Did anyone else's parents smoke in the house

Child of the 70s here. My mother never smoked but my dad, an East German and grandson of tobacco merchants was a Grade A European smoker. Fags and pipes! But NEVER in the house, ever. He was extremely discreet and respectful towards the family about it. They definitely knew it was bad to breathe that shit in, even back then. My mother was born in Ireland in 1935 and many of the women of her generation who smoked would stop during pregnancy. I don’t quite buy the ‘they didn’t know’ business because my dad was really careful not to smoke around us. He didn’t hide it from us. He just didn’t smoke around us.
That said, because I’m worried that I sound critical, smoking in the house was entirely normal in my youth. My dad was a smoking outlier.

My eldest is 22 and I was shocked by how many play dates he went on in primary school where parents smoked in the home. Went for sleepovers and came home smelling like he’d been out pub crawling circa 1990 at age 7. And that’s early 2000s. I knew several mums in the early 2000s who smoked throughout their pregnancies. That’s just mental.

Yes, the house smelled awful, yellow walls and general fumes. I was so embarrassed at school because I smelled of smoke, I was always being accused of smoking.

I was bought up in quite a smoky household, but even when I purchased my own home in 1985 no smoking was allowed inside my house, my then husband smoked, but always went to the garage to do this, and never allowed anyone to smoke near my children who are now 33 and 26. We have a little grandson now, and current advise is a smoker should not hold the baby unless they are wearing clothes they haven't smoked in. I'm glad attitudes have changed and it seems to be universally unacceptable to inflict this filthy habit on non smokers.

Here in the UK, smoking in homes was so normal when I was a child in the 70s and 80s that I recall even people who didn't smoke themselves would have ashtrays around for visitors. By the early 90s people didn't assume that they could smoke in other people's homes but those that smoked did tend to do it indoors in their own homes even with children around. Somewhere in the mid 90s I think the message about passive smoking became much louder and lots of my family members who would not have thought twice about smoking around their own children in the late 80s/early 90s started smoking outside if children were around.

I know that at school in the 80s/early 90s we were told about the dangers of breathing other people's smoke but I don't think it was until the late 90s that it became generally considered socially acceptable to smoke indoors around others, even children. Even when my oldest child was born in the early 00s lots of cafes/restaurants that publicised themselves as family friendly allowed smoking indoors- families were generally offered a no smoking area that could be right next to tables of people smoking.

But when a lot of our parents smoked at home the harmful effects WERE known and they still did it

This is true, I dont know it was caused by smoke, but smoke definitely made things a hell of alot worse

Research shows that kids who are passive smokers are much more likely to suffer glue ear / frequent ear infections, and much more likely to have poor outcomes following treatment for glue ear

I am older than you, @Hernamewaslola22 - I was born in the 60s - and my parents smoked all the way through my childhood, and my mum was still a heavy smoker right up until her death in 2022 (dad gave up when I was in my late teens).

Even when the news stories about the risks of cigarette smoke came out, mum didn't stop, and didn't stop smoking around dsis and me. She smoked in the car, and on long journeys this made me car sick and gave me a headache - but when I told her this, and asked her to stop, she refused.

I remember her coming to visit me, when I was a student nurse living in the Nurses' Home, and she lit up in my room, without even asking if I minded. By then, I'd been living in a pretty smoke free environment for a couple of years, and the way the smell stayed in the room afterwards horrified me - I hated it.

I can't help wondering how much damage was done to our lungs during childhood - they smoked around us while we were babies.

Even in her last years, whenever we visited her, she would smoke continuously around us - it didn't affect me much, because we live in Scotland, and she had moved to be near my sister (her favourite), more than 400 miles away from us. Dsis visited her a couple of times a week, and had to endure that smoky atmosphere every time - the woman is a cast iron saint!

I wouldn't be so quick to blame them of being selfish. you've no idea what we will find out about phones, social media, or whatever else we think is okay for children in 20 years time.

Also remember actually throwing up once when I was about 12/13, because my parents would make us do family film night in the living room with the door and windows all shut, while they both chain-smoked roll ups. One night it was just too much and I did a good impression of the exorcist kid, all over the carpet 🤢
Serves them bloody right 😂

Yes,I'm 56 and my Dad was a 40 a day man. He always smoked in the house. He died aged 70 from lung cancer. My Grandad was the same.

Being fair, you don't know that your ENT issues were caused by smoke.

They may have been, but I also know kids raised in smoke-free homes who have experienced the same ENT issues you describe.

Mine did too. Smoking at home and in workplaces used to be completely normal. It was even considered normal to sit at a restaurant table and light up.

So your parents were acting in line with the social norms of the time. It may not be right, but it's not something I'd look to apportion blame for.

Yes. 80's, 90's and early 00's until I moved out. And in the car, with the windows shut. Both parents, puffing away on 40 a day each...very heavy smokers.

It was the key reason I moved out at 18, first chance I got. My clothes stank within minutes of being washed and hung up, my room stank, my hair stank.

My school coat was the worst thing. Hung on a peg next to the living room where most exposed. And it was a big, puffy winter jacket that seemed to absorb smells more than anything else.

I have a very clear memory of being about 13 and it just getting too much one day and feeling sick at the thought that classmates could smell me. I faked illness and went and sat in the nurses office. I did this a few times until I decided I'd rather be cold and wet and just stopped wearing my coat altogether.

Yep. 90s kid.
My dad was a 60 a day man, mum was on 20. Our living room was permanently foggy. When people visited and they all sat around smoking like chimneys, DB and I used to make a game out of crawling on the floor underneath the thick cloud of smoke. Makes me cough just imagining it now 😷

I had terrible ENT issues in childhood, spent the first 13 years of my life with almost permanent tonsillitis, glue ear / ear infections, conjunctivitis, sinus infections etc. Had loads of operations to remove tonsils, adenoids, drain my ears etc.
I was almost deaf due to the glue ear and my speech was delayed as a result, so I also had to take the shame in school when other kids laughed at me because I couldnt talk properly.

All of which was probably unnecessary if we'd been raised in clean air. Thanks mum and dad!

My parents didn’t smoke but family and friends did. The morning after New Year when they had a party my mum would wring out a damp towel and flick it round the living room to get rid of the smell of smoke. She had a little dish of damp charcoal to absorb the smoke. Candles were meant to “burn the smoke” but it was too risky at New Year to have them.

Yes my dad was a chain smoker, our walls and ceilings were all stained. Us kids must have all stank of smoke. This was in 70s and 80s, he died of a smoking related illness when I was 16.

Yeh mine did up until the mid nineties-then we moved to a new house where the garage was attached to the kitchen so they would smoke in the garage instead. That fixed everything coz the smoke knew it’s place and that it was not to drift into the kitchen…. 😂🤦🏻‍♀️

It was normal back then though and even with the smoking isolated to the garage they would still smoke in the car, and we’d still be taken to smokey restaurants and pubs etc etc 🤷🏻‍♀️ Horrifying when you look back

Yes my DM did and we had arguments about it. I was upset about the smell growing up.

Yes my parents both smoked at home in front of us. My siblings(3 of them) and I didn't come to any harm but realise now that it could have had a very different outcome. We are in middle age now and none of us are smokers. Parents were indeed selfish but looking back my school friends were in the same situation, dad chain smoking when he came home from work and probably chain smoking at work too if permitted. Imagine a new mother smoking while feeding her babies!!!!! Yes it was not that unusual.

Yes, my parents smoked indoors when I was very small and then outdoors only. I'm very anti smoking, Mum stopped the day she came to my 12 week scan and dad stopped when DD was 6months old or so as I said I'd stop coming around as he handed her back to me and she stunk just from the transfer of smoke from his clothes to hers.

My cousin's non-shared nan used to chain smoke in their kitchen and would be lighting the next one before shed finished her previous one. We were adjust sent outside or to play jn the bedrooms.

But we did all sorts of stuff that I'd never let DD do, like sit in the boot of the car or on someone's lap. 12 of us travelled to a family party in the back of a van that had a mattress in the bottom of it to make it 'safe'.

I don't agree with the suggestion that it's all relative.

Whatever thing I did that may turn out to be damaging one day, my kids never complained loudly that they couldn't breath after travelling in the car on long rides with both parents smoking with the windows rolled up in winter.

Yep. Nicotine stained ceilings 😃
They started to smoke outside early 00s
Not sure why they changed.
Both quit now. Was 80s and 90s.

Thinking about it my mum also use to send my brother up to the shops when he was around 7/8 with a note to buy cigarettes for her (he was born in 1999 so this would have been early 2000s wouldn’t happen now)

My Dad did and it was awful, yellow walls and the constant smell.
He refused to stop or go outside even when my Mum was hospitalised with pneumonia and came home struggling to breathe.
He was a selfish arsehole in so many ways but thankfully it meant that I have never felt the urge to smoke