Parents who smoke should be found unfit to be parents...

reply to post by zappafan1


I'm sorry, all I got from that comment was baaaa, baaaa, baaaa.... Sounding just like the good sheeple you are. Do some homework before you start blasting off statements such as this. Ever been on welfare? Ever been laid off sans a family to fall back on and had the choice to either go hungry and homeless or get help? I loathed the idea of turning to THEM for anything but I had to do what I had to do. Granted there are many, far too many, who take advantage of it but here in CA there is a lifetime limit of five years. And if you are on welfare and have more children you are not given more money. Still, there are many who use it as it was intended; a last chance crutch so one can limp back to independance. But I am a parent, so I take offense to your blanket statement.

Novel idea... mind your own effing business. You said it yourself. You smoked with your kids around... hypocritical much? I was the child of two in home smokers, they both gave it up eventually. I never picked up the habit, I never did drugs, and I don't drink. What does that say about your "study"? Jack and crap. Yes smoking is nasty, I abhor having to walk through the smoke to enter the mall (come on guys 15 feet) and being in crowded outdoor events where someone lights up sucks... but you know what? Tough. They have the right just as much as I have the right. Smoking a cig has absolutely no bearing on a persons ability to parent, you yourself are proof of that.


PS. Smokers. You have this neat accessory in your car... an ashtray, you probably use it to hold your phone. USE IT FOR CIGS INSTEAD OF THROWING THE BUTT OUT THE WINDOW. From an ex-Fire Fighter... please.

I know that this thread has went off in slight tangents that deviate from the Subject Line of "Parents who smoke..."

How dare you issue this blanket statement and accuse me, a smoking parent, of being an unfit parent.

I smoke around a pack a day (sometimes more, sometimes less). I am a smoker.

I have a 2 year old son, whom I value more than life itself. I am a father.

I don't abuse my child. I don't starve him. I don't have him around bad people or illegal activities. We watch educational programs and play games that help him grow and learn. He has known every letter of the alphabet for over 6 months. He knows all the basic colors and shapes. He's smart, healthy, attended to, and most of all, not a victim of unfit parenting.

All that being said, I AM a smoker. However, I do not smoke around my child, indoors, or in vehicles when he is present. He has never so much as seen me with a cigarette or cigar in my mouth/hands. Its possible to be a smoker without damaging your child directly.

Thanks.

I have the solution to fix the OP.

I am going to propose a law that will put people in jail for NOT minding their own business.

Mods you can end the thread now

You know I understand the opinion of the poster. my parents smoked, and now I smoke. when I was little I would throw away their packs of cigs because i just couldnt understand why they wanted to do it. they in no way influenced me to start smoking. I did that on my own.

I do not have kids, and would like to think by the time I have them (only 25 now) I would stop. Just because I want to. not because someone else thinks I should. I also didn't read all 35 pages of the thread. But I would like to know the stance most of you people that are very anti smoking have against drinking?

I know around me there are sooo many drunk driving new stories every week. some people are drunk and driving around with their kids! i guess how I feel about that is how the OP feels about smoking maybe.

But what I am trying to get at is, is it ok for parents to drink around their kids? sure there is no second hand smoke, but at what point can someone decide that one thing is ok, and another is not? do I care if you drink in your house around your kids, no not really. do I care when you get behind a wheel of a car yes.
sorry I am just sort of ranting & rambling now.

lets all get along!

reply to post by JaxonRoberts


It's people like you that is changing this once *Free America* that OUR Fathers fought for. You sound as if you stand with Bush/Obama under the Patriot Act as well? Any Post entitled *smokers should be found to be unfit parents..* Makes me want to ask... Who the hell are you? Are you next going to make Parents unfit if they don't feed their children the types of food you think they should? To many trips to McDonald's and your dubbing Parents unfit? People like you are turning our Society into a Police State... and I resent you for that. You don't smoke anymore .. good for you. Instead of wanting to make parents that smoke *Unfit* .. why don't you help them to fight the addiction or help EDUCATE IN A POSITIVE MANNER!!! I think people like you don't want to help.. you want to be self-righteous and right... until someones on your sidewalk pissing up your leg...mind your own business!

reply to post by tracehd1
You maintain that Americans have the right to pollute our air with the smoke from your deadly tobacco drug because your forefathers slaughtered us natives? You criminal yellow and orange-haired albino African colonizers can't use the Holocaust as a basis for claiming to own our continent that you presumptuously named after Amerigo Vespucci. We indigenous tribespeople of Terrapin Island demand that you return to Egypt with your cousins the Mayans where you can live out your days in hookah lounges.

Just like someone else who posted above said - I've smoked almost all of my adult life. I have ten children all of whom are fit, healthy and 'well-adjusted' and have never been in danger of anything from my smoke. Why? Because in 30 years of smoking I have never once smoked indoors or even in the vicinity of my kids. I smoke 25 a day and yet my kids wouldn't even know what the scent of my cigarette smoke smells like. To the OP - You generalised and if all smokers smoked indoors or in the vicinity of their kids I'd agree with you - but they don't.

Oz

reply to post by Ozscot
You are living in Oz if you think smoking the dangerous tobacco drug during your ten pregnancies didn't harm your children.

reply to post by ChiefHuntingBear


wow... you're very un-educated...Smoke from a cigarette dissipates with-in seconds... pollution from Cars, Factories, your mouth.. takes longer to get out of our atmosphere. Butt.. that is not the issue.. the issue is this un-educated, self-righteous rant on parents who smoke. Again.. what's next? The food we feed our kids..?

Your rebuttal is ridiculous.. want to know how I know... More then HALF of the respondents think this post is someone that wants to POLICE anyone that doesn't live according to *their* standards. I say to you and them...worry about yourself.. quit being self-righteous which = You think your better then most people especially those that have children and smoke! Let's address your faults... lord knows there's enough of them.

lmaoo.. I stopped reading your post because I was laughing so much when you said something like.. cigarettes pollute our continent.. I now just finished reading your *un-educated, racial, rant* now I wish I would not have answered you... I never talk to anyone that obviously is racist and needs a therapist.

reply to post by tracehd1
The dangerous tobacco drug doesn't cease to exist when it is burned. It is inhaled by others and contaminates everything from furniture to all the creatures in nature. Did you know that the state of California, which my people don't recognize, has sued the country of India for polluting its air by burning garbage because much of the smoke is carried through the atmosphere across the Pacific Ocean? By the way, I was an undergraduate at Northwestern University in Evanston , Illinois between December of 1979 - May of 1982.

reply to post by ChiefHuntingBear


I think I understand your fight...however.. it isn't against parents who smoke, what they feed their children, what they drive, how they drive, how they dress their kids..etc... your problem seems to be that we stole your land? This is not the forum title for your anger. This is concerning every AMERICANS rights. I will not debate your land or where I came from with you in here. That's 1...

2.. Have you ever heard of the mole hill and the mountain? Cigarette, ~ mole hill, Cars-exhaust period, Corp. Factories, Corp. Oil Companies, Fertilizer, Mountain. Men and Women dying in a Bogus/Greedy/Corrupt War...Mountain. I hope you really think about that.

3.. The Owner of this Post wants to make parents that smoke unfit? That's just ridiculous! Again.. what's next? The poster is going to tell me how many times a month a parent can take their kids to McDonald's? If they give their children city water with it's Chlorine and Fluoride ... unfit? Instead of worrying about others, POLICE yourself... educate others in a positive manner if you see them directly blowing smoke in their childrens faces...

besides... people are EDUCATED! People that took the time in a POSITIVE manner to help educate those that they should smoke outside... the cigarette companies were caught lying to the public concerning cigarettes. Look it up! Now that they got people hooked, and it's proven to be just as addicting as heroin and just as hard to kick... compassion and education.. not policing and self-righteous banter!

reply to post by bigshow


So this is your first and last post here on ATS??? You have NEVER posted you own opinion here???

Well then I guess that YOU will be joining me in "the big house"... And people are calling me a hypocrite...

I'm sure there are more harmful chemicals in the food and drink children consume, than second-hand smoke. I'm also sure parents try to limit the dangers by smoking in a well-ventilated area.

reply to post by tracehd1
I am very much opposed to the spreading of poison through cigarettes everywhere especially on my peoples' land. Just because our environment is already damaged doesn't give you the right to continue to despoil it. Now that you have poured billions of gallons of noxious fume emitting petrochemicals into our Gulf Of Terrapin Island do you believe that you have the right to sniff glue? We forbid you from contaminating us with your dangerous tobacco drug.

Originally posted by JaxonRoberts
"These children then grow up to be adult substance users, whose kids have behavior problems and the cycle is repeated."

Propaganda. BS, whatever you want to call it. Smokes bad? Sure. Second hand smoke bad? Yes.Smoking around children bad? absolutely. But the above statement is pure BS. IMO of course. I am not a cigarette smoker also, if wondering.

I hate cigs myself, but leading kids to a life of crime and well, a gateway to harder drugs...I dont buy it. Like saying Cannabis is a gateway drug BS, IMO. Cannabis isn't even a drug, IMO, another thread for that subject. What freedom, the USA had, is slowly dwindling away by the year. It falls in the category of Government telling Adults, what they can and cant put in their body's. I suppose, that's another thread all its own as well. Just my two cents. S&F

reply to post by JaxonRoberts
What do you mean by "Big House", Jaxon Roberts? Are you in prison? Regardless, I commend you on stimulating a lively discussion about whether parents who smoke should be found unfit. I maintain that they should be, and punished for child abuse, reckless endangerment of everyone around them and ecoterrorism.

reply to post by ChiefHuntingBear


I guess you were never one for handing out the Peace Pipes for a wee smoke then? Or is it ok for you but not ok for everyone else?

Oz

reply to post by Ozscot


WOW! Racial slur much??? That was insulting beyond belief!