to smoke...?

[rdmommy]

i have always smoked except when pregnant and breast feeding. I don't smoke around my dc and only after they have gone for a nap and after they have gone to bed. I smoke outside in the garden.

I really feel like an unfit mother in the eyes of some mumsnetters!

YABU

I don't think being a smoker makes you an unfit mother, but it is a pretty daft thing to do, particularly when you've managed to give up in order to be pregnant and breastfeeding - why on earth would you restart such an expensive and dangerous habit?

Well it shortens your life-expectancy, puts you in the path of terrible diseases, stinks like hell, shoves £££s into George Osborne's pockets and is deemed to be a socially unacceptable activity anywhere other than an office doorway or other outside venue.... but apart from that, if you want to carry on smoking, no YANBU.... It's a free country.

see, exactly!

What do you mean 'see, exactly!'?

it is deemed socially unacceptable, but i enjoy it, i choose to do it instead of having a drink- alcohol has the say effects on life expectancy and so on but is not deemed as the devils work

smoke if you want to, its your life? dont be bothered by what anyone esle thinks, you arent giving your children blow backs. Everybody does soemthing they could probbely stop that would benefit them but we all have little pleasures in life and if smoking is yours so be it

I think drinking alcohol habitually is as stupid as smoking, so you're wrong suggesting that my opinion's inconsistent.

And you have asked two things in your OP, I think. AIBU to smoke; and does being a smoker make me an unfit mother?

Which one do you want an answer to?

I think that it's stupid to start smoking, but I have huge amounts of sympathy for people who struggle to give up. I think it's completely ridiculous to give up and then start again. Unless you're smoking over your baby, though, it has fuck all to do with whether you're a good mother or not.

I generally smoke for about a month a year, but have been so stressed that I've not stopped this year from March. I like it.

Plus I am ever so slightly pathetic and know that it's a choice between fags and biscuits... so I'm actually doing them a favour by not becoming morbidly obese!

At some point I'll sort my head out... and go into the garden with a glass of water instead. It's that selfish 'me time' that I would miss the most!

Like all smokers you feel got at, these days. Parent or not you're fleeced at the checkout, corralled into smaller and smaller smoking-allowed areas, GP's and HV's give you that 'special frown' and advice to quit etc. Add a bit of guilt to the mix and paranoia sets in sharpish. MN-ers are just echoing the stance of a wider society that's decided smoking is 'not a good thing'. Don't take it personally.

twopeople - I love the way you've written your post.

I smoke, albeit outside, but I feel very selfish and daft because I enjoy it. My ds is 8 months, and Im managing to stop bit by bit and cutting down, but it's not enough.

I'm actually quite scared of what it will turn me into if I stop altogether. But I know the health benefits and life expectancy will far far outweight the few weeks of feeling like shit.

IT has no bearing on whether you're a good mum as long as you're not smoking around your children which you're not.

However, it may well kill you earlier than you would otherwise die - the vast majority of my dad's family have died between 50 and 65 due to smoking - my dad, who has never smoked is still going strong - do you want to take that risk? And I speak as someone who gave up precisely because I don't want to die of something I could have prevented.

Why don't you find something else to enjoy on your own though?

I go and read in my bed for half an hour; or burn some incense; or just go and potter around in the garden on my own.

It's an addiction, so it's not really a case of whether it's reasonable or not!

Of course you shouldn't smoke. But there are threads on MN about, for example, food addictions and alcohol addictions and the posters are treated far more generously and kindly.

My DH is always saying how unreasonable it was of his Df:

He smoked

He got emphysema

He couldn't play football swim Run.

He was bedridden.

He died

It doesn't make you an unfit mother, but it does make you a selfish one, and I do feel sorry for your children. And I say that as the child of two lifetime heavy smokers who buried both her parents by the age of 22. Coffins in the ground is not a pretty sight at any age, but burying your mother when still in your teens isn't something I'd wish on anyone...

I smoke and I know I am a fit mother, and a damn sight more fit than the heavy drinking McCanns who left three kids under 4 alone in an unlocked apartment. I certainly wouldnt worry about withering dispproval from doctors, they don't always practice what they preach.

Smoking is not against the law, child neglect is, relax

Well smoking doesn't necessarily make you a bad parent, especially if you don't smoke indoors or around your children.

But it will make you a poorer, sicker person.

If you want to inhale carbon monoxide, ammonia, acetone, formaldehyde, benzene, arsenic and hydrogen cyanide then feel free to do so. But don't pretend it isn't a harmless habit.

I feel some sympathy for the OP.
I'm an ex-smoker and know how hard it is to quit, and how even years later, I still get the occasional pang and desire for a fag.

I would say that so long as you are not smoking around your/any children then YANBU. But I would add that I think it is unreasonable to smoke when children are around.

As a cheeky aside...

Considering the tax on tobacco and the reduced life expectancy of your average smoker (reduced long term pension payouts), maybe it's our patriotic duty to start a 20-a-day habit?!?! If we all took up smoking, then surely we could avoid all these cuts? Come on people, Light-Up For Blighty!!!

Non-smokers are avoiding the tobacco tax! Tax dodging scum!

Oops that should say don't pretend it isn't a harmful habit!

Yes YABU.

And stupid to do something that is so blatently detremental to your health.

My mother had to watch her father slowly die of lung cancer because of smoking.

She has given up now thankgod.

But the plain, awful thruth is, you may be setting your children up for a similar experience :(

Sidge no one is pretending smoking is good for your health. Merely pointing out that smoking does not equate with unfit parenthood.

I've got to laugh, the sheer volume of references on these boards alone to wine is astounding. Regular alcohol consumption is very dangerous to health. But for some strange reason that is rarely mentioned. It's all, ooh, is it wine time yet, i need a vodka shot to cope with the softplay, blah blah blah.

Drinking while kids are in the home can have far worse, immediate consequences.