Do any of you have kids who smoke?

Parent Cafe
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<p>20 or 30 years ago, back when 40% of the adult population used to smoke, I would have assumed that the answer is yes. Now, so few people I know smoke that I’m not so sure.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, I found out this summer that my son smokes. I’d had my suspicions before, but he always denied it. But when he was home in July and August, he got really obvious about it – he’d say he was going for a walk, or going up to the roof to get some fresh air, and come back a while later smelling of tobacco. I’m not <em>that</em> stupid, and eventually he admitted it. </p>

<p>He says it relaxes him and helps him with anxiety, and claims that he only smokes two or three cigarettes a day. I have no idea if he’s telling the truth.</p>

<p>At least he’s not allowed to smoke in his dorm room, either in Chicago or in Vienna, and I don’t allow him to smoke in my apartment, so that necessarily cuts down a little on how much he smokes. Although I suspect that smoking is more common in Europe than here, so that’s not helpful. </p>

<p>I’m kind of embarrassed to make a big deal out of this given the sorts of immediate, serious problems that people generally post about, but I’m pretty upset. Not as upset as I’d be if I found out that he drinks a lot, but more upset, I think, than I’d be if he smoked pot. (I’m not concerned about either of those, since he’s always shared his experiences of that sort. I think he knew how upset I’d be about his smoking cigarettes, and that’s why he tried to hide it for quite some time.)</p>

<p>It occurs to me that this is the first time in his entire life that he’s doing something that really, seriously disappoints me on an ongoing basis. </p>

<p>I’ve tried everything I can think of to talk him into quitting, but I know that there are no magic words. I’m afraid he views what I say as nagging and either ignores me or finds me amusing. At his age, when he still sort of thinks of himself as immortal, the prospect of getting an awful illness 20 or 30 or 40 years from now doesn’t seem to carry much weight. I’ve told him how much I regret having ever started to smoke myself – coincidentally, I was 20, the same age he is now, when I started smoking a couple of months after my mother died following a car accident – and how difficult it was for me to quit. I smoked about a pack a day on average, or close to it, for 15 years, minus a couple of short periods when I tried unsuccessfully to give it up. (I finally gave up smoking for good before he was born, as a bargain with God or the Fates – let him be healthy, and I’ll never have another cigarette. He was, and I haven’t. But I still worry at times about the permanent damage I might have done to my lungs.) I so wish that he wouldn’t put himself in a position where he’ll have to struggle to quit when the time comes that he wants to, and would stop now, when it would still be comparatively easy. It’s frustrating to watch him get started on a habit like this, from a vantage point of having done exactly the same thing once upon a time.</p>

<p>But, as I said, there probably isn’t anything I can do about this. He’ll have to make his own decisions, in his own good time. So I guess this all amounts to nothing more than venting.</p>

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<p>Vent away, DonnaL. Not everyone who starts smoking becomes a lifelong smoker. It would be nice if he could find another way to deal with anxiety and stress, because he’ll have to deal with those issues his whole life…</p>

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<p>Donna–I understand your anxiety. I’d feel the same way. I’m adamantly anti-smoking, because I lost my dad to it when I was a kid. My kids have heard that their whole lives, so they know i’d kill them if they risked their health that way (:)). As they get older, they seem to make more friends with people who smoke. Recently, a good friend of both of them was diagnosed at 32 with lung cancer. He has two young children. That’s made a lot of their friends stop and realize what they might be doing. (Obviously that is an outlier case, and I hope I’m not adding to your own anxiety).</p>

<p>Maybe if your S realizes it’s not necessarily 20/30/40 years down the road, he’ll take you more seriously. </p>

<p>My sister smokes, and she grew up with the same loss as I did. I’ve never understood that.</p>

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<p>I don’t blame you for being upset. When you’ve witnessed the early death of smoking friends from pulmonary issues, including lung cancer, you know it is not something to take lightly. </p>

<p>What you can do about it is another matter. Definitely, continue to make it difficult for him to smoke. Don’t accept smoking in your home or car, choose non-smoking accommodations, and so forth. Be clear that smoking is not cool, but stupid, given what it now clearly known about it.</p>

<p>Perhaps the social angle will help. Many people will not tolerate smokers as partners. One person I know told me that he quit when his GF told him that kissing him was like licking an ashtray. Another gay friend of mine who I tried to fix up with another wonderful–and cute :smiley: --gay friend was interested until he found out that the guy was a smoker.</p>

<p>It is possible for a person to smoke a little for months and not become an actual addict. (I confess to taking up a very minor amount of smoking in grad school at the U of C when hanging with the two smoking friends who are now dead, in their early 40s. I never became a true smoker.)</p>

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<p>I would be upset too as I am so anti-smoking. My kids watched their Aunt die at 39 from lung cancer that had spread to her brain and I think it made a big impression on the older ones. I know my husband smoked before I met him when he was living in Thailand and cigarettes were really cheap- he quit when he came back here and couldn’t afford them.</p>

<p>The only thing I might tell my son if he started smoking is that I know a lot of really cute girls who will not date guys who smoke. Neither of my girls would as they can’t stand the smell and say kissing a guy who smokes is disgusting. My younger one told her current long-term boyfriend she wouldn’t go out with him because he smoked. He kept after her for at least a year and then he quit smoking. </p>

<p>I am always shocked by how many young people smoke since we now know the effects of smoking. It always looks cheap to me and I also notice how smokers who are my age look way older than they should. Hopefully your son can stop before he gets too addicted. So sorry…</p>

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<p>Nope, and I’d be really upset if they did. My college kids say that they are shocked to see how many students smoke. (D even talked about starting a “Stop Smoking” campaign at her college.) Surely all of those students don’t become lifelong smokers. I hope it is just a phase for your son. Did you tell him the story about how you quit before he was born? Telling him you care about his health and not allowing him to smoke around you is about all you can do. </p>

<p>My dad started smoking in college and was a heavy smoker (2packs/day)through his 40s.
I have bad memories of him smoking in the car–our house, our clothes always smelled like smoke. He had a heart attack at 51 and was forced to quit, thank God. (He did try to quit many times. My mom always hated it, and hated losing the $ spent on cigarettes.) My idiot brother started smoking in college–after all my dad’s struggles, you think he’d know better, but his roommates were smokers, and he somehow took it up. He’s in his late 40’s now. His skin looks awful. He can’t shake the habit. His wife also smokes. Funny, though, they are not heavy smokers and they never smoke inside their own house (or anyone’s house)–only outside. (One of my pet peeves is going outside to a park or trail to get some “fresh air”–and breathing cigarette smoke!)</p>

<p>My young kids think cigarettes are like a horrible drug. They’ll say “OMG! There’s a man SMOKING!” They rarely see it. I’m so glad that has changed from the “ashtrays everywhere” days. Older S had a crush on on girl–never asked her out-- 'cause she’s a SMOKER.</p>

<p>My uncle died of lung cancer in his 40’s–of all my cousins, only HIS kids are smokers. Why?</p>

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<p>One little factoid a lot of people don’t grasp: smoking greatly increases your risk of lung cancer–even if you quit. The longer you smoke (and the more you smoke), the greater your risk. When you quit smoking, the risk stops going up–but it doesn’t go down. I think a lot of people mistakenly believe that they can smoke for a few years, and then quit, and then have the same risks as non-smokers. Not so.</p>

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<p>^^^</p>

<p>It does go down, and continues to go down the longer you’ve quit. (After 20 smoke-free years, my risk is considerably less than it once was.) But it never reaches the level of someone who never smoked in the first place. </p>

<p>Thanks, everyone, for confirming that I have a right to be upset. Yes, he knows that I quit when I found out he was on his way. (And repeated my bargain – along with other, similar bargains! – when he was in so much distress during the birth process, with his cord wrapped around his neck and his heart rate down to alarming levels. There was a concern about brain damage, for a while. After all these years, I still think of his turning out to be OK, after an emergency C-section, as somewhat miraculous.) </p>

<p>And believe me, I’ve told him how bad people who smoke can smell, and how it permeates all their clothing, permanently. He certainly hasn’t gotten to that point yet, and I hope he never does.</p>

<p>I haven’t made the dating argument specifically. I wonder if it’s as much of a handicap in the gay community. I do know that smoking rates are supposed to be higher among LGBT people, probably because of all the stress they’re (edited: I mean, we’re!) subject to.</p>

<p>(From what I’ve heard, it hasn’t handicapped him in Vienna so far.)</p>

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I think your risk of other health problems goes down, but I don’t think lung cancer risk does. I’ll check with my expert source, though.</p>

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<p>I’ve checked this out in the past, not surprisingly. That’s how I know.</p>

<p>[Lung</a> Cancer Risk Reduction After Smoking Cessation: Observations From a Prospective Cohort of Women ? JCO](<a href=“http://jco.ascopubs.org/content/21/5/921.full]Lung”>http://jco.ascopubs.org/content/21/5/921.full)</p>

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<p>[Health</a> benefits of quitting smoking?](<a href=“Socolive Tv | Trực Tiếp Bóng Đá Socolive ,xem Bóng Đá Socolive Live Full Blv Hd”>Socolive Tv | Trực Tiếp Bóng Đá Socolive ,xem Bóng Đá Socolive Live Full Blv Hd)</p>

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<p>And so on; there are dozens of articles/websites saying the same thing.</p>

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<p>“Although I suspect that smoking is more common in Europe than here, so that’s not helpful.”</p>

<p>What the heck are you basing that on, OP? This reminds me of the episode of the Office where Michael Scott, just by chance, happens to flash a coworker. He then tries to smooth things over by proclaiming that, “In Europe, Offices are naked all the time.”</p>

<p>That said, let me tell you something: your kid is all right. Your son is going to make decisions and hide things from you because, in the whirlwind that is young adulthood, experimentation is hindered by parents who try to referee outcomes and judge the experiments themselves. It doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love you, respect you, or value your judgement. It just means that he’s trying to create his own experience by his own rules - not necessarily yours. If you’re paying for school, you’re entitled to make him play by your rules. But, what’s he going to learn? Did you learn from the experience of others when you were in college?</p>

<p>So, yeah, you’re son is all right. But, he’s probably not experimenting with smoking - is there such a thing? He’s a full-time smoker. He’s probably having sex with girls - or men - and he’s certainly drinking and trying drugs. The question is: IS THIS ANY DIFFERENT FROM THE PAST?</p>

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<p>A lot more people smoked in the past. And a lot of them are dying now.</p>

<p>Smoking rates for men are significantly higher in Europe than in the US. Rates for women are closer. See: [International</a> comparisons in smoking](<a href=“http://www.heartstats.org/datapage.asp?id=889]International”>http://www.heartstats.org/datapage.asp?id=889)</p>

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<p>Well oldest went to Reed, where supposedly they have a high % of people who smoke & her dad smokes, although he has quit about 3 or 4 times ( and now is down to a few cigarettes a week), but I would be really surprised if she smokes- cigarettes I assume is what you are asking about.
;)</p>

<p>I quit smoking when they went up to $0.65 a pack- which was fairly easy & I suspect it was before they started adding extra nicotine and other chemicals to the tobacco. ( I think gas was also about $0.75 gal)</p>

<p>Before H’s latest attempt at quiting smoking, he switched to american spirit cigarettes. More expensive ( we have very high sin taxes in Wa), but they seemed to not have as many chemicals added, which made them easier to wean off of.
[Butt</a> test shows U.S. cigarettes high in chemicals | Reuters](<a href=“http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6506EU20100601]Butt”>Butt test shows U.S. cigarettes high in chemicals | Reuters)</p>

<p>I would be very concerned as well Donna, my oldest also had in utero adventures with her umbilical cord- it wasn’t wrapped around her neck, but it was tied in THREE true knots, she is in the medical journals for it because * that is never supposed to happen*. ( Also had a crash C-section for fetal distress @ 30 weeks).</p>

<p>I know that smokers often argue that smoking calms them down, but IMO, it is the stopping and concentrating on something that they perceive is calming not the actual ingestion of smoke & chemicals.</p>

<p>I have read several reports however about the connection between smoking and schizophrenia, not that you need something else to worry about, but it is interesting.
[Schizophrenia</a> and smoking - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia_and_smoking]Schizophrenia”>Schizophrenia and tobacco smoking - Wikipedia)</p>

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<p>Commonly-known statistics. Not to mention personal observation. Why so belligerent? (I don’t even have to look up previous posts of yours to know that you’re a kid, not a parent. But that’s no excuse.)</p>

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<p>I looked very quickly, but it doesn’t seem to suggest that the smoking causes or exacerbates schizophrenia, just that people with schizophrenia smoke more.</p>

<p>I’m glad it isn’t the former, because my son has a multi-generational family history of schizophrenia (aunt, great-aunt, and great-grandmother) on my ex’s side. Fortunately, and knock on wood, he’s never shown the least sign of it. (Contrary to what one often reads about people who supposedly develop it with no warning in their early 20’s, there are signs if you know what to look for. But I don’t want to change the subject of this thread from smoking to schizophrenia; more things to worry about I don’t need!)</p>

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<p>Donna, if it makes you feel any better my 21 year old has a couple of habits I am very opposed to. He knows my feelings about them. That said, he is 21 years old and can do as he pleases. (Before any asks, yes he is “off my payroll”.)
We parents can post all the smoking stats we want but we can’t control other adults.<br>
I get anxious about DS and then I have to remind myself that I can’t control him and that I need to breathe more. :)</p>

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<p>I’d be upset. In addition to lung disease, smoking adversely affects just about every organ system in the body. Additionally, it’s gross and often bothers innocent bystanders. I hope for his sake that he tires of this quickly.</p>

<p>But you’re right-other than stating your opinion and insisting that your home remain smoke free, not much you can do but hope and cross your fingers.</p>

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<p>Donna, when I first met my husband he was smoker, a pretty avid one. I tried telling him I didn’t like it, I tried giving him the statistics, I tried shaming him. Nothing worked. Then I found out that he had always wanted to eat in a certain, very high end restaurant in Chicago, one he had heard about his whole life, but knew he could never afford. So I told him, “Look, you know how I feel about smoking, and I know I agreed to stop pushing you about it, but here’s the deal. When you quit, whenever you quit, and you tell me that you are sure you have quit, I will take you to dinner there and we will order any thing and everything.” Never said another word about his smoking. Seven months later he had not had a cigarette in six months. We went to dinner, the bill came to over $300 for the two of us (this was over 25 years ago!). He has never smoke again. Best $300 dollars I ever spent.</p>

<p>Maybe you should think of something he has always wanted, let him know it is out there for him when he can say he is no longer a smoker and then back off. Might work.</p>

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<p>Smoking is horrible and I would be very upset, but there is little you can do about it. I hope it is just a phase. Damage CAN be reversed fairly quickly- especially if the smoking isn’t long term.</p>

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<p>"The question is: IS THIS ANY DIFFERENT FROM THE PAST? "</p>

<p>Hey! How come YOU get to decide what the question is?</p>

<p>I smoked in medical school and in my residency…in the hospital emergency room, and in the doctors lounge. That’s how I met H; arguing with someone about it. He HATED it, and although when I was mad I “smoked at him”, I DID stop. When I moved from NY to Cal, I stopped, because it seemed MUCH less socially acceptable here. I think that makes a difference to the less addicted.</p>