to think that this woman needs to step up to the mark?

[juicy12]

Not sure how this one will sit, cos I know being judgemental is possibly the worst thing on MN, but here goes...

I was at the hospital with DS today and while we were in the children's ward, another family arrived with their DS, who must have been 3, possible 4yo. He'd had a bad asthma attack and obviously this wasn't the first one he'd had. He looked pretty unwell and sounded quite wheezy. So, we were in the playroom and overheard the following btw little boy's mum and the doctor:
doc - does anyone in your house smoke?
mum - only my partner, but he just smokes in one room, not in front of DS. DS sees my parents alot, too, and they smoke in their house.
doc - Obviously you know that smoking exacerbates the asthma, do you also know that people shouldn't go near your DS for an hour after smoking?
mum - well, no-one's ever told us that, I didn't know that. Right.

Now, if you've got a DC with a chronic illness like asthma, aren't you going to do all in your power to help them and certainly not make things worse by exposing them to something that everyone knows will make it worse? AIBU in thinking that this woman is failing her little boy here? Made me feel really sad for him.

Keep up!

OK but i know i could not live with a man who is endangering my child every time he fancies a cigarette
our role as parents is to protect our children .

To say x has asthma, y is causing the asthma, so z should remove y from the situation is very simplistic.

For all you know the partner only smokes one or two a day. Personnally I think it is gross that he smokes in the house, DP smokes but outside in the garage and when the children were babies I never let him pick them up after he had just smoked.

Nobody is going to leave what could possibly be a lovely partner because they smoke. He should be smoking outside, but if the 1hr thing is true then it doesn't really solve the problem.

Back now, but just going to post once more, cos I've said pretty much all I want, and I think, on balance, people think IANBU. Just want to say though, their conversation wasn't private. It was taking place, at normal volume in the ward play area, which is an area specifically designated not to be used as a clinical area. They came in after we were already in there, so it's not as if we burst in through a locked door. I have to say that my biggest concern would always be for an ill DC being made more poorly by his mum's/dad's actions, (whether those actions were active by being the smoker, or passive)rather than worrying about being harsh towards said parents. A 3/4 yr old doesn't get much choice about things, an adult does. If that makes me horribly judgemental, then, I'm sorry, but that's a label I'm OK with. Anyway, as I said, I'm off - good night all.

YANBU....

I seem a similar thing today. There was a lady outside the childrens hospital smoking. Her daughter (I assume) about 13 was bald with head scarf.

My first thought was 'WTF has the woman dragged her little girl outside and why is she smoking around her?'