to want to SCREAM after hearing this from 3yr old DS?

[TheOrchardKeeper]

So the last time ex had DS he came out with the gem of 'leave me alone, I'm just going outside for a cigarette'.

I asked if ex smokes around him and he said no (and although he was lying it seemed likely it was just smoking outside within eyesight of DS inside IYSWIM and there's not much I can do about it if he won't admit it).

But within 5 minutes of him being home from this weekend with his dad he picked up a drumstick and said 'I'm just having a cigarette in the car'

There's not much I can do as ex denies it & you can't stop contact over it (well you can but it's not 'the done thing').

Ex's dad died at 49 from a heart attack (he was skinny and ate well but smoked 40 a day for twenty years) and I'll be gutted if DS picks it up.

AIBU to just feel so frustrated I could scream?

Well I stupidly picked it up pre DS because as a teen I thought it was BS that my mum told me not to smoke but smoked anyway

I'm not the only one either and regretted it once I was hooked in my 20s. Would still be smoking if it weren't for DS.

blahblahblah2014 I coped very badly in the bad old days, thanks very much. DSis and I are both life long asthmatics, and were hospitalised multiple times in our childhoods due to asthma attacks and severe chest infections. I was also horrifically car sick, which oddly enough only happened in cars where people smoked.

TheOrchardKeeper YANBU in the slightest.

If you are a life long asthmatic then smoking didn't cause your asthma did it? May not have helped but did not cause.

blahblahblah2014 not FACT - LIES. Children of smokers are twice as likely to take it up than children of non-smokers.

And my parents smoking over my sister and I our whole lives caused or at least exacerbated our asthma. Neither of us has ever smoked.

Statistically you are more likely to take up smoking before the age of 16 if neither of your parents smoke - FACT

I'd like to read that research please - can you link?

Children of smokers are twice as likely to take it up than children of non-smokers.

I'd like to read that research please - can you link?

Certainly. Washington University study.

Thanks Winkly - I guess that blahblah ws confused.

I don't think it's OTT. One of the nastiest attitudes lying under the surface at my junior school was about this boy, whom everyone bar a few equally ostracised children avoided 'because he smelt'. Later as an adult I realised he smelt of stale cigarette smoke and it must have been his parents. As you don't smoke it's not going to be an issue but I think it demonstrates that even sodding 8/9 year olds pick up on it as something nasty.

I read this recently actually - I think it's more of a rebellion to smoke at a very young age if your parents are against it - They said the same for alcohol too, that if you allow your child to taste and/or drink responsibly they are less likely to overdo it and rebel - I'll have a look for it

www.ash.org.uk/localtoolkit/docs/cllr-briefings/Children.pdf

I'm actually a smoker, in the process of quitting, but not there yet. DS does see me smoke, though I have never smoked in the house so parks etc or freezing my bits off outside the back door.

In all honesty while what he's doing in the car etc is unpleasant, it's neither (currently) illegal or something that SS would be bothered about, as such do not threaten to stop contact. You are only one of your DS parents, you don't get to decide everything. It wouldn't be fair on your DS either, he sounds like he idolises him.

I think I'd go the halfway route and say you know DS is around/sees him smoke but can you please not do it in the house/car. You can't tell your ex what he can and can't do, but you can make a firm request I think. Ignore the smoking in the garden.

I appreciate that this is not ideal and really, no one should be smoking around your DS.

But to threaten your XH with non contact as some posters have suggested?

Really?

So when your XH takes you to court you are going to stand there and tell a magistrate that you have refused a man access TO HIS OWN SON because you are not entirely convinced that your XH does not smoke away from him.

I think you need to step back a little. By all means pass your concerns to your XH but YWBU to threaten him.

blahblah maybe you should tell Roy Castles family that....

In all my years of MN I have never thought some one was such a dickhead than I do now!

mrsgarlic

I dam well would threaten to cut contact if he was smoking in a fucking car with my child! How would he like being trapped in a bloody chimney with smoke bellowing through.

Honestly some people are so fucking stupid!

as i said, it would never stop. id just consider changing venue etc.

Well people have managed to sit in pubs/bars/cafes/restaurants etc for YEARS until the recent changes - Was never a big deal, it's just a bit of smoke! Damn you could even smoke in McDonalds up until the ban! You lot should try walking around central London with 5 or 6 buses stuck in traffic on each road pumping out fumes, your being far far too precious about your kids, put the cotton wool down and stop fretting

But within 5 minutes of him being home from this weekend with his dad he picked up a drumstick and said 'I'm just having a cigarette in the car

Maybe your ex went out of the house and had a ciggy in the car because of the cold? Hence him saying the above to your DS?

I would stop non supervised contact - he can come and stay near you for a few days and take DS out. There's no way my child would be going to stay in a house like that. Yes, it was 'the norm' when we were kids - doesn't make it right FFS.

He's obviously not smoking around the kid, why would the kid quote the folloiwng "'leave me alone, I'm just going outside for a cigarette'. He is obviously goign outside or goign to sit in the car alone to have a ciggy AWAY from the boy - What more do you want him to do?

I don't think you can do much about going outside for a cigarette, or even that you should because he's outside away from your child but no one should ever smoke in a car with children, I would make sure he knows you are unhappy about it and tell him you will have to reconsider contact arrangements if he does it again.

I smoke but even I can manage to go without whilst we are in the car and to go outside for a cigarette (even when the DC are out, so I'm not filling the house with smoke)

Well people have managed to sit in pubs/bars/cafes/restaurants etc for YEARS until the recent changes - Was never a big deal, it's just a bit of smoke!

And it was hellish. I hated the fact that, if I was out at a restaurant, my meal could be totally ruined by some idiot lighting up. You couldn't go to a pub without coming out with your hair and clothes stinking of smoke, and they tended to be horrible and dirty with a film of greasy smoke residue over everything. The smoking compartments in trains and the upstairs parts of buses used to stink, and you couldn't always avoid going in them. I can well remember sitting through meetings with my eyes smarting and watering because so many people were smoking and I was too junior to ask them to stop. And then, of course, there was the King's Cross fire.

Sorry, it was a big deal, and the smoking ban was an absolute godsend.

" it's just a bit of smoke"

Toxic smoke. But hey, it's only a bit.

I agree that it's likely he was smoking in the car without your son (to keep warm) rather than on a journey.
If they are smoking round him there are looks of health implications including cancer, glue ear, asthma, bronchitis, just google it it will all come up. Never mind future susceptibility to taking up the habit himself. I'd have a word but if he says he's not smoking round him you'll probably just gave to trust him.