Yeah, OP has the right to do this, and I can’t see why her daughter would complain.
Me, I’d drive her to get smokes. I just like doing unnecessary kind things.
The pressure on the daughter will encourage her to either quit smoking or get a job (or hopefully both).
Another vote for not a hard-ass (being a soft-ass?).
My step daughter (at 16 years old) is saying repeatedly how she’s an adult now. Hey - adults have to ride public transportation instead of bumming rides from Mom & Dad.
Adults should have to find their own smokes (and the way to them).
New bf. I actually kind of like him (well, more than I’ve liked her other bf’s). He’s flaky and kind of odd, but a decent guy. He’s 19, doesn’t smoke, and encourages her to quit all the time. OTOH, he does give her the money she needs to buy the supplies. But no, he doesn’t drive. He car-pools with someone else from our neighborhood to get to work.
Ummmm, yeah. There’s a good reason. :rolleyes: She doesn’t have a job because she can’t be bothered to go look for one. She doesn’t drive because she has no money with which to obtain her learner’s permit, car, car insurance, etc. Yes, we have a bike she could use if she asked.
We haven’t gone that far (quite). But the situation is this: we own both sides of a duplex. The room she and her bf rent is on “the other side of the house”, and there is no smoking anywhere in the house on either side. That means, even when it’s 10 degrees outside (which it’s supposed to be tonight), she has to go outside to smoke. Further, if I find she’s been smoking and then just tossing her cigarette butts on the sidewalk outside our house, she will sweep the entire sidewalk of our block. She damned well better take a can or something out to dispose of her butts!
She has been “down on her luck” for years now, and I’d say 90% of it is of her own doing. She is bipolar and borderline personality. She does better on her meds, but doesn’t take her meds because she doesn’t have insurance that will pay for them. She has found out (at my urging) that she can get her drugs for free(!) if she’d take the time to do what she must do to get them, but she chooses not to. IMO, we are being kind to her by: giving her extra chores around the house so she can earn some pocket money; by buying her clothes when she really needs them (we get them at the Goodwill, but still. . .); by taking into consideration what she likes to eat when I grocery shop and plan dinner menus, etc. There are plenty of acts of kindness going on here, believe me.
Our local health department is about two miles away. It is “walkable”, but it would be something of a hike. However, any time she said to me, “Mom, I want to go the the health department and take advantage of their free nicotine patches/gum/smoking-cessation program”, I would have the car keys in my hand before she was finished talking. I have made this known to her. If she said to me “Mom, nicotine gum is $25.00 at the store, and I’m ready to quit, and I can’t get to the health department until Monday, and it’s Friday afternoon. . .” I would be down to the store so fast buying her gum or patches it would make your head spin. She knows this, too.
Hey, have you been peeking in my window?!? 
That’s pretty much the way I feel. If she asks me for a ride to a place she wants to apply for a job, I’m happy to do that for her. If she asks me for a ride to go visit a friend who’s not feeling well, I’d do that for her if I had the time. Sometimes she asks me to drive her to the library. Reading (unlike smoking) is a good thing, and I do that all the time. But cigarettes? She can damned well find a better way to get there, or do without, or fork over the bucks for pre-rolled, which they sell right down the street.
Pretty much. Sometimes she goes downtown (about a five minute walk) just so she can see if she can bum a smoke from someone.
Whatever, but I certainly wouldn’t drive her downtown so she could bum a smoke.
Well, given all of that, I revise my comments. I think you are being more than kind, and she is being less than organised.
Under the circumstances you describe, I don’t think I’d make a trip out of my way to get her smokes. If I were heading that way anyhow, OK, but otherwise no.
I vote not a hardass.
I would take her to get the tobacco. Spend the entire ride discussing how an adult ought to be able to get her own necessities. Or buy and keep the tobacco for yourself and hand it over contingent on desired constructive behavior. Or first on the way drop by and get some job applications.
Try and place the larger relationship over the one issue. She knows your position. Smokers know the dangers. They know that many people strongly disapprove. She knows YOU disapprove.
Maybe she needs some overall life motivation, but she won’t quit smoking, or go get a great job, sitting around home-bound with nicotine withdrawals that you could cure, but choose not to in order to make a point you’ve made many times before. In fact, it may make it worse.
Quitting involved, for me at least, a dramatic increase in exercise, nicotine gum, and a particular upswing in motivation. Continued protests (either word or deed) of my family would have had no bearing at all.
I’ve been in both positions and while I wouldn’t say you’re being a hard-ass, I wouldn’t be surprised if your tactic lead to more smoking, fewer jobs, and a worse relationship.
flip
I agree with this.
If you gave her an ultimatum and said “quit smoking or you’ll lose your home” or otherwise resorted to extorsion, that would be hardass.
If she says “I’m an adult I can make my own decisions” then by the same token, she’s an adult, she can take care of herself. You don’t have to be her chauffeur or even lend her your car. If she’s independent enough to make her own choices, then she’s independent enough to make her own way.
You’re right, she’s an adult. If she wants to take advantage of adult privileges, then that’s her responsibility not her mother’s.
Yup, she’s an addict too. So? If my sister was an alcoholic I wouldn’t be particularly inclined to drive her to buy beer. If my fiancee was jonesing for heroin I don’t think I’d drive her to meet a dealer either. If smokes are that much of a priority, then she’ll surely be able to come up with another solution.
Bullshit. I smoked for over 10 years and thought I couldn’t quit because of this bullshit way of thinking. Smoking is easy to quit once you make up your mind to quit.
Looks like I’m outnumbered here. I have no doubt that if this gal was jonesing for some tofu-baconsalt–trendy thing, there’s already be a mod sanctioned Doper Relay spanning the globe to help the gal, and probably give her a cat. But because she wants a short trip to Malboro Country, fuck her, she’s an evil smoker. :rolleyes:
I’d be inclined to look at it as making the gal’s life suck a little less, for a little while. When you’re down on your luck, small gestures mean a lot.
Actually, I don’t think two miles is all that unreasonable, even given the terrain in our part of the world. When I moved back to town, I spent several months walking about 2 miles to work because I couldn’t afford a car or a driver’s license and before that I walked about a mile and a half to a bus stop. I have noticed that the American definition of “walking distance” is smaller than the English definition, but even so, I think your daughter’s unwillingness to walk to the health department has more to do with her unwillingness to quit smoking than how far away it is. (Two miles, by the way, should be about 40 minutes walk, and I would be in better shape if I were still walking a few miles each day.)
You’re not being a hard ass and you’re not being unreasonable. Being an adult and living life on your own terms means taking responsibility for your own actions. Your daughter at least has the advantage of family who are willing to take her in and help her out, something not everyone does. You don’t have to help her continue to do something she knows you disapprove of.
You are outnumbered here, but I really do consider all input! So thank you for contributing.
Hey don’t whine when your previous whine isn’t being sympathized with. Smoke all you want, but don’t give me this “cigarettes are harder to quit than heroin and if you don’t smoke you don’t know what she’s going through.” I DO know. I smoked. For a long time.
After reading all that, I’m sure someone could argue that you’re not being hardass enough. I could certainly see you, if it was felt necessary, putting stipulations upon her renting; things like holding down even the barest of jobs (mowing lawns / washing windows / babysitting within walking distance), cooking meals and finding ways to be responsible for her clothing needs. All these things I could see being an important requirement for getting a leg up, perhaps even in an exchange for a reduction (or complete anihlation) in housing costs.
Furthermore, I would defintely think the other component that could be added in if that was the route you wanted to take would be therapy and medication. All these things could be bartered in her situation where they’d then have extra money to spend and yet she’d finally be getting a leg up on her life and you’d feel better about her choices / burgeoning adulthood.
No matter what you choose though, good luck! I can’t imagine how difficult it is not being able to prevent your child from hurting themselves.
Dried coffee grounds make at least a somewhat decent smoke; I’ve only smoked them in a pipe but I’ve been told you can roll a fairly good cigarette. If you guys drink coffee, your problem is half solved; you give her the grounds and she gets the papers-----a strip off a newspaper is better than nothing. A cheap pipe would be better, but hell—she can’t afford one. Anyway, her immediate problem is easy to solve; it just takes a little will power to smoke those grounds. If that’s all she has, she may decide to quit. I didn’t, but she might. I don’t say you’re a hard ass but I’ve been dirt poor too and a smoke is a hard thing to do without. Especially if you’ve got nothing at all going for you. That is not a judgment against you.
Not too much of a hardass. You have excellent, real reasons for not supporting a habit that will kill her, and I say stick to them.
Yep. Just throwing in my vote for “not a hardass”. I’ve also been a smoker.
Didn’t we all agree in the other thread that Norine is a great mom? This is just a further example.
Small gestures like… putting a roof over her head? Including her on the family meal ticket? Shuttling her to dr’s appts, the library, work interviews, etc.? Taking in her boyfriend also?
Sorry, from my point of view norinew is already doing all the “small gestures”(and some not-so-small) that could possibly be expected. Especially since daughter seems to have very little drive to do the necessary things for herself. I’d probably cut back on the amount of support given to her. Sometimes the best thing a mother bird can do is push the baby out of the nest.
Enjoy,
Steven
[minor nitpick.]
Norinew didn’t ask whether or not she’s being a hardass. She acknowledges that she is in th OP. She want’s to know if she’s too much of one.
[/nitpick]
Add me to the list of not being overboard with it. Too much would be refusing to rent to her and bf as long as she was smoking. Or cutting off all contact.
Refusing to enable her addiction? The ideal level of hardass IMHO.