To think pushing a pram while smoking...

[Damash12]

Is just wrong!! I'm probably gonna get flamed but really??!! I see mum/dad pushing their babies with a fag resting on the handle, about level with child's head, all the fag smoke blowing nicely over the baby. And why do I find it even worse when it's a grandparent???

I think those that believe their 'righteous judginess' makes anybody change their behaviour one iota are highly deluding themselves.

Its not just a single cigarette though is it? Its one that they have visibly seen the person smoking but it could be one of many through out the day that the baby is subjected to without choice. It all adds up. Plus, its not just the smoke which blows away that concerns people. Its the toxins on the smoker's hands, clothes and breath afterwards which will probably be transferred onto the baby.

Also, exhaust fumes may be a greater danger than a single cigarette but people are probably ignoring that fact as exhaust fumes aren't forced on the baby by the parent as they are an unavoidable fact of life when walking out and about whereas cigarettes are forced on a baby selfishly as they are avoidable.

I don't think the proposal that smokers children go into care is a majority view!

No, moaning on here about it, probably won't make a difference im not deluding myself. I doubt anyone smoking with their baby in the open air is going to think, my poor baby, or poor everybody who comes near, I'm really spoiling this park/street/cafe wherever. That's how it is, we have to tolerate it and shut up about it don't we, because artificial sweetener is bad too.

Its not just a single cigarette though is it? Its one that they have visibly seen the person smoking but it could be one of many through out the day that the baby is subjected to without choice. It all adds up.

Well, it could be. But it could just as easily not be, Sneezing.

There are many toxins that parents knowingly expose their children to which they could avoid. Why are people only up in arms about this single issue?

Because its a choice you make to smoke!-we have no choice in being exposed to other toxins. You are choosing to deliberately expose YOUR child to something that harms them. Eurgh.

Stop trying to justify your selfish behaviour. If women were clustered outside maternity hospitals shooting up heroin would you all be going oh well they cant help it? would you fuck as like.

That's true that it could be just that one. If so, why do it all over the baby? Why bother at all? I just find it unlikely.

I think people are so bothered about this issue compared to other toxins because there is literally no reason to smoke at all. It doesn't benefit anybody in any way. Someone mentioned toxins in disposable nappies etc but even they have some sort of reason or purpose that someone could argue balance out the exposure to toxins. Cigarettes have no reason or purpose to outweight the exposure to toxins at all.

Seriously, you can't see the difference between exposing your kid to a carton of ribena light and exposing your kids to smoke?

In the kids playground in the park near us, the parents smoke, making us all cough and smell. Its gross and so unnecessary. Still my kids used disposable nappies so I can't complain?

MrsDeVere... I don't disagree with you at all. I very much agreed with your posts on this thread and honestly, I don't think you're 'judgy'; I'd say you have more call to be than many. I would have been hopping mad to have smokers beneath my child's hospital window too. How could you not? I think that hospitals really need to tackle the problem of smokers on the grounds, keeping smoke away.

Smoking is incredibly dangerous and when I think about my trips to the cinema as a young child in the Seventies, seeing the smog and being covered in ash from my mum, I'm glad that many smokers are giving it up.

Like you, I don't understand how smokers start now-a-days (I sound so old!)... but they do and it's less tolerated than it was back in the day. I'm an ex-smoker myself, didn't find it hard to stop but still took 20 years to do it.

I don't have much time for the smug and there are quite a few all over AIBU who think that their disgust has any impact on anybody else. The only reaction I could imagine is a well-aimed punch.

I don't think anyone here believes their "disgust" will make anyone change their behaviour or have an impact on anyone who smokes. If someone can't stop smoking for their own child's health, I doubt they would care about some random on the Internet's point of view.

I once saw a young Dad stripped to the waist with his daughter (around 18 months) on his shoulders - 'how sweet' I thought as she was giggling away and loving it, just behind him was the mum pushing the buggy and in the buggy were two crates of lager. Made my day but not in a bad way - just funny

When I had cancer I begged my mum to please give up. She said she had but actually was sneeking away at every available opportunity because she couldnt cope with the stress

My sister smoked when she was pregnant-depite previously having a miscarriage and having been ttc for a couple of years. She used to pretend to her dp that she was "only" having 10 a day but actually was buying 2 packs of 10 and smoking them before he got home.

The first thing I told her when she had her dc was that if I ever saw her smoking around her child I would happily strangle her. She smokes because she wants to stay a size 8-thats apparently more important than her dcs health.

Personally, I think it is as bad to give children Ribena Light every day as it is to wheel a push chair whilst smoking.

I would never give a child strawberries that are non-organic, as they will have been sprayed twice a day with poison.
Just because you cannot see the poison and cannot smell it it is easier to ignore the fact that it is there.
If the strawberries had 'Poison' written on them people might think about it a bit more.

Of course we can avoid many toxins. We just choose not to. We choose not to demonise them.

Imagine a few decades hence. People will probably look back in absolute horror at the things we exposed our children to, simply for our own convenience.

Once again, I'm not advocating smoking. I have no dog in this hunt. I just find the hysterical reactions to a tiny snapshot of a person's life OTT.

I'm going to hoik up my judgey pants so high they will probably strangle me, but I hate it when I see this.

Disclaimer: I'm a smoker.

I have the odd fag but never around my children, especially not when pushing a pram. It is just wrong and I judge people who do it. However I lived a long time in Paris and Brussels and it is just common there for people to smoke inside the car, while pushing the buggy or around children in general.

This thread is moving too fast. My last post was to Ashoething. And I assume it was rhetorical to state "You are choosing to deliberately expose YOUR child to something that harms them," not addressed to me personally. As I've stated repeatedly in this thread, I don't smoke and I never have.

I would never give a child strawberries that are non-organic - words fail me .............

Are you now going to say that children who are given non-organic strawberries should be taken into care?

I can't tear myself away from Mumsnet, you never get this level of entertaining discussion in real life .

Far better, giving ribena light to our kids only affects our own kids. Smoking in the street affects everyone in the street.

I wonder if the defenders are fortunate enough to live in some middle class enclave where smoking is rather exotic. Really, otherwise, how can you compare going to a smoke filled playground with giving your kids non organic grapes?

I mean strawberries - what kind of low life scum would give their kids non organic grapes?!! (joke)

OK, people insisting that exposing their children to smoke is no worse than exposing them to car fumes when you take them out, consider the fact that your children are exposed to both. So as well as breathing in pollution like every other child is to varying degrees, your child is breathing your smoke in on top of that

I do what Thurlow does - I have a 'smoking jacket' (I'm a classy lady doncha know?), wash my hands and brush my teeth after having one if I have one during the day while baby is awake. I certainly don't tip fag ash on his head or smoke inside etc.