Neighbour's nasty habit and neglect

[RubyRed1993]

Every day my neighbour puts her crying baby and toddler into her car, shuts the doors and smokes a miserable cigarette outside before getting in the car and driving off. When she returns she does the same in reverse, while the kids stay in the car, screaming. There's no garden, just a path up to the house.

We are not friends and I don’t particularly want to speak to her directly (she's a bit scary), but it’s really sad to hear the kids suffering while they are stuck in the car, especially during this heatwave.

I want to help without making a scene. Any advice?

So how would you go about helping her give up smoking, then? You’re not friends with her, you’ve said she’s scary so you don’t want to speak to her directly, so how would you give her unsolicited advice? Genuine question.

So she puts the kids in the car 20 times a day? Just to have a fag?

So basically you hate smoking and think it should be banned? Tough shit. Stop being such a nosy, self righteous neighbour.

So the neighbour goes out in the car 20 times a day? You said in your OP it's when she goes out in the car.

Yes, it's difficult to stop smoking AND it's also neglectful to leave a child in distress totally unnecessarily. That makes me judgemental? Any other information about my relationship with this neighbour is extraneous to the two issues I have highlighted. It's a ridiculous thing to justify strapping children down in order to find time to feed an addiction AND not even get any peace from it because they are screaming. Get real

Yes.

Well maybe 10-20 times a day. I could count the fag-ends but I'd really be called nosy then 😁

I would say up to 10 times a day... one fag before driving and another on return

I'd be more nosy about where she goes 20 times a day.

I hate smoking and it should be banned, and if it's nosy to be concerned about children screaming and overheating, well I'll take that

I won't be asking 😁

Yeah. I call bullshit

Plenty of kids hate being restrained in the car . Doesn’t mean we should all stop using our cars.
another MYOB

IDK... I thought someone here might have some experience of that... like with helping a grumpy relative quit smoking by leaving 'How to quit smoking' leaflets or nicotine gum around the house... obviously, I can't do that, but maybe someone has some similarly passive and non-confrontational ideas

Op why did you post and ask only to then tell posters to stfu???

Fine... see ya

I didn't. I started a conversation and got some useless replies from some people.. they can totally STFU. If anyone else wants to stick around and converse, great. That's the point of starting a thread.

Please, you don't give a fuck about helping this woman.

OP I hear you
kids in distress
you see this multiple times a day and it’s upsetting
the mum sounds a right selfish tit

If you say so. I do give a fuck about the children tho

I can imagine that must be distressingto hear OP. Poor babies. A sad sounding situation but not neglect on its own. Sounds like the mum might be struggling but likely she is doing the best she can at the moment. You definitely shouldn’t say anything to her.

Do you have children op?

Thank you for hearing me!
I'm not claiming to be the best parent in the world, but I've never left my children to cry. It does them harm

The thought of doing something that I know would make them cry -just to smoke cigarettes- that shit's effing alien to me

I definitely won't, thank you :)

I've read the thread and each time OP posts she says something more.. so I have decided I am 'out' on this one as it is unbelievable