The way I read it, the marijuana references tie back to his youth and are meant to contrast his youth to his daughter's. I actually found them pretty powerful.

The way I read it, the marijuana references tie back to his youth and are meant to contrast his youth to his daughter's. I actually found them pretty powerful. The feeling I came away with was: is this (ultimately low-value) homework causing her to miss out on opportunities to be a teenager and do teenager things, like smoking weed behind her parents' backs, making out with other teenagers, and making other irresponsible-but-ultimately-valuable decisions in her personal life? In a way it made me sad for her.