To think smoking with asthmatic DC is awful

[Loughderg]

What would you think about a mother who smoked in front of her asthmatic DC. They’ve been in hospital etc but she continues ?

It’s apparently her only comfort but AIBU to tell her she needs to stop it.

My mum was like this, but to her smoking was just the same as breathing. Not smoking was just unfathomable to her, she avoided going anywhere that she couldn't smoke after smoking indoors was banned (trains, cinema etc) I had a lot of breathing issues growing up, unsurprisingly!
Her way of 'accommodating' this around non smokers was to stand in the doorway and wave her hand in front of her face after exhaling. It was like the societal shift about smoking just passed her by.

It did significantly reduce her life (and her quality of life) but it was so ingrained we knew it would never change. Incredibly frustrating though.

I had plenty of friends with parents who smoked when I was a kid/teen in the 80s and 90s, and the majority of those parents smoked indoors in front of their kids, including kids with asthma etc. Not all, but most. I worked in a smoking office in the early 2000s and you could smoke around kids in loads of enclosed public spaces in England until 2007, so I although I personally think it’s gross, I would be inclined to cut your mum some slack for her historic smoking habits. It’s obviously bad and there plenty of parents who didn’t do it, but it was not unusual for the time and I think you just have to put it down to ‘different times’.

However, if she’s lighting up in the room with you now, and you are asthmatic and just out of hospital with a chest infection, then she is being pretty awful. Yes, it’s her home, but it wouldn’t bloody hurt her to either go without a cigarette for an hour or to go outside for one when you’re there. This would apply even if you weren’t asthmatic.

I have watched my child turn grey. I have watched her o2 drop in hospital and the doctor’s mood shift from calm to panicked. No one smokes or vapes anywhere near my child.

as for you, you are an adult. You should not be entering a smoker’s home. Meet your mother in your own home or in neutral places where smoking is not allowed.

Her way of 'accommodating' this around non smokers was to stand in the doorway and wave her hand in front of her face after exhaling. It was like the societal shift about smoking just passed her by.

In 2002 my boss was still justifying her smoking in our tiny office by opening a window a crack, and putting her ashtray on the windowsill. I once had to go an overseas work trip with her and in the evening we had some work stuff to catch up on together. She came to my room for that, chainsmoked for the whole hours, then went back to her own room and slept in the clean air while I had to sleep in all night in a room filled with nicotine fog. And yeah, I’m still cross 22 years later.

It's not nice but she's doing it in her house and that's her choice.

Could she come to yours to visit instead? Or you could meet somewhere else?

We had dc in 1984.
Both in-laws smoked so we told them to go outside. They did but reluctantly and I know for a fact they thought we were overprotective parents.
2 years later dn was born and bil and his dw also refused to allow smoking near the baby.
In-laws gave up smoking completely shortly afterwards.

@KreedKafer that's awful when it's your boss!

My mum really didn't change. In the 2010s when she was spending more time in hospital she used to argue with the nurses that she should be allowed to have a fag if she sat with her hand out the window... Never mind that she was in a room with people on oxygen 😳

I try not to hold resentment but I do have a lot of issues as an adult, as a result of going without diagnosis and treatment as a child because my mum either pretended it was normal or because she didn't want to get told off by the doctor for smoking around me.

Some people are just ignorant sadly.

My dad smoked around us in the 70s and 80s it’s so grim isn’t it. Unfortunately a lot of addicts are blinkered by the addiction and don’t care how selfish they are. I’m so glad my dad stopped smoking before I had my kids or I could have foreseen a lot of arguments (my mum doesn’t smoke but I think she’d have been torn between her loyalty to him and “it didn’t do you any harm” and wanting to see her grandsons)

Anyway YANBU. Filthy disgusting habit to inflict on anyone far less someone vulnerable

Yep this is my mum. She know has a ‘bad chest’ and still smokes even whilst taking medication. I guess it will never change, I just find the lack of regard for anyone else quite frustrating

Both of my in-laws smoked like trains when their DC were growing up. My DH can clearly remember going into a room that had the door closed with both his parents smoking inside and seeing a mistake of smoke. He did a lot of sport to keep out of the house at weekends. He went to his Grans a lot after school. His Dad died of Cop D and his Mum gets bad bronchitis even though she stopped smoking when DH in his 20's.

I wouldn't visit inside if she were my DM. Smoking is addictive but she obviously doesn't try to stop. The dangers are wide known now. Her choice to smoke in her own home but you are still choosing to visit even though she values her smoking habit above your health and her wish to have you visit. Selfish.

I would tell her I would visit but stay in the garden. Her house must stink and your clothes and hair. Disgusting.