Did anyone else's parents smoke in the house

Yes, and well past the point when we knew what passive smoking could do.

What MORTIFIES me, is that when I lived at home after uni for a bit and had professional jobs - I must have absolutely reeked of smoke. What must they have thought?!

Born in the late 80's. My mum didn't smoke but I can only ever recall my dad smoking outside. In the car too. My siblings and I both have asthma - passive smoking related? Who knows. I remember a friend's mum and dad used to smoke like chimneys in the house and the house was rotten; stains everywhere.

As a HCP, almost all the patient's with chronic lung conditions I've met have been previous heavy smokers. I'm also not surprised when I get told that a heavy smoker has been diagnosed with lung cancer. I am so glad there is so much more awareness nowadays with smoking and the affects on health.

Forgot, we could also buy sweet cigarettes that came in a mock cigarette pack, so we could pretend to sit and smoke them!

The dangers of passive smoking were definitely known about in the early/mid 1990s because when Roy Castle (a non-smoker) was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1992 there was a load of publicity about it in the media. The tobacco industry was aware in the 1980s but kept the findings secret.

My parents have never smoked, but visitors to the house did, there would be cigarettes in a glass on the table at dinner parties, and my grandfathers and many other relatives smoked in their houses and cars. It was normal in the UK in the 1970s and 1980s. People smoked in restaurants and on public transport and I remember a flight with smoking permitted in the seats on one side on the aisle all the way along the plane.

At least one of my DC smokes in her own house.

Mine still does, 40 a day habit. Like posters above I had terrible ENT trouble growing up, I was into horses too and my Dad would try and convince everyone I was allergic to the hay 🤣 I still have horses but much less ENT trouble as an adult, I wonder why?

I’m v anti smoking, I couldn’t date someone that smoked. But I don’t blame them, it was just the norm then.

My grandparents did. In the 90s.

Mine did. 90s and 00s

Grew up in a smoking household. It was awful. Same as my husband. The worst thing is his mother will still light up in front of the kids in her house. I don't know if she just doesn't care or if it's our queue to leave. Can't stand the woman.

Wow I’m very surprised they accepted that in 2006? I remember getting ID’d in 2007 for cigarettes

Yes I was born in the 60’s my Dad always smoked in the house and everywhere else. I used to count his Embassy cigarette coupons for him and bundle them up with elastic bands. I also liked the silver paper from inside the cigarette packets my Dad used to give it to me when he opened a fresh pack. I used to make little models with it. I can’t remember us or the house smelling of smoke but I suppose we did. My Dad used smoker’s tooth powder on his fingers so they weren’t nicotine stained. My Dad lived into his 80’s. I have never smoked.

1960s child here. Dad was a 40 a day smoker, air was so thick with smoke I used to lie on the floor and look up at the haze of smoke above me! Everyone I knew smoked, at work and at home, even the doctors whilst holding surgery - they would stub it out when you entered the room. Now, all smokers i know stand on their doorsteps to have a fag, dont know anyone who smokes inside the home. Changing times, I dont hold parents responsible for a habit they didnt know was dangerous at the time.

Well we knew it smelled awful, damaged things and meant it was harder to breathe so even without the info on long term secondary smoke damage you would have had to be pretty dim not to realise it wasn't doing your kids much good - or selfish enough not to care

What nonsense that people didn't know the harm of second hand smoke in the 90s and 2000s. I remember everyone talking about how Roy Castle died from playing the trumpet in smoky clubs and he died in 1994. My parents were very strict about us not traveling in cars with relatives who smoked in the late eighties.

It was completely normal. My mum thought a reasonable concession, when smoking indoors, was to wave her hand in the air to waft away the smoke. It was so normal to her that she couldn't understand why, when she was in hospital, they wouldn't let her smoke out of the window.

I don't buy that they didn't know it was bad, but more that it wasn't seen as 'bad enough' or that kids shouldn't complain if they were getting fed. I was wheezy as a kid, had bad coughs that would leave me exhausted, and likely had recurrent chest and sinus infections. My parents didn't take me to the doctor because I 'wasn't ill enough' and because my mum didn't want to be 'told off' about smoking.

Karma though, sad as it is - she died due to a smoking related illness.

Well maybe yours but I grew up in the 80s and it wasn't known - or if it was it wasn't communicated.

And again, we also know now that fast food, takeaways, UPF, and screen time is harmful, or at least we have clear signals they are, yet people still give them to their kids, and I can't really blame them.

My mother did, up to around the time smoking was banned in public buildings, then she didn't smoke in the house at all anymore ... so early 2000s ? She started reducing how much she smoked overall, and was 100% off them by the time my kids were born in the 2010s
I'm proud of her for kicking a 30+ year habit and I don't judge her actions in the 90s by 2024 standards

Yes. I had asthma so bad that I was taken to hospital in an ambulance and put in an oxygen tent. I don’t think my parents ever equated my asthma with smoking indoors. My dad died young of a smoking related disease.

Yep. My dad smoked 20 a day. He tried to quit but just couldn't. He died at 55.
My mum smoked until she was about 45, so when I was about 4 she quit.

I started smoking at 14 and smoke in the house now. It's totally not the norm now but yes, you won't need to ask for an ashtray. Or go outside.
But if someone has little kids with them then I go out of the room to smoke.

I've probably halved the value of my property but it's so old anyway I hope people just think it adds to the character. Lol

Yes not much but they did up until about 1990.

I was born in 78. My (midwife!) aunty used to smoke loads at their house she must have been around 45. She used to put filters on them.

I'm old enough to remember smoking on the tip deck of the bus and even in the late 90s smoking at the back of planes.

I grew up in the 60s with a 20 a day dm. It was horrible.

Reports about second hand smoke only appeared around 2006 and swiftly led to smoking ban in public places all over the western world. How can you be so judgmental to call people selfish for doing something they didn't know was dangerous?