"I'm not bringing your Grand-Daughter to see you because you smoke in your house"

[harveybristol]

This is the response I've just given my mum. My daughter has never ever been to my mum's house to visit and she's almost 2!
My Mum moved 100 miles away to live with her partner whilst I was pregnant and his sickly father lives with them. We have never been to visit them because they all smoke in the house and I definitely don't want my Daughter in a smoke filled environment.

After almost 2 years, we are finally planning to visit for the first time at the weekend, but we are staying in a hotel close by. My mum has asked us to visit the house and assures me that "nobody will smoke around her whilst she's there" however they will have been smoking in the house prior to our visit.

I've told my mum we won't be going to the house regardless because the smoke and cigarette smell wont have gone completely. Am I over-reacting? How long does it take for a room to be 'smoke free' after people have been smoking in there? My Daughter has a cough and cold so I don't want to take any risks.

My mum's partner's father is a chain smoker and Mum tells me she's not comfortable in telling him not to smoke in the house before we arrive. When I replied that we wouldnt be visiting the house then, she turned very indifferent on the phone and said that she had to go. Am I being unreasonable?

Good god the way smokers are demonised these days. it's frightening.

If I were you I would consider how much you actually resent your mother, not just for her bad habits but also for moving so far away when you were in a vulnerable state, and potentially for putting her partner before her daughter. This whole thing is a manifestation of that in my opinion and you are emotionally reacting to fears and hurt that she is willing to disregard your own daughter's health and safety in the way you secretly felt she disregarded yours.

You're being totally unreasonable by investing all this about cigarette smoke, but that doesn't mean your emotions about your mother aren't justified and valid. I assume you don't go near roads either, or heavily populated towns or cities. Or schools or doctors' offices because there's far more germ transferring going on there than anywhere else. Yes god forbid anyone should go into a room with 'chemicals' in it.
The politic thing to do would be to agree to meet up with them somewhere else, maybe go out for lunch nearby and pop into the house only to collect them or something.

You conversation between you and your mother is about far more than this. Look at the way you mother refuses to challenge her FIL on your behalf and the way you then snap to a counter-move of refusing to come. What are you really asking for?

And everyone you piles on to make this about how disgusting smokers are, because they are not smokers and stronger than that no doubt, shame on you. It's the language of lesser than and dehumanisation.

I think you might be better to consider how you can make a success of this visit. It does sound as if you have some resentment towards you mother. It also sounds as if she is in a difficult position re the smoking. She lives with her DP and his DF so she can hardly insist on a no smoking policy plus the deep clean that would be required to even touch the surface of the problem of the smell.

So since you are going on the visit you need to discuss with your mother just what does work. Are there parks nearby with cafes? Soft play? NT properties? Agree to differ on the smoking and have a nice time??

Good god the way smokers are demonised these days. it's frightening

No. What is really frightening is the very real effect of passive smoking.

the guidelines are that smokers shouldn't even hold a newborn baby unless they've taken the too later of clothing off if they've been smoking outside for example.

Can anyone link to these guidelines? I'm a passionate non smoker but wonder if things are getting slightly over the top here. Obviously smoking around the baby is out of order but to not visit the house at all because of the risk from soneone smoking in the house earlier in the day? That seems a bit precious to me.

I could say the same about someone who has arrived at my house having driven down a motorway. They will be covered in micro diesel particles, most of which will be going into their lungs. Not that I do that, but I'm making a point. Burning oil in a pan to cook meals also produces thousands of chemical reactions.

If it's the smell, I can understand that, as I don't like to go into a house that has dogs living there.

But it is ridiculous to take a defenceless toddler into a room full of carcinogenic chemicals. If they smoke in there, it wouldn't matter if nobody smoked for a week, everything would be impregnated, not just fabrics but even the walls will be plastered in chemicals.

Of course passive smoking is damaging. It's proven. I don't smoke, not that I should have to bother to point that out. Of course it is frightening that for decades results and knowledge was hidden from the public by large corporations, propped up by profiting governments, that meant smokers and non-smokers were exposed to damaging chemicals that are also highly addictive. Lately some effort is made to take account of that and I suspect you have to spend little to no time around cigarette smoke you breathe in.

But separate from that there are massive pollution concerns that DO hugely affect your lungs and the lungs of your children, particularly in cities, and news on a daily basis about how car manufacturers are gaming that system to chronically pollute and destroy the environment and our health, consciously and with no concern. But yes, let's point at smokers, who we can put a face to and feel superior to and use language that dehumanises them (and those who are most likely to smoke, those from deprived backgrounds, the unemployed, the mentally ill).

Two things can be frightening and different in nature.

My parents smoke. I wish they wouldn't, but they do. But also, it is important to me that my kids spend time with their grandparents, and my kids adore my mum in particular. I think you are being a bit unreasonable but you need to discuss with them and find a workable solution. For example, my parents do not smoke in the house for a few days before our visits and leave all the windows and doors open and clean thoroughly, and if we visit unexpectedly they will immediately go and change their clothes and open windows without me prompting them to do so. When we are there, regardless of the weather, they go into the garden to smoke and they put on jackets to do so which they take off before them come in. Honestly, it works OK - it isn't perfect, but it's OK.

I am also encouraging them to move to e-cigarettes, and am intending to go with them to a shop to sort this out. (I have tried and tried persuading them to give up! - it doesn't work).

Putting paint on the wall plasters your house in chemicals, which are difficult to remove; no more so than in the fifties when lead paint was used. The chemicals in this scenario are okay in situ, but removing them is the problem. Same with asbestos, which is still in a lot of buildings used by the public.

I actually think it's pretty crazy that you are denying your daughter a decent relationship with HER grandmother.

Realistically, what harm would have come to her if she spent, say, an hour a month in a smoker's home? None. This is your issue, and you're denying her a key relationship in her life because of that.

Your baby's grandmother will not be around forever. Think about that.

Oh the irony! I expect she'd be around a lot longer if she stopped smoking.

Suburban

Ah, smokers - the new lepers!

To be honest, of the few smokers I know, none smoke in their house. Even they acknowledge it makes the house stink. Its a bit bit like crapping on the front room carpet.

Then there's smokers and hardly breathers - contant smoking ,living in a perma smog.

You kid is OK for the odd visit. I would not let mine stay in a house where someone is chainsmoking.

You are not being unreasonable, it is your choice, but personally I feel that the risk from a short visit is negligible and the benefits in terms of relationship with grandparents is huge.

Bearing in mind how many of us grew up in smoky homes or visiting smoking relatives ourselves, I can't get too het up about it. But I wouldn't want to stay long term, because I find it uncomfortable myself to be in such an environment.

Your DD will grow up in a virtually smoke free world compared to those of us who are adults and were exposed until very recently in cafes, pubs, workplaces, public transport even if we lived in smoke-free homes. Her overall exposure even if she spends a weekend in this house from time to time will be extremely low.

She'll go home, have her hair and clothes washed and be back to normal, she won't be going to school smelling of smoke, won't be constantly coughing and spluttering, but will have, hopefully, developed a close bond with her grandmother. That's what happened to me as a chlld with smoking grandparents and I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

I think its your choice and I can see you wouldn't want to stay there.

However if they have promised not to smoke while you are actually in the house then I think, for what its worth, that you're being a little bit precious about not going for a two hour visit.

I used to smoke but gave up years ago. I also run marathons and am very health conscious. I would not allow anyone to smoke in my house or around my DC.

My best friend smokes and I allow my DC to go to her house. She doesn't smoke around them, but will have smoked before they get there. TBH her house stinks and whenever my DC and I come home having been there, we stink as well. It's not nice. However, the exposure my DC have while at her house is small. They don't live with her on a daily basis or spend anything more than a couple of hours there.

The price of our clothes/hair smelling occasionally is one I consider well worth paying for the privilege of having this particular friend in our lives. Plus I wouldn't dream of telling her what to do in her own home.

Suburban Even more of a reason for the OP to try and forge some sort of relationship between her dd and gm I'd have thought then

You do know it's not only smokers who die young, don't you? I can vouch for that having a mum who died young from ovarian cancer having never smoked in her life. I'd rather she could have seen her gc grow up - I wouldn't mind if she developed a 60 a day habit if I and my dc could have a bit more time with her.

We smoke but would never dream of lighting up in the house and don't let anyone else.
besides the risk to the dc health it turns your walls yellow and you have to decorate more often.

My much adored Grandpa who smoked like a chimney died recently (at the age of 92, with no health complaints!) I am so glad my parents didn’t stop me going to his house as a child. I believe the relationship that I had with him far outweighed the damage him smoking around me as a kid did.

I said exactly the same to my in laws, for the first year of DS's life we only saw them at our house, by the time he was 18months they gave up smoking and bought a new carpet and three piece suite with the money they saved.
We know happily visit them and they are still here and healthy in their 80s which the probably wouldn't be if they were still smoking 60 a day. Win Win.

You are being slightly precious, the benefits of a loving family out weigh the possible harm of 'old'smoke' in carpet. Im sure if you make the effort to go to the house, your mum will see this and make the effort to ensure no-one smokes around the baby

AsTimeGoesBy
"I think it is a huge shame that you are going to be jeopardising the relationship with grandparents over a bit of smoke."

Why is it the op that should about this surely it is the grandparents that are jeopardising the relationship over a bit of smoke

PunkrockerGirl
"Your baby's grandmother will not be around forever. Think about that."

Emotional blackmail always a good bargaining point, not.

BloodontheTracks
"Good god the way smokers are demonised these days. it's frightening."

So people should put up with the habits of others if it has a detrimental effect on them.

I think you are being ridiculous.

I'm assuming none of you who think its ridiculous have a child who suffered from asthma? come back when said child has had to be pinned down by nurses to administer medication or admitted to hospital with breathing difficulties and tell me then that unnecessary exposure to avoidable toxins is ridiculous.

Yanbu op