If you don't allow your DC to have chewing gum...why not?

[user1491572121]

I understand with young children but 9? My DD is 9 and sometimes, for a treat, I will let her have a pack of Juicy Fruit.

I know some people call it "Disgusting!"

No idea why...I personally find lollipops disgusting...all that slopping over a stick...pulling a spitty sweet in and out of mouths...but I'd never say so...because I get that it's just my weirdness.

Why don't you allow your child gum?

DD's friend is 9 too and she's not allowed gum but she is allowed really sticky toffees and other things I'd think twice about for teeth's sake.

Why?

Doesn't biodegrade
Causes awful litter problems
Utterly pointless
Looks disgusting
Yabvvvvvvvu to give it to a child

I just think it's vile. People look and sound totally gross with it.

My bother and his mates as youngish teens went on about cows chewing the cud. It left me with a lasting distaste.

I think I may have been lied to but...

I was told that chewing gum makes your body believe you are eating and therefore your stomach starts producing acid or whatever to break down the food. But no food arrives as you don't actually swallow the gum so it can cause problems with your stomach as it has produced all the stuff to break the food down.

Now you can probably tell I have no clue about the digestion system and this was probably made up to prevent me chewing gum in front of my Mum who detests it.

Its not utterly pointless - dentists in my country recommend that children start chewing xylitol gum from 18 months old, after meals as its very good for teeth health. I've given it to DD since she was 3 or 4 years old and she knows how to dispose of it properly, its not exactly hard to teach that.

Don't know if they still do it, but when I was little I went to school in Lapland for a few days and there we were all given a piece of gum to chew on after lunch

All the little bits that you may swallow over time club together and stick to you inners.
That is rubbish. It comes out the same way as everything else you swallow.

I do find chewing gum pretty gross, sorry.

The noise :( and the look of people chewing
Like fingern

Fingernails on a chalkboard

I hate the stuff. Constant chewing of tasteless rubber, no point to it at all. It is totally unnecessary for humans to constantly chew something. It makes them look thick.

I hate the noise, the mess and as a child I was told it looks really common when people just chew and chew and it stuck with me.

I don't know if it's true but I was told that since you're chewing it your body recognises it as food and increases acid and other digestive juices in the stomach and esophagus ready to digest what's coming. Since you don't swallow it all the excess acid/juices just sit there and can give you stomach problems. Again, don't know if it's true but it was enough to put me off.

Also the noise and the mess.

Do most of you only encounter open mouthed, clacky, slobbering mouth breathers who chew gum?
I've met some and it is annoying, but I've met others who are mouth shut, quiet chewers.
I chew gum. A god send through a long 13 hour nursing shift when I knew it would be unlikely I would get a break as it stopped my mouth drying out and me getting rank funk breath to breathe over my patients.
It's great after a stinky garlic meal.
Great to keep my mouth lubricated on a run.
I am however a discreet chewer and it goes in the bin when done.

My mum NEVEr let me have chewing gum. Her exact reason was it's disgusting, needless to say I felt like a right bad ass chomping my way through 5 pieces of hubba bubba on my way home from school every Friday (bought with the change from my bus ticket)

I should have RTFT 😑 sone one said that already lol

I don't let the children have anything of this ilk. They stick it everywhere and have shown they can't be trusted. I also don't really understand the need to chew constantly and it makes an awful noise.

The amount of people here who don't like something or don't see the point in it, so that gives them the right to ban their husband and kids from doing it. Ridiculous.

My two kids aged 5 and 6 sometimes get huba buba. Once the flavour runs out they put it in the bucket. I can't stand the sound of a grown up chewing gum, it's so annoying 😡😡😡

Habibi ewwwww!

I saw a report on chewing gum on one of the French speaking channels and they were saying that you shouldn't chew too many pieces per day, just because of the chemicals and what not that goes into chewing gum. I think France and the United States are the number one and number two countries for chewing gum.

I don't understand why people would put how it appears (chewing looks awful etc.) over dental health when it comes to their children. Chewing 100% xylitol gum after meals and snacks neutralises the acid in your mouth that would otherwise damage your teeth for half an hour after each meal.

Ds has a need to chew for much of the time. Chewing gum isn't suitable so we use other things and get all the looks that go with it. Those of you saying people don't have a need to chew - some do.

I feel like I've travelled back in time with his thread. Back to being a child and being told that I couldn't have gum because it was common. Yeah right Hyancynth, what you actually mean is, it's an American import. That's where all the snobbiness surrounding gum comes from. It's the same reason that my mum, sorry, Hyancynth, wouldn't let us use the word 'kids' instead of children.

I can't chew it myself makes me retch quite painfully, so my dc doesn't have It as it's not around. They can't miss what they never had. Over 9 is an acceptable age I think as long as they bin it properly.

One of the things that was done to my DD as part of a sustained campaign of bullying was to deliberately stick chewing gum into her long hair so that it had to be cut.

Her hair was to her bum and the gum was splatter on to the back of her hair.

I hate the stuff.

Because it's grim