I have an opinion on the matter, but I’m going to hold off for now.
What do you all think?
No, you first. Neener-neener.
No, but I don’t think its a good idea
I think it depends on how you define “around”–I think that holding a premie with underdeveloped lungs on your lap while you smoke is defnitly child abuse: I think that smoking outside while your children play on the lawn is definitly not (I reject any arguement about how one’s bad example for children could be construed as abuse).
That’s a tough issue only because smoking is legal. I’d have to say that in extreme cases it could be. Your on the lawn example is clearly not child abuse, but on a subject such as holding a young child whilst smokin’ a big stogie and blowing the smoke in their face I’d have to say it was abuse.
–==the sax man==–
Clarification, please. Do you mean is it abuse because of the second hand smoke, or for impressing upon the kid that it’s OK to smoke, thereby opening the door for them to take up the habit?
Either way, I believe “abuse” isn’t quite the right word for it. Maybe something along the lines of “endangerment” would be more accurate. Regardless, IMO, it’s just a bad idea.
Hmmm, on the way back from a trip to the Isle of Wight recently, the car behind us in the queue for the ferry contained four chain-smoking adults and one child 4 or 5 years old; the windows were shut the whole time (because it was pouring with rain).
Child abuse?
Dunno; I’ve heard it argued that there is no such thing as passive smoking, I would say that if there is such a thing, then forcing your children to passively smoke borders on abuse, even though there will usually be no malicious intent.
Somebody will no doubt be along shortly to extend my argument to the absurd extreme of never taking the child out of it’s protective foam padding, in case harm should occur.
Ok. If you insist. 
I’m a waitress at the local pancake place. Every day I see families come in with young children. They then sit in the smoking section, puffing away. I say it’s fine if you want to put toxins into your own body, but don’t put them into a helpless child.
What pissed me off more than anything was seeing an obviously pregnant woman smoking while in the restaurant. It took a whole lot of willpower for me to not tell her off.
Now that I think about it, this may have a better home in the pit.
It has been scientifically demonstrated that children with asthma whose parents smoke have worse problems with their asthma than kids with non-smoking parents. This holds true even if those parents do not smoke in the house where the kids live. Now asthma is a life-threatening disease, and people, many children included, die of it every year.
As a physician, it was very frustrating for me to deal with parents who were constantly having to rush their kids to my office or to the ER, or call the paramedics, then they get upset and holler that I’m not taking care of their asthma well enough, despite the fact they THEY ARE STILL SMOKING!!!
So yes, it can constitute child abuse. You are knowingly subjecting these children to a definite danger by smoking around them.
Probably.
I agree that I despise the practice of smoking around children. I’ve worked in restaurants for years, and I’ve seen the same damned behavior. It pisses me off to no end, more so now that I have a toddler of my own.
But I hesitate to call it “abuse.”
Second hand smoke.
And I don’t mean smoking occasionally or outdoors. What really erks me is when parents chain smoke while in a confined area with their children.
Ummm, I meant “probably it should be in the Pit.”
As long as your at being upset about smoking around the children why not get on the parents’ case if they give their kids french fries and soda pop?
I too don’t like the thought of sitting children down in a smoke filled atmosphere but if you start calling that abuse then you are on a slippery slope to calling anything that might not be ‘healthy’ for a child abuse.
Like most people here, I think it’s more a “bad idea,” and it cannot (and should not) be outlawed.
I’ve mentioned the Horrible White-Trash people who moved in downstairs, right? Cletus and Lurlene? The first time I saw Lurlene, she was sitting out in the yard, pregnant as Paddy’s pig, with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. “Hoo, boy, that poor kid,” I thought.
After she’d calved, I dropped in to be nice and give her best wishes. She was smoking. So was Cletus. So was her Mom, Betty-Sue-Bob, and her sisters, Girlene and Shirlene. The joint was so thick with smoke I had to politely leave after a couple of minutes. That can NOT have been good for a newborn baby . . .
If tobacco didn’t have an age restriction, I could see your point. However, since the child is essentially smoking unwillingly when their parents smoke with them in a closed environment, I don’t think the two are comparable. Smoking with a child in a closed environment is closer to putting alcohol in a child’s drink. They are being forced to ingest something that could be harmful to their health and that they would not be legally permitted to do otherwise.
There is a difference between not healthy and unhealthy. French fries are not healthy. Cigarettes are unhealthy. French Fries do not contain toxins, they just have bad nutrition. Cigarettes contain toxins and NO nutrition. My parents smoke around me my whole life. When I was 15 I took a lung capacity test that said my lung capacity was much lower than the average kid, and that was due to my Parents smoking. I think that parents smoking is an awful thing and is quite abusive. Fine, if the parents want to smoke it outside that’s fine but in the house where their children live is ridiculous. Smoke is not MEANT to be inhaled, if you choose to do it, that’s ok, but forcing children to do it is not ok, especially considering you are doing it in the home of those children, and they have no alternatives to your second hand smoke.
As for the legality issue, I don’t think that it should necessarily be illegal, though in a case like Cletus and Lurlene, perhaps Social Services should be called. That’s an extreme example however. Smoking, thank god, is turning into a very unacceptable habit. I do not smoke, and my little sister does not smoke but my parents still chain smoke. It’s an addiction that affects the whole family, just like alcoholism. (no I’m not saying a smoker is more likely to beat their kids) I would say only in extreme cases should it be considered abuse. Telling your kid they are fat is also abusive, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to see legal repercussions for it. There are lot’s of abuses that do not and should not have legal ramifications, but that does not make it any less abusive.
Erek
I hear what you are saying Dilbert and mswas but note that a mentioned a slippery slope and not a slippery plane. The point being that once you start with the easier stuff (smoking) and knock that out of the way what’s next in line?
Also, while on the face of it smoking around your kids seems unhealthy while feeding them junk food is merely not healthy (to use mswas’ distinctions) can you really say which is ultimately worse? Is the diminished lung capacity at 16 worse than obesity and its attendant health effects? I’m not necessarily saying it is and even if it isn’t there are still potential long-term health effects to feeding your kids too much junk food such that it becomes the next bogeyman on the health police hit list.
I would cautiously say it can be in some circumstances…
I’m thinking of the girl my friend nicknamed Trish-Trash. She and her partner both smoke in the car with their daughter and have done since she was a newborn. Thing is, they rarely travel more than 5 minutes from their home. Surely anyone can wait five minutes for a cigarette if it saves their child from being in a car full of smoke, but for Trish-Trash and co, the correct sequence for driving anywhere begins:
- Fasten seatbelt
- Start engine
- Light cigarette
I honestly believe they would have to stop driving to quit smoking because the association is that strong for them - I have never seen them not smoke in the car.
Trish-trash took her one day old daughter out onto the hospital balconey in a windstorm so she could have a cigarette - and stayed for two because it had been a while between them. It was freezing cold but smoking came before baby even then.
Also, Trish-trash always had a house full of ashtrays that were constantly overflowing and left on floors, coffee tables and other low surfaces. Their little girl has been able to eat the contents of an ashtray more than once thanks to poor supervision and a complete disregard for emptying ashtrays regularly. What’s more, despite the fact that the kid’s tongue was black with an ashy paste, and she was vomiting up butts and nicotine and that the poison’s information hotline advised it, they had to be convinced to take her to the hospital. Trish-Trash didn’t want to go and sit in there alone, and her partner refused to go in to the ER at all because he “doesn’t like hospitals”.
Yes, I believe these people are abusing their daughter by smoking around her, because they’re so irresponsible about it. They make no effort to reduce her exposure, they fail to even protect her from the solid rubbish produced by their cigarettes and they would have denied her medical treatment if it wasn’t for the intervention of others.
I’m speaking as an ex-smoker, but I was disgusted by Trish-Trash and co long before I gave up the habit. I had always tried to smoke in open spaces if children were around, or even not at all. Out of respect for Mr Cazzle, I didn’t smoke in the car even when we went on long trips (three or four hours straight), and I’ve never smoked in our home. To see people puffing away in front of a baby… it’s disturbing, when I wasn’t even keen on smoking in front of non-smoking adults. Despite this, I wouldn’t make a blanket statement that smoking around children is always abuse, but it certainly can be.
In response to this my answer is: “Yeah, so?”:rolleyes:
You are bastardizing the logic here. Just because you can imagine that we would eventually come to the point that we would outlaw doing unhealthy things to children does not mean that we would. Many people argue ethics on the basis of a slippery slope, but it misses the point. Why should we ignore the offenses we can regulate just because you imagine some chance of “them” regulating the way we treat our children.
–==the sax man==–
Mangetout wrote:
Was the motor of the car still running? Did you inhale the smoke from exhaust pipe? ABUSE!