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!

I know perfumedlife that's why I wrote the first line of my initial post.

The comments about health were general ones for all posters and not directed at the OP.

Smokers are very good at making excuses to continue smoking and downplay the health impact to justify it, so I was redressing the balance!

Perfumed, I don't drink either so I can still hate smoking without being hypocritical regarding drinking

I know a woman with two kids who drinks two bottles of wine a day, and regularly drives her son's playdates home. I was horrified and told her never to drive them, in fact, never to have them at her house when she was drinking.

She ignores me, she has an addiction and has no intention of facing up to it.

I would far rather my son spent time in a smoking household than a drinking one. By miles.

The thing is you will be giving up one day. Whether that is when you're in hospital and feeling cheated because your life has been cut short or when you pop your clogs at home.

Much better to be a good parent now AND one that does not smoke.

YOU WILL FEEL SO MUCH BETTER, richer, in control of your life etc etc!

I can't tell you enough. Try to make yourself decide to give up for you and your family. Sure you are not a bad mother, but you could feel better AND YOU'LL BE FREE!

Erm, if you know she is driving around drunk why haven't you reported her to the police?

Girls, hate smoking, hate away. It doesn't bother me, I have enough self belief to not post what the op did. But I am drawing attention to the fact that she must not feel like an unfit mother. There are far worse things to worry about.

I wonder when it will be socially acceptable to ask people what they drink and how often, and do they do so while in charge of minors, i.e. under 16

PMSL @ DaemonBarber!!

My sister is a smokng mum of 4. Gave up for all 4. Resumed after each birth. Have said to her after each 'why start again, you've gone 9 months without' to which she replies that she enjoys it. She doesn't smoke a lot and always outside, away from kids.

The only time I mention her smoking is when she complains about not having any money (but I think thats fair game!). I'd only have an issue if she smoked in the house with the kids.

Totoros, where does it say that I didn't?

Well it didn't said you did either,

it read as 'you've told her to stop' but hse has an addiction, so hey ho!

I can only go by what you post in a message, If you don't say you reported her, I can't know you did.

So I asked.

No, you asked why didn't i report her. If you were asking, you would have said " and did you report this person?' but you didnt.

You were making an assumption.

rdmommy - of course you are not an unfit mother because you smoke. I think, if you continue to smoke in this day and age, you just need to accept the criticism about it without being defensive. It is an utterly inexcusable habit but you are the way you are. One day you will get sick of it and find the wherewithal within yourself to stop, I am sure. Meanwhile, I'm afraid you just have to put up with people judging you simply for being a smoker [hsmile].

Aaaah, that's better.

OP,of course smoking doesn't make you a bad mother, although it does increase your chances of dying earlier (statistically speaing, by about 5-8 years, depending on how much you smoke). But it's like saying all the posters here who eat a lot of greasy food and don't do much exercise are not great mothers because they are hastening their deaths as well.

In the end, it's your choice, and I wish people would just bloody back off and stop being so judgy

scaley- what right do people have to judge me, I would like to know? I don't give a shit about millions of overweight parents, who by not eating healthily will most probably die a premature death from a heart disease. Not my business, is it.

We do not smoke in a workplace or in restaurants, not in any public place in fact. Passing a smoker on the street will not give you cancer. And if you don't like the smell, well, too bad, I don't like getting whiffs of BO, cheap perfume or garlic breath. But I don't moan about it all the time.

YABU - it makes you smell nasty and surely there are better things to spend your money on?

OP YABU, its a fucking stupid thing t be doing knowing damn well the health risks associated with it and its selfish to do it around anyone as they have to breathe in your filthy habit.

I have no shame in saying i judge parents who smoke, even if you do it outside your clothes and hair still stink and have chemicals clinging to them.

I watched my Grandfather die of smoking related lung disease and my Mum probably cut her already short life by a good few years by smoking for 20 years...

As a parent of a child who has no choice about his damaged lungs i think people who choose to damage theirs are the lowest of the low... IMHO

If you didnt have children then it would be your own business.

The problem is that many children of smokers become smokers themselves. Smoking away from your children does not fully protect them. The smoke gets into your clothes. When you hold your children, they are able to breathe the smoke in from you.

You are free to choose but you will make it far harder for your children to choose.

I am overweight but the only way I can hurt anyone else is by falling over and landing on them.

Winnybella - lets be realistic here. Smoking is a ridiculous thing to do. People are going to judge you for being ridiculous. To expect people not to judge you for it is just plain silly.

We live in a judgemental world whether we like it or not. It is human nature to judge other people, and I don't believe anyone who says they aren't judgemental about anything at all.

My mum was a lovely mother, she smoked but it didn't make her a bad mother.

I say was because smoking killed her. She died from emphysema, struggling for every breath. Her quality of life during her last two or three years was awful. She was rushed in and out of hospital and we nearly lost her on more than one occasion. If she was still alive she would enjoy her three grandchildren, sadly she never lived long enough to have that pleasure. Do you want to put your children through this?

Obviously from my post you can see that I have very personal reasons for disliking the habit. I don't dislike the smoker, but the smoking.

Like it or not, smoking makes you look and sound older than you are. I am older than most of my work colleagues, but the smoking ones who are a few years younger than me all look older and have deep, old women voices.

If you can give up for 9 months then you can give up for good. Please do it for yourself and your family.

Not another smoking thread, where non smokers can insult smokers without restraint...

a dig against the McCann family there, perfumedlife, why ?

Anyone who started smoking in the last 25-30 years is a dimwit. Because you knew it's addictive, you knew it's bad for your health, expensive, makes you smell and turns your fingers and ceilings of your house yellow...) although that might have just been my grandmother)... and if you went ahead after all that and started smoking then there's nothing to be done. No one here can tell you anything you don't already know.

There sure are a lot of tobacco tax dodger about here today! Shut it and pay your tax!

[hwink]

Forgot to say, it doesn't make you a bad mother though, of course not.

I remember me and my sisters crying to our Mum asking her to give up smoking becuase we hated it so much and were worried about her health.....

Would you feel like a bad parent if your kids did that to you? Or everytime your child gets a coucgh or Asthma or a Chest infection will you feel like a bad parent then because your smoking certainly wouldn't help them then.....

I would love to take Smokers on a tour of a Cystic Fibrosis ward.... lungs are a precious gift and should never been taken for granted or purpously destroyed.

I am another one with a dead mother. Ok it is an additction, but I felt that she loved her fags more than she loved us.