for us to be the only living thing in this life...why hide good things from us dawg ?" And pure, bleary-eyed nattering: "Wherever I'm going jus know that I'm smokin, I'm going I'm rollin I'm going IM Gone...I'm sooooooo stoned."

Your dad won't care either way, but maybe it's time to lay off the chronic for a day or two.

Follow related authors and topics

Authors and topics you follow will be added to your personal news feed in Following.

Interact with The Globe