Did anyone else's parents smoke in the house

[Hernamewaslola22]

I sort of can't believe they did really. This wasn't years and years ago either, 90s and early 00s. How could they be so selfish?

Also remember actually throwing up once when I was about 12/13, because my parents would make us do family film night in the living room with the door and windows all shut, while they both chain-smoked roll ups. One night it was just too much and I did a good impression of the exorcist kid, all over the carpet 🤢
Serves them bloody right 😂

I wouldn't be so quick to blame them of being selfish. you've no idea what we will find out about phones, social media, or whatever else we think is okay for children in 20 years time.

I am older than you, @Hernamewaslola22 - I was born in the 60s - and my parents smoked all the way through my childhood, and my mum was still a heavy smoker right up until her death in 2022 (dad gave up when I was in my late teens).

Even when the news stories about the risks of cigarette smoke came out, mum didn't stop, and didn't stop smoking around dsis and me. She smoked in the car, and on long journeys this made me car sick and gave me a headache - but when I told her this, and asked her to stop, she refused.

I remember her coming to visit me, when I was a student nurse living in the Nurses' Home, and she lit up in my room, without even asking if I minded. By then, I'd been living in a pretty smoke free environment for a couple of years, and the way the smell stayed in the room afterwards horrified me - I hated it.

I can't help wondering how much damage was done to our lungs during childhood - they smoked around us while we were babies.

Even in her last years, whenever we visited her, she would smoke continuously around us - it didn't affect me much, because we live in Scotland, and she had moved to be near my sister (her favourite), more than 400 miles away from us. Dsis visited her a couple of times a week, and had to endure that smoky atmosphere every time - the woman is a cast iron saint!

This is true, I dont know it was caused by smoke, but smoke definitely made things a hell of alot worse

Research shows that kids who are passive smokers are much more likely to suffer glue ear / frequent ear infections, and much more likely to have poor outcomes following treatment for glue ear

But when a lot of our parents smoked at home the harmful effects WERE known and they still did it

Here in the UK, smoking in homes was so normal when I was a child in the 70s and 80s that I recall even people who didn't smoke themselves would have ashtrays around for visitors. By the early 90s people didn't assume that they could smoke in other people's homes but those that smoked did tend to do it indoors in their own homes even with children around. Somewhere in the mid 90s I think the message about passive smoking became much louder and lots of my family members who would not have thought twice about smoking around their own children in the late 80s/early 90s started smoking outside if children were around.

I know that at school in the 80s/early 90s we were told about the dangers of breathing other people's smoke but I don't think it was until the late 90s that it became generally considered socially acceptable to smoke indoors around others, even children. Even when my oldest child was born in the early 00s lots of cafes/restaurants that publicised themselves as family friendly allowed smoking indoors- families were generally offered a no smoking area that could be right next to tables of people smoking.

I was bought up in quite a smoky household, but even when I purchased my own home in 1985 no smoking was allowed inside my house, my then husband smoked, but always went to the garage to do this, and never allowed anyone to smoke near my children who are now 33 and 26. We have a little grandson now, and current advise is a smoker should not hold the baby unless they are wearing clothes they haven't smoked in. I'm glad attitudes have changed and it seems to be universally unacceptable to inflict this filthy habit on non smokers.

Yes, the house smelled awful, yellow walls and general fumes. I was so embarrassed at school because I smelled of smoke, I was always being accused of smoking.

Child of the 70s here. My mother never smoked but my dad, an East German and grandson of tobacco merchants was a Grade A European smoker. Fags and pipes! But NEVER in the house, ever. He was extremely discreet and respectful towards the family about it. They definitely knew it was bad to breathe that shit in, even back then. My mother was born in Ireland in 1935 and many of the women of her generation who smoked would stop during pregnancy. I don’t quite buy the ‘they didn’t know’ business because my dad was really careful not to smoke around us. He didn’t hide it from us. He just didn’t smoke around us.
That said, because I’m worried that I sound critical, smoking in the house was entirely normal in my youth. My dad was a smoking outlier.

My eldest is 22 and I was shocked by how many play dates he went on in primary school where parents smoked in the home. Went for sleepovers and came home smelling like he’d been out pub crawling circa 1990 at age 7. And that’s early 2000s. I knew several mums in the early 2000s who smoked throughout their pregnancies. That’s just mental.

Reports about second hand smoke only appeared around 2006 and swiftly led to smoking ban in public places all over the western world. How can you be so judgmental to call people selfish for doing something they didn't know was dangerous?

I grew up in the 60s with a 20 a day dm. It was horrible.

Yes not much but they did up until about 1990.

I was born in 78. My (midwife!) aunty used to smoke loads at their house she must have been around 45. She used to put filters on them.

I'm old enough to remember smoking on the tip deck of the bus and even in the late 90s smoking at the back of planes.

Yep. My dad smoked 20 a day. He tried to quit but just couldn't. He died at 55.
My mum smoked until she was about 45, so when I was about 4 she quit.

I started smoking at 14 and smoke in the house now. It's totally not the norm now but yes, you won't need to ask for an ashtray. Or go outside.
But if someone has little kids with them then I go out of the room to smoke.

I've probably halved the value of my property but it's so old anyway I hope people just think it adds to the character. Lol

Yes. I had asthma so bad that I was taken to hospital in an ambulance and put in an oxygen tent. I don’t think my parents ever equated my asthma with smoking indoors. My dad died young of a smoking related disease.

My mother did, up to around the time smoking was banned in public buildings, then she didn't smoke in the house at all anymore ... so early 2000s ? She started reducing how much she smoked overall, and was 100% off them by the time my kids were born in the 2010s
I'm proud of her for kicking a 30+ year habit and I don't judge her actions in the 90s by 2024 standards

Well maybe yours but I grew up in the 80s and it wasn't known - or if it was it wasn't communicated.

And again, we also know now that fast food, takeaways, UPF, and screen time is harmful, or at least we have clear signals they are, yet people still give them to their kids, and I can't really blame them.

It was completely normal. My mum thought a reasonable concession, when smoking indoors, was to wave her hand in the air to waft away the smoke. It was so normal to her that she couldn't understand why, when she was in hospital, they wouldn't let her smoke out of the window.

I don't buy that they didn't know it was bad, but more that it wasn't seen as 'bad enough' or that kids shouldn't complain if they were getting fed. I was wheezy as a kid, had bad coughs that would leave me exhausted, and likely had recurrent chest and sinus infections. My parents didn't take me to the doctor because I 'wasn't ill enough' and because my mum didn't want to be 'told off' about smoking.

Karma though, sad as it is - she died due to a smoking related illness.

What nonsense that people didn't know the harm of second hand smoke in the 90s and 2000s. I remember everyone talking about how Roy Castle died from playing the trumpet in smoky clubs and he died in 1994. My parents were very strict about us not traveling in cars with relatives who smoked in the late eighties.

Well we knew it smelled awful, damaged things and meant it was harder to breathe so even without the info on long term secondary smoke damage you would have had to be pretty dim not to realise it wasn't doing your kids much good - or selfish enough not to care

1960s child here. Dad was a 40 a day smoker, air was so thick with smoke I used to lie on the floor and look up at the haze of smoke above me! Everyone I knew smoked, at work and at home, even the doctors whilst holding surgery - they would stub it out when you entered the room. Now, all smokers i know stand on their doorsteps to have a fag, dont know anyone who smokes inside the home. Changing times, I dont hold parents responsible for a habit they didnt know was dangerous at the time.

Yes I was born in the 60’s my Dad always smoked in the house and everywhere else. I used to count his Embassy cigarette coupons for him and bundle them up with elastic bands. I also liked the silver paper from inside the cigarette packets my Dad used to give it to me when he opened a fresh pack. I used to make little models with it. I can’t remember us or the house smelling of smoke but I suppose we did. My Dad used smoker’s tooth powder on his fingers so they weren’t nicotine stained. My Dad lived into his 80’s. I have never smoked.

Wow I’m very surprised they accepted that in 2006? I remember getting ID’d in 2007 for cigarettes

Grew up in a smoking household. It was awful. Same as my husband. The worst thing is his mother will still light up in front of the kids in her house. I don't know if she just doesn't care or if it's our queue to leave. Can't stand the woman.

Mine did. 90s and 00s