Sorry this is not meant to be an attack on smokers its just how i feel for myself and my children. Im really struggling with this as my inlaws have been saying all sorts about me and im selfish etc. Also to add my main reason for feeling like this is because my dad died 18 months ago from COPD so i saw himk suffer greatly.
This has been an ongoing problem since i was pregnant with my first son 3 years ago. My MIL is a non smoker but BIL who lives there and lots of other family who are often there smoke indoors. It is a small house so even smoking in another room or closing the door does not work.
Before i had my chidren i used to visit alot but i stopped when i was pregnant with my first. I never told my MIL why i stopped as i didnt want to tell her what to do in her own house. My husband had a word with her and she said that no one wound smoke in front of me. I did end up going down and BIL did smoke in front of me. So i haven't been ever since.
When my first son was born my MIL came to see him 2 weeks after his birth and then didn't see him until he was 11 months which was his christening day. There was alot of tension surrounding the christening and only MIL and SIL came and SIL only came so MIL was not on her own. I really don't get on with SIL as she phoned up a few weeks before pissed out her head having a go at my husband saying he needs to stand up to me and the problem is all me. Hubby feels the same as i do about the smoking around our children and told her. She denied it and continued having a go at me she even said i used my dad as an excuse which made me very angry as i had not long lost him.
My MIL kept saying we are stopping her seeing her grandchildren and yet we have tried on a number of occasions to arrange to go and pick her up take her out and drop her back (she lives an hour away)and it has always been cancelled at the last minute. She has only been to our house once in 3 years and only seen my 2 year old 3 times and 7 month old once.
I have never made a fuss about it as dont want to be seen to tell her what to do in her own house but am choosing not to take my children into that, its not even like they smoke outdoors and they smoke infront of other children in the family.
I know im being unreasonable when hubby goes to visit as because of the travelling time its not just a quick visit and im left at home with the kids and just feel so resentful so know thats not reasonable to hubby but i feel they dont make an effort with my children but they may feel that because they don't see them why should they bother. Im also pissed off that FIL has given money to other grandchildren but my boys have had nothing not even a christmas card. I don't mean to sound i want money but don't like them being treated differently to the rest. This may sound like it contradicts what i have said but inside im fed up that they don't make an effort not to smoke indoors if my children were to go there and they are obviously not bothered about not seeing childre.
I really dont know what to do really but need to get it off my chest and see other people's opinions
AIBU?
For not wanting my children around smoke indoors
brummiegirl1 · 08/02/2013 22:32
I could have written your post op. it's do hard isn't it. All we want is for the children to not be unnecessarily exposed to things that could seriously harm them, and it sucks that we have to play the bad guy in order to do it. My mil and bil also smoke as do alot of the people who visit her. I just can't risk taking my asthmatic dd round there. She always comes back coughing!! Even if they smoke outside while we r there doesn't happen only her other sons kids get that treatment it's still in the house.
I know exactly how you feel and you are not alone in your fears as a mother of the damage it will possibly do. 
It must be very frustrating to feel that your inlaws put their smoking before your children's welfare, and that is essentially what they are doing.
One thing though, if you have never smoked, you have no IDEA what sort of a hold it can get on people - to use my own experiences, I smoked for years and years, and eventually had a heart attack and was in hospital. I stopped for a while, but eventually started again, the lure and craving was that strong, and then of course had another more serious heart attack 
I also used to work with someone who, when the consultant told her she had lung cancer, left his office, walked outside, and lit up....
Just sort of trying to illustrate just how smoking addiction can "warp" a persons feelings, and make them completely ignore and disregard even pressing evidence of the harm it does.
I don't for one second think that you should have to expose your children to their smoke, but I think you might be taking it personally, as if they are against you when it's more likely just that they are for smoking iyswim, rather than against you, and it is so much easier to call you, and blame you, than it is to admit something they enjoy so much is harmful. It's like the ultimate exercise in denial almost - I know "I was that smoker"
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