Parental Advisory: Step Outside
Should I hide my smoking friends from my children?
We’ve been letting a friend smoke on our deck when she comes over and recently my five-year-old has been asking a lot of questions about it. I asked a group of mothers about how they handle this and they were all visibly shocked that I let people smoke in front of my kids. I continued to survey some random moms and was surprised to discover that I seem to be the odd one out. I feel like it’s inhospitable to forbid smoking when you have a guest over and you have a deck. I guess I could ask my two (childless) friends who still smoke to stop, but just the thought of it makes me feel like such a nansy-pansy marm. I also don’t want to do anything to discourage this friend’s visits as she is a great buddy to my son in every other way. But am I setting my kid up for a future of nicotine addiction? – sending smoke signals
Dear smoke signals,
Smoking has all but disappeared from mass culture. Our babies won’t be playing with ashtrays at Applebees, and our kids are not going to see Mr. Incredible blaze up a Parliament. The cigarette was posthumously airbrushed out of Clement Hurd’s hand in his Goodnight Moon illustrator photo. Smoking is basically “over.” So, let’s just stay on message and ask Uncle Bill to step out of sight if he must light up. Fair enough. Right?
But there’s more at stake here: a relationship that might otherwise be a positive influence on his life. An understanding of the frailty and imperfection of human beings. The opportunity for some really good, productive conversations that help your child understand and internalize these things (in a way he might not if you had the same conversation about a stranger on the street).
People aren’t perfect. When we try to create a perfect universe where adults are all role models all the time, are we really doing what’s best for our kids? When they get out beyond the smoke-free deck, what will they think of the people who do smoke? What about other unhealthy behavior? Will you ask your anorexic cousin to finish everything on her plate? Or insist that your couch potato-father-in-law eat sliced bananas instead of a pepperoni pizza stuffed with cinnamon buns from Dominos when he’s watching the game? You see where this is going.
If your kid sees someone smoking, talk about it. Talk about what it is, what it does, and why people do it. Talk about how hard it is to stop. It might be helpful to know that even adults can’t control everything! It’s also a chance to teach tolerance. You can love your friend but hate her smoking habit, and wish she’d quit, but not want to make her feel bad in your home. And it’s a way to let your child feel comfortable talking about something bad, naughty, and yucky, thus possibly paving the way for future discussions about his own choices and problems in the area of “good” versus “bad.”
Of course, you can probably have most of these discussions and still ask your friend not to smoke around your kid. The decision of whether or not to drop an ultimatum at this point is yours to make. Either way, we advise you to continue the dialogue with your kid. We all want to send our children the message that smoking is unhealthy, but who’s to say there’s not more than one way to do that?
And who knows, maybe someday your well-informed son will blurt out just the right words to help your friend kick the habit.
Have a question? Email parentaladvisory@babble.com
Although I understand your thought process about not denying your friends I’ve always viewed situations such as this as I abide by the rules of the household and I’d hope others would do the same. I don’t allow smoking or drinking in my home, never have even before having a child. My friends and family understand that and even at my wedding it was alcohol free and tobacco free. I wouldn’t think twice about it though if I was at a friends home who did allow it. And it is an opprotunity to teach, everything is an opprotunity. You can’t shield kids from what is happening around them, you just have to teach them to do better.
“I feel like it’s inhospitable to forbid smoking when you have a guest over and you have a deck.”Would it be inhospitable to forbid a friend from snorting their cocaine off your picnic table? Of course not. Smoking is no different. IMO, this is a really ridiculous excuse for not having enough backbone to tell someone “no”.As for letting kids be around lit cigarettes and it teaching them something… well, sure. My parents were chain smokers when I was little (and I had asthma), and them deliberately blowing their smoke in my face when I asked them to stop or told them I couldn’t breathe – that definitely taught my six-year-old self something: 1) That cigarettes were freaking nasty & I was never going smoke (I stuck by that, btw; I’ve never touched a cigarette), and 2) parents who expose their children to it are mean.
I have two friends who smoke with any regularity. They never even ask to smoke in my home or in my car. They know I live a completely smoke-free life and they respect that. There are plenty of places for smokers to satisfy their nicotine addictions and one of them is not my house! I can’t really imagine being friendly with someone who whipped out a cigarette at my smoke-free house – that would really rude.
My dad smokes, he has always been discrete about it and I never really remember him smoking in my childhood, but I know he did. Before my daughter turned 1 I asked him when he thought he’d quit in regards to my daughter. He has been trying to quit for almost 30 years so I thought this was a fair question. He assured be that he wouldn’t smoke after her First birthday. She is now 2 and a half and he is still smoking. How should I handle this? I don’t want her to have disrespect for her grandfather, I also don’t really relish the thought of her snuggling with him with smoke and nicotine residue all over him. Any suggestions?
I don’t see why you can’t teach kids that different adults make different decisions, and that smoking isn’t something YOUR family does. It’s perfectly respectable for adults to decide to smoke — it’s still legal, for god’s sake. If I were a smoking friend (which I was for several years until I quit), I would certainly refrain if asked at someone else’s house. (And by the way, I think the friend was outside on the porch or something, not in the living room. Maybe I’m projecting.) But as a guest, I would be a little miffed. When you invite someone to your house, you want to make them comfortable, and a lecture/guilt trip about their lifestyle isn’t that. If you don’t want to be around them when they smoke, go to their house. Then you can choose to go on a ten-minute walk while they light up. If you can’t stand to be at their house because it’s too smoky, then you probably shouldn’t have a smoker as a friend. I mean, you’re not going to point to your friend and turn to your daughter and say, “Isn’t she bad, because she’s doing that stinky, dirty smoking?” I think it’s important for kids to learn that adults can disagree with each other but still have respect and tolerance.
The point is that the kid should not be SEEING someone smoke. It sets a bad example. Have them smoke out of sight of the kid.
I’ve honestly never given a second thought to friends or visitors smoking outside in our yard, or on our deck, where the kids could look out (or walk outside) and see them, as long as the kids weren’t exposed to the secondhand smoke. There are so many potentially unhealthy or dangerous acts that the kids might witness–smoking, excessive drinking, drug use, reckless driving, eating unhealthy foods/drinks, sunbathing, sedentary lifestyle–I’ve found that talking about these things with my nine-year-old is much more productive (and practical) than attempting to constantly shield her from people doing things that are “bad for you”. Maybe the issue is about having a nonsmoking household, which we do, but smoking outside? I just don’t have a problem with it. The health issues related to unhealthy foods and lack of exercise concern me much more, as far as kids observing others’ behavior.
I knew the “holier than thou” crowd would be all over this. You are all so uptight! What can all this stress be doing to you?My uncle gave me a smoke of his cigarette when I was 5 and I found it disgusting. I think he did it to scare me off it. It worked! I have never smoked, although I do like the smell of a freshly lit cigarette.
No, the point is that you can’t shield your child from every bad example. No one is perfect, we all do things at one time or another that we shouldn’t, we all make mistakes and kids need to know and learn that. Forcing your smoker friend to hide with their cigarette when their around your child is silly. You can let your child see people doing things that are bad and that you disagree with and TEACH them why they shouldn’t do it and WHY it’s bad. Pretending smokers (ecspesially the ones in your life) don’t exist is not teaching your child anything.
This is silly to the extreme. We all grew up in a culture where smoking was not only commonplace, but to suggest that one NOT smoke was actually the rude, non-conforming behavior. Both my parents smoked when I was younger. My mom quit, my father tried but eventually didn’t. Me, I never tried; I found the habit sickening; my brother (who happened to be a baby when my mother stopped [I was nine]) does. He wasn’t exposed the way I was to it pretty much at all, because by the time he was born, there was no smoking in the house, our grandmother had stopped, and our grandfather had died.Just like children who seek the forbidden fruits of sex when it’s mysterious and strange… Believe it or not our kids are as smart as we were. They CAN look at the facts (when they are available) and make up their own minds. And we aren’t going to be able to protect them from all the possible bad choices they could make. We can’t stop them from trying trick in the playground and falling off swings, we can’t stop them from trying to hide their peas under their plates: AND WE SHOULDN’T. Just as we did, they need to learn by trying and failing sometimes! Trying to protect them from everything is more harmful in the long run.
“The point is that the kid should not be SEEING someone smoke. It sets a bad example. Have them smoke out of sight of the kid.”Ok, so what about people smoking in the grocery store parking lot? Or while they’re walking down the street? Should the kid wear blinders too? Sheesh! Either choose to allow your friend to smoke outside and ignore it until your child brings it up (which they might, or might not)then use it as a good time to talk about the reason it’s not a good idea, or choose to make a huge deal about it, possibly making your friend feel uncomfortable for something she’s legally allowed to do.If your friends are all apalled that you’ve got a friend who smokes, they live in a ridiculous little bubble. People smoke. Cigarettes are sold all over the place. It’s legal, it smells awful, and it’s bad for your health, but people do it everywhere.I hope one of their kids sees me smoking outside my car in the grocery store parking lot, or on my own porch one day and asks what it is I am doing. Maybe then they can pull their heads out of the sand and explain to their children what the world is really like.
So, smoking is bad, but is obesity okay? Should we shield our children from overweight people because they might cause Timmy or Susie to become overweight? What about people who abuse credit cards? Or who are lazy and sit on the couch all day? “To err is human. To forgive, divine.” I’m the last person who would suggest a little divinity, but use the situations to teach better habits, rather than come down on folks for making decisions in their lives. Because I’m sure they would have a few things to say about this helicopter style of parenting.
My 3.5 year old noticed his favorite uncle smoking during an all day picnic over the holiday weekend. He asked me what the uncle was doing and mimicked the motion. Wow. I was unprepared for the question. I couldn’t think of a way to say that smoking was a bad for health habit. I didn’t want to say directly it was bad, because that infers that smokers are bad – which isn’t true. The harder part was introducing the idea that people (including my son) are free to make choices that are self destructive. I don’t want to introduce that idea yet. Does anyone have any ideas about how to answer the questions around smoking?
I live in NYC, people are smoking everywhere. What should I do about that? Hide them all. That makes no sense to ban your friends from smoking in front of your kids unless they are blowing smoke in their faces. In my opinion, its a teachable moment to let them know that smoking is not healthy and the risks about it. IF that conversation just happens to be with your friends in the room, so be it. There are lots of people who drink, should we ban them from your hope or the another comment obese people.
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