Replies

Who cares if it causes cancer or not?

If any of you smoke around your kids, you should be jailed! I personally suffered more grief than I can tell you due to the fact that I lived with two chainsmokers (had no choice, I was a kid!) in a small apartment for 10 years. Second hand smoke hurts peoples' lungs more than you could imagine!

I was hacking and wheezing whenever I tried to play football or even do a 1 mile run in P.E. class. The physician who examined me was convinced I had asthma, and I was put on a steroid-based inhaler medication for years! (Strangely, it never helped - I wonder why?!?!?) This could have kept me out of the Army!

But lo and behold, as soon as I am moved out within a few months I am running 2 miles in under 13 minutes! Please don't destroy your kids' lungs. If you have to smoke, do it outside and don't make them the victims! This is still a source of tension between my mom and me... I have told her that when her grandkids arrive they will not be visiting her house if I can smell even a trace of tobacco there, and that more likely she'll just have to come to my place. I won't screw up my kids' health on the basis of any studies, that's for sure!

If anyone of us smokes around our kids we should be JAILED? And your an AMERICAN SOLDIER? Who's rights are YOU fighting for!

Your getting a little nasty to me, so don't mind a little retaliation, ok?

My husband is a Viet Nam Vet. TWO Purple Hearts. Thank God he lived to bring them home. My husband was and IS a smoker. Our parents smoked as well as our grandparents before us.

We gave birth to a beautiful baby healthy 8lb 12 oz girl. She grew up, she smokes, and she recently gave birth to a strong, beautiful healthy baby boy! As parents, we never "blew smoke" in our baby's faces! But growing up in a smoking household has prevented her AND us and all people that we know that smokes with children, never to have contacted asthma.

You grew up in a "small apartment with two chain smokers." Why, as a kid, were you inside all the time? Most kids I know can't wait to get outside to play.

Guess what? I was a professional dancer. I started smoking at age 16 and started dancing when I was 8, and danced until I married at age 26. Smoking never ever slowed me down. (And surely not breathing my parent's Second Hand Smoke!) Not once. When a person eats right, exercises, smoking is not going to hinder you until you become an elder.

Your going to deprive your mom from seeing her grandbabies just because she smokes?! I think your mom is better off without you. I'm sure your mom would have the good grace not to smoke around your kids, but just because you can SMELL it in her HOUSE! Yes, she is better off without you, Soldier Boy!

Sadly, you are wrong on your evaluation of the dangers of smoking.

You may not live to be an elder, if you are a heavy smoker. It has been proven that the earlier you start smoking, the more damage it does to your lungs and the higher the likelyhood of cancer.

My father had a massive heart attack at 48 and died at 52 from a heart condition that was severely exascerbated by his heavy smoking habit. His mother died of lung cancer at 59 and my maternal grandfather died of lung cancer at 59, also (both smokers). That is not very old.

I have other relatives that have died of smoking related cancers, too, but they at least lived to be senior citizens. Still, it is not a pleasant way to die.

I definitely didn't mean to be nasty to you. I was definitely too emotional in my posting. This is one of the few issues that actually touches me personally, i.e. physically, that I encounter on this forum, and I should make a conscious effort to tone it down. If you interpreted anything that way, I apologize publicly and sincerely to you, and your family, and I thank you husband for his service.

That said, you are fortunate. Yes, as was made clear in my previous posts, I went and did various sports before there was a custody change and I moved out and went to my dad's house when I changed schools. So I went directly from a smoking to a non-smoking household and me, my coach, and the family doctor instantly figured out why I was suddenly getting all this endurance I never had before. It was painfully obvious. For me all it meant was lousy performance on the track, but for a more sickly child the results would obviously be more severe. That's why I take this issue seriously.

Of all the freedoms I protect, the first is the freedom of American children to live happy and healthy lives. If forcing my family and friends to be inconvenienced by getting away from my kids when they're smoking and refusing to expose my kids to it irritates people, oh well. As I see it, being a good parent is not always compatible with being "cool." (Of course, fortunately, mom only lives 1.5 miles from my house, so it's easy for me to pick her up - obviously I wouldn't want to have kids and then raise them with no grandma).

Again, I'm sorry for my tone previously and for offending you. It was my fault and I take responsibility for it.