I tried my whole life to get her to stop. My boldest attempt was bringing home a slice of lung with black holes throughout it (smokers lung as it was called in biology) but her addiciton was too strong. Many have agrued that if she quit the day she was diagnosed, she could have quit sooner. Perhaps. But, getting that kind of news will do strange things to you.

I watched her die over eight months and could not do a darn thing. I walked out of that hospital on March 13, 2003 a broken person. I wanted to run and scream from the rooftops “don’t do this to YOUR kids! Don’t make them have to tell their own kids what a wonderful grandparent they WOULD have had…” I was so angry. Not at Mom…but at the cigarettes themselves even though it was her choice to use them.

Bottom line: We told my son the truth about why he never got to meet his Grammy and that she’s in heaven, etc. but we tried to explain that is why we hope he will never take up this habit. The first time I heard him ridicule an adult for smoking, I nipped it in the bud. I don’t care how aggregious the offense, I do not want my child to think it’s OK to openly judge/ridicule another human being like that–especially an adult. If I do, then I am opening Pandora’s Box…making him think it’s OK for him to embarrass people in public. In my opinion, that’s never OK. For most addicts, it will take a lot more than a little boy pointing out their flaws to make them change.

Just my thoughts…thanks for letting me get them out here.

Jill– I really enjoy your blog. Bookmarked it the first day I read it!

We, as her parents have not ridiculed others for smoking. There was a time, like DeeDee mentioned my oldest thought it was fun and cool to smoke. I told her the consequences of smoking and “we don’t want to do that.” End of discussion.

My girls are taught to be polite and practice good manners. Things they will say to me, for example about smoking or someone’s immodest clothing, they would not say to someone’s face. My “loud enough for people in three states to hear” was of course a slight exaggeration, I hear, the person smoking might hear, we’re still working on whispering loud enough Momma can hear and quiet enough no one else can.

By the way, I just stopped by to tell you I voted for you for Best New Blog.

I grew up in a house that smoked. It all stopped drastically when my mother had a massive heart attack about 5 years ago. She had to be forced to quit.

The problem with having kids point and ridicule is that we’re not teaching them to separate the PEOPLE from their sin. (Not that smoking is a sin – that’s not what I’m saying.) But we all have nasty habits… Caffeine is just as much of an addiction as the cigs. Just as anyone with caffeine withdrawal headache.

We tend to categorize things..as lesser or greater sins. “At least I don’t drink” kind of thing…

One thing we should never do is loose sight of the fact that smoking or non…Jesus loves them all.

My mother is not a disgusting person – though her cigarettes caused her heart problems. She was someone with a habit she couldn’t quit until her heart attack. Some people feel that way about chocolate, or gossip, or coffe, or diet coke.

As for kids pointing – my kids point at the weirdest things. Like the man with no legs at Wal-mart. “Why does he have wheels?” It was an opportunity to have the look at the person and not the wheels.

By the way – on a flip note…My 8 year old daughter is convinced she’s never going to smoke because of the damage she has seen to the TEETH of smokers. I find that an interesting fact that she’s come across.

Anyway — I’l take my soap box and go home now.

Ok, I am sitting down and shutting up now.

I would also like to say, and please feel free to flog me, that with all the meds out there, you have to work really hard on not being able to quit to be unsuccessful. And I am a former smoker and know what I am talking about. I have the most addictive personality ever.

If you have a strong enough desire to quit, you can do it. But you have to seek out some medical help to get you there and you have to stop hanging around places and people that bring on the urge. It’s a total lifestyle change. Popping some Nicorette or a patch won’t help if you are still hanging out with smokers.

I suggest nipping this in the bud while Cailey’s young and impressionable. Borrow a cigarette from someone (or take her to hang out with a smoker for a couple of hours). Light it up. Let her smell firsthand how stinky it is. Let her try to take a puff (and pray that she’s not a natural smoker who can handle it with ease). Hopefully, like Amy above me, she’ll toss up a lung and quickly decide this isn’t so cool for her and her Barbies after all.

It’s better to make it a harsh, stinky, vomit-inducing reality than an unexperienced forbidden fruit that looks and seems cool.

My Mom, who smoked all of my life and still does, gave me this same experience when I was about 6. I vowed never to smoke.
I kept that vow to myself until I was 24 and was going through something extremely horrible and couldn’t stop shaking. A co-worker handed me a cig and told me it would make the shaking stop. I took a puff just to humor him, but it worked (no violent physical reaction that time, unfortunately) – and I’ve been smoking ever since. I did quit for a month earlier this year and I am getting ready to quit again for good. I know if I can do it for a month, I can do it for good.
Hopefully Cailey won’t make the bad choices I did and end up in a situation where a cigarette would actually *help* her, and the early impression would stick for all of her life.

I teach my kids not to ridicule anyone, and to stand up to ridicule. If anyone and their children were making a fuss about how stinky and filthy I was -for any reason- you can rest assured I’d personally come over and have a talk with those children and their parent. Mainly the children, and I would be calm and polite; but I would not sit idly by being “embarrassed” or ashamed. I would admit to the children that yes it’s a bad habit and causes lung disease, but I would ask them if they’d make fun of anyone who had a habit of biting their nails, or sucking their thumb, or twirling their hair; etc.
Publicly and loudly ridiculing people is inviting a situation where someone who *isn’t* polite and calm comes over and loudly (perhaps violently) defends their right to make choices and their right to exist without better-than-thou ridiculing by a Gladys Kravitz wannabe. And it’s teaching your children that such behavior really is okay, even if you say it isn’t. Actions speak louder than words; kids watch and learn from what you *do*, not what you say.

I will probably try to teach my kids about the health risks without scaring them, hoping that will be enough. However, I will NOT condone ridiculing or otherwise embarassing the smokers we see in public. Each of them has made their choice, like we have made ours, and must live with the consequences. I will try hard to teach my kids that they have the choice to look at the planks in their own eyes before they point out the slivers in the eyes of others. Lord, help me!