I’m currently abroad on a fairly disastrous holiday with my partner and 7 month baby. We are staying with his family, who are all French. My partner still smokes (but only outside and away from the baby) and I used to smoke but gave up when I was pregnant. I occasionally sneak one when the baby is asleep and I have time to wash / brush my teeth after. Not great but very infrequent.
My partner’s family all smoke indoors so I had a discussion with my partner before we came and made it clear that I don’t want them smoking indoors whilst we’re staying with the baby. He appeared to be on the same page. We’re staying with his grandmother, who doesn’t smoke anymore. His Mum lives nearby and smokes like a chimney.
When we first arrived, my partner told everyone the no smoking rule. I don’t speak the language well so I tend to leave any / all confrontation to him plus I do believe it’s better to deal with your own family. I would never drag him into any confrontation I had with mine.
His Mum came for dinner when we’d been here for two days, and, when I took the baby for a nap, convinced him to smoke one cigarette in a bathroom and then was smoking again when I came back to the kitchen. It was a freezing cold day, which is their excuse. Now, I think he massively messed up here and confused everything and I’m annoyed with him about it. He says he thought it was a fair compromise because it’s ‘far away enough from the baby’ and he really tried to convince her not to smoke the kitchen cigarette but she refused. Alas, it’s only gone downhill from there.
My partner’s brother and cousin obeyed the rules and smoked outside but his grandmother, despite being very nice and attentive to my baby, promptly bought a pack and started smoking too. Again, she asked my partner if she could smoke inside in her bedroom (which is upstairs and far-ish away from where the baby sleeps), he said yea and told me he felt he couldn’t say no. I would estimate she smoked 4 last night and 5 this morning. Of course now the house stinks. I told my partner that this made me really uncomfortable.
We were also invited for dinner at my MIL’s house and she insisted she smoke inside so there was a room in the house put aside for it. I was really uncomfortable but didn’t know how to deal with it so just tried to stay away from the smoke with the baby. She smoked probably 4 cigarettes, and her son and nephew also smoked there. It’s probably 15 foot away from where she insisted I feed my baby.
I knew people weren’t exactly thrilled with the smoking boundary (particularly in winter) but I didn’t expect today. I woke up and found that the house stank of smoke again. I took my baby out for a couple of long walks in the freezing weather to keep her away from it and called my Mum for some support. She agreed with me that it was ridiculous people would not put the baby first and avoid smoking inside for the 4 days of our visit.
I then had a blazing row with my partner because he thinks I’m being totally OTT about the whole thing and that the baby being around cigarette smoke a bit for 5 days is ‘no big deal’. I think my boundaries are being ignored and that surely everyone can adhere to baby friendly rules for 5 days. He told me that the whole family thinks I’m utterly unreasonable and that he’s been telling them that ‘it’s her rules, you need to abide to them’ which I feel sets up a dynamic where I’m the bad guy and he’s just an enforcer of my crazy rules.
We made up eventually and he agreed to present a United front and told me that even though everyone thinks I’m being too strenuous they all agree that it’s because I care about my baby and I’m a good Mum. They also all said that the ‘converts’ (people who’ve recently stopped smoking) are the most passionate which I find patronising to say the least.
To give some context this is a family where everyone smokes. The great grandparents smoked in the same car with the children until they were sick, the grandparents then smoked whilst pregnant and with babies and the younger generation, as a result, inevitably all smoke.
So tonight, we were again invited to my MIL’s and at some point in the evening I told her I was going to breastfeed my baby. The baby wasn’t hungry so we returned sooner than usual and walked in on her lighting up in her kitchen (re, not the designated smoking room). My partner snapped at her quite harshly and said again ‘you follow her rules’ or something to that effect, meaning me. She said she was just ‘walking to the smoking room’. She then walked away and said I was an extremist Islamic terrorist (or something to that effect) to her nephew
in French. This is something she does, always bitching about family members to each other, usually about her Mum. I didn’t know that this had happened but my partner heard and lost it. He told her off severely and intensely enough that I left the room with the baby. I don’t really know what he said, but things along the line of ‘if you don’t follow the rules, you won’t see your granddaughter.’ He also told her we’re both worried about her drink driving (and watch her to make sure she’s okay to drive) with the baby because she drinks a lot. I told him to apologise for shouting before we left because I didn’t realise I was the target. I then thanked her for dinner and kissed her cheek like a moron because I didn’t know what was going on.
So, am I being unreasonable to be really pissed off? This is not the first time she’s pushed my boundaries. She calls me her daughter and does grand gestures (pretty jewellery / a trip to the hairdressers) that I feel I can’t refuse but I feel that she’s jealous of my relationship with her son and determined to show me that she’s still the boss in acts of defiance. I hate the family dynamics and the idea that my baby has to be around this bullshit. I had really hoped we could all get on for my baby’s sake. Isn’t there enough evidence now regarding how bad smoking is for babies even if second or third hand? I’m so worried for her health. It’s bad enough that my partner smokes. I also now feel totally isolated and alienated from this family and desperate to get away from them all. So, am I being unreasonable?