I guess if it was ‘between friends’ I could see the argument, but to me it sounded more like a parental intervention, and thats how the OP experienced it.
Ie it could be friends interacting, but I dont see any strong evidence for it in the original scenario.
Otara
To those who say “eh, no big deal, it was an interaction between two adults”, I say: does one adult going up to another adult and saying “YOU ARE GOING TO DO THIS THING THAT I SAY YOU WILL DO, BECAUSE YOU ARE A DUMBASS IF YOU DON’T” sound like a healthy interaction between two adults? It doesn’t to me.
I wish someone had said this to me about smoking when I was that age, and I certainly hope that if any of my kids start smoking and I’m not around, that someone says it to them. It needs to be said, and no bullshitting around about it.
If aspies are easily bullied/influenced, then the erzatz dad did a good job of counteracting the peer pressure the son got from his smoking peer group at his job.
If we ever meet remind me I owe you the whole night’s worth of the drinks of your choice.
Also, what CCL said. Your son will always be your son, but he’s not your baby any more.
Yes, actually, it does, in the right circumstances. A friend recently said to me “I really think I will just starve myself to get down to x weight” and I said THAT IS THE STUPIDEST THING I HAVE EVER HEARD AND YOU ARE A MORON IF YOU DO THAT.
Yes I feel free to tell my friends, that, in my opinion they are unreservedly wrong.
Telling someone they’re dumb if they do something is rather different than issuing a command, which is what the OP’s boyfriend seems to have done. The first is giving your opinion, strongly worded, in order to help your friend. The other is either being a bully or pretending to be a parent.
Maybe talk to your son and get some details? Find out if your son thinks your boyfriend was giving his opinion or issuing an order, then decide from there. If it’s a order, have a talk with boyfriend and make sure that shit doesn’t happen again in your house. With a decree, if necessary.
Yeh, that’s the ticket. Kick the son of a bitch out for saving your kid.
He doesn’t live there, and we have no idea whether the kid was already kind of planning to quit smoking.
If someone decides to help me eat a healthier diet by ordering me to drop my bagel, I don’t give a good goddamn that they’ve decreased my risk of having a heart attack. It’s bullshit. Just because hating smokers is a popular pastime around here doesn’t make someone less of a jerk for ordering someone to quit, if that’s in fact what he did.
If the kid is messed up as far as social cues are concerned, it makes him an even bigger jerk.
It’s only a relationship between 2 adults if the 20 year old felt perfectly free to reply “Get out of my room, stay out of my business, and go fuck yourself.” Since adults are perfectly free to ignore the advice given to them by other adults, whether it’s presented as advice or an order. What would the repercussions have been for him if he had said something like that?
If someone told you to put down the bagel, would you expect your mommy to come running to protect you?
I think that if I was still living with mom & dependent on her financially, if the guy mom is shacking up with told me to put down the bagel, I’d at least seek out some guidance whether or not mom was on board with that order and if now I’m supposed to treat him as a parent or just another adult I know.
Just checking back in, thank you all for your (very varied) responses.
I had already read my kid the riot act about his smoking myself, I was not “blase” about it - I went over all the serious health risks, cost, etc. and told him how disappointed and angry I was with him. But I also realize that, since he’s an adult, I can’t stop him if he chooses to smoke anyway.
SO does not live with me.
From what SO told me about the discussion, it seemed to be not a discussion between two adults, it was one adult telling a kid what to do. That is the part I find disturbing - I think he overstepped his bounds, and ALSO kept it from me for two weeks.
I also don’t know if my son legitimately intends to quit smoking or if he just said that to keep SO off his back. I have never seen my son smoke so if he has been/is still doing it, he has not done it in my sight (or my smell, I have never noticed that he smelled smoky, although he is around smokers at work).
My son did not tell me about the discussion, my SO did, after my son told me he was quitting.
In that case, I’d say you need to let your son know that SO has no control over him, and he is free to interact with him as he sees fit, up to and including telling him to mind his own business. You should let SO know that’s the case, and also tell SO that he’s not to issue orders to your younger child either. IMHO.
Missed the edit window…
I am not “swooping in to save my son”. My question is more a general “what role does an SO have in parenting”, because I have a younger son as well; I would have to set appropriate boundaries for MIHBD regarding parenting issues, and I’m not quite sure yet where those boundaries are. It’s not really about smoking per se; it’s about how much input an SO has in raising kids that aren’t his/hers (as shown in the OP title)
This is more of a concern than anything else you’ve written. Whether he kept it from you because he thought you’d be upset and didn’t want you to find out, or whether he felt guilty, or even whether he just didn’t think that an interaction that he had with your grown son living under the same roof was worth mentioning, I’d have a problem with this. If it’s the latter (“didn’t occur to me you’d need to know”) then I’d just tell him, yeah, you DO need to know about stuff like this when it happens. If it’s because he felt the need to hide it from you, that’s a much bigger issue.
duplicate
So the 20 year old is an adult when he wants to smoke but he is suddenly your baby who needs to be protected when anyone but you says anything to him? Your SO is in a shitty position any way he interacts with your kid. I don’t get what Aspberger’s has to do with anything. The friends who got him started didn’t walk on eggshells and the clerk at the store didn’t take the Aspberger’s into account when he sold the cigs.
In this case I would say your SO probably went beyond what I might have done and I can understand your being angry. But somebody needed to say something and your SO manned up. Good for him. He did the unpleasant job that apparently nobody else was willing to do. Be angry at him if you want. He probably already knew it would draw a shitstorm and felt it was worth it to try to help the kid.
The bigger question you ask is “How much involvement should a MIHBD/SO have in parenting” and that is a huge question. You really need to have that talk. I’ve been in a similar situation and it sucks to be the SO who has to sit mute while a kid ruins his life or risk destroying the relationship.
I mention that he’s an Aspie because, even though intellectually and physically he is 20, emotionally and developmentally he is more like 15 or 16. For those who understand Aspberger’s, this is significant in how it affects his judgment and our interaction with him.
His friends didn’t start him smoking. He has a job as a smoking aide at a nursing home; every two hours, he wheels the residents who smoke outside, supervises their smoking and lights the cigarettes. I can see how he’d become curious about smoking, and then try it. But I can also see how he would view first-hand the effects of smoking after years and years by observing the residents, and I can’t see how he’d then continue.
(It’s Asperger’s.)