Not to allow my DD (10) Chewing Gum?

[madoldbat]

Don't have many principles but really detest people chewing gum, particularly when they treat everyone else to the contents of their mouth. Alex Ferguson should be strung up imo (not that I'm a fanatic or anything you understand)Even worse, what happens to the gum afterwards. DH chews gum (one of his less eandearing habits) and DD wants to at least try it (she says she won't have it again which I know is complete bolloeaux). Am I right to put my trotter down?

[JjandtheBean]

YANBU to dislike where it goes after, and your right it wont be once.

BUT yab a bit u, at 10 gum was the thing when i was at school and i still love it now, its a bit addictive, so claim your thinking of her teeth!

[MintyCane]

I would let her try it. I hate it as well but she is less likely to become obsessed with it if you let her do it at least once.

[Squishabelle]

I banned it for my dcs but was when they let slip that they had been having it for ages (courtesy of Grandad) who hadnt realised!

[grendel]

God, I hate it too. All that endless cow-like munching. And with the mouth open, even worse. Yuk!
I also ban it for my 10 year old. I know she thinks she is hard done by but it gives her something relatively harmless to rebel against. She occasionally acquires a piece from a friend and gets a real guilty thrill from trying something forbidden!

[cloelia]

isn't it the case that anything banned acquires extra cachet? can you buy a type with a taste she will hate, will put her off for good. or let her have one piece and mislay the packet? particularly hard to ban if around the house anyway. I think she will just get over the fad and there will be other, bigger, battles to fight in the near future ...

[BitOfFun]

I would ban it. Yanbu. She may disobey you anyway (and it won't kill her- unless she swallows it and it wraps round her heart ), but I hate this often-trotted out idea that if they might do it anyway then you should just roll over with your legs in the air. Nowt wrong with a bit of slightly irrational strictness- it keeps them on their toes

[kreecherlivesupstairs]

YANBU. My dd had never tried it despite pleadings and beggings. I loathe the cowlike mastication and am repulsed by looking at people's tonsils. Unfortunately the doctor who is currently sorting out her glue ear virtually prescribed it. She used to have four pieces a day at given times. Since grommets are to be put in soon, I stopped buying it and she hasn't noticed.

[chegirl]

My 15 year old isnt allowed it. Not in the house anyway. I dont want to have to pick it out of soft furnishings.

My 2yr old and 6yr old team up to nick it out of my handbag. I am forever finding it stuck to cushions, duvets, dogs.....

[Tortington]

yip yabu.

its chewing gum

talk about control freaky

[Morloth]

I am confused about the "what happens to the gum afterwards" bit.

I just put it in the bin when it has lost its flavour? Am I doing something unheard of here?

[Miggsie]

It is vile and pointless, uses the Earth's resources to make it and wrap it and ship it and then hours to clean the damned stuff off the street and it is totally unecessary for life.

YANBU

[borderslass]

I don't allow it in the house but outside I don't mind its the mess it makes that bothers me.

[Morloth]

What mess? I am seriously not having a go here, I am confused. DH and I both have an "Extra" habit and there is no mess.

[borderslass]

my kids have brought it in on their shoes and its resulted in bloody sticky carpets that mess.

[ImSoNotTelling]

Mmmm bubblicious

[DrNortherner]

yabu - IT IS only gum. There are lots of things that atke earths resources and are pointless - should we ban them all?!

As a kid I had a mate who was not allowed gum and we thought it was odd, she didn't really fit in, she was not allowed to watch home and away either and had to watch Blue Peter instead....

Can't understand what you lot are gooing on about regarding the mess. My ds knows how to dispose of gum correctly, and I always took it off him in tghe early days if he twizzled it around his fingers. So now he doesn't.

I love gum me.

[ImSoNotTelling]

Yes drnortherner. For eg bottled water. That is something to get properly riled about.

Grrrr.

[BitOfFun]

Smoking spliffs, Shiney?

I'm figuring that if I channel a bit of unreasonable rage over gum, she wouldn't dare...

[Tidey]

DS (7) has asked for gum before and I have always said no. I wasn't allowed it when I was little either. I don't like all the pointless chomping, would worry that he'd swallow it, and if he did remember to spit it out that I'd keep finding bits of it everywhere.

[DrNortherner]

It;s good for jaw development to chew gum.

[RockinSockBunnies]

I've let DD (8) have chewing gum for a good few years. I only buy sugar free and hope that it will help her teeth if we're out and about and she's eaten (maybe I'm gullible but I always remember that advert that said that chewing help fight plaque).

We chew gum with our mouths closed and the gum is then wrapped up and deposited in a bin.

Fair enough, gum on the street is disgusting. I trod in some on the train the other day and spent ages trying to get the stuff off my shoe. But other than that, I don't see the problem myself.

[Kbear]

YABU

[madoldbat]

Morloth, you're clearly a normal human being but there's an awful lot of oafs who just stick it on or under the bus seat, drop it on the path ready for the rest of us to get stuck on our shoes or put our hands on. It's just yuk. Top idea re vile flavour Cloealia. To be fair to DH, he keeps his stash in the car so she doesn't get the chance to filch it. Tbh she's not asked lately so maybe she's getting her fix from the school subversives or she's rolled over and accepted her mother's superior wisdom (unlikely I fear). Since she gets the better of me 99% of the time maybe I should carry on saying no for no apparent reason BoF BECAUSE I CAN!!!!!