Smoking

[Woahriver]

Posting here for traffic

I have younger sibblings that are young enough to still be living with our mother. One of them has reported that my mother took up smoking again, and stinks the place out and that mother smokes because of stress and wont quit despite my sibblings has anxiety about how it will effect everyone's health. Mother reports that because of car fumes, and factory fumes her smoking is negligible in comparison.

I understand your concerns but you can't make her stop. You can go on about how damaging it is to her health and to those of your siblings but you can't actually make her stop. Have you asked her to compromise so that she at least smokes outside?

Smoking indoors is terrible. Even when I used to smoke I'd at least go on to the balcony.

Well car fumes/factory fumes seems like a silly comparison, but it's regularly trotted out by the smokers here on MN.

She's very selfish if she's smoking inside the house, that's beyond grim that she's prepared to smoke and put her children's health at risk. It's not like they have a choice in getting away from it. :(

Sadly, it's her choice to smoke and apart from encouraging her to see her GP for help I'm not sure what else you can do.

It’s not ideal, but it isn’t illegal.

Depends on their ages really, it's her house and she can do what she likes, however if she has children who are young e.g. teenage then she is being irresponsible since their welfare is still her responsibility. She's got a smidging of a point about air pollution in large cities, although her own smoking is not negligible.

She's being selfish and her comments about the effects being negligible are bollocks.

However, there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. It's not illegal, it's the same situation that thousands of other kids are in, and she clearly isn't going to listen to your concerns if she won't even listen to the concerns of the people who are actually being affected by it.

You might want to try and find out exactly why she is under so much stress, though, and offer her some support if you can.

I think all you can do is try to alleviate your Siblings anxiety, even if it means minimising the effects of smoking.

Or at least put it into perspective.

What's this reporting all about?

I spoke to our mother about it and she told me, that being a parent is stressful (which I know) that shes finding it hard to cope with the stress and that smoking is her way of dealing with it.

And my sibblings have anxiety because apparently they were given a talk on smoking at school and how it's bad for their health and costs allot of money. They are resenting our mother because she cant afford allot of things and my sibblings have reported she smoked about twenty a day! She isnt interested in stopping smoking either and believes there are no alternatives that help as much. I know she even smoked and drank alcohol when she was pregnant. I dont know if what shes doing is illegal, so not sure if getting SS involved is worth it. And it would be a traumatic experience for my sibblings.

What do you recommend

It is not illegal for your mother to smoke her own cigarettes in her own house (disgusting but not illegal).

SS have real problems to deal with and would probably think you were joking if you asked them to tell your mother to stop smoking.

Best thing you can do is give her some literature on the dangers of smoking and some info on different methods of quitting. However a smoker won't quit smoking until THEY are ready. No amount of nagging will change that.

Your mother is making her own choices and has the right to. As long as the kids are fed, clothed, and looked after, she's not neglecting them by smoking and definitely not a SS issue for pity's sake. If they are being neglected or abused- different matter