I have (unfortunately) grown up around smokers all my life. My parents smoked cigarettes all the time, in the house, out of the house, morning, day and night. I was extremely embarrassed by the smell of it, and how it would make our whole house smell like smoke. Kids would tease us at school saying that we smoked, because our clothes smelled like it. I rarely invited people over to the house because of it. I HATED it. When learning about second hand smoke at school and how it's a danger to those around the people that do smoke, I was appalled to learn that my parents were not only putting their own health at risk, but also the health of my brother, sister, and I. I went home that day, enraged and determined to convince my parents of why they shouldn't smoke. I remember putting up No Smoking signs around the house, and making a BIG deal about it when they smoked inside. I even started throwing away any cigarettes that I saw! (Not whole packs, but if I saw random ones lying around, or half used ones that my parents wanted to finish later)
Nothing worked. As I'm sure anyone who has smoked for a while can tell you, the only way to truly quit is if you want to do it for yourself and no one else. My parents later moved on from cigarettes to cigars! Which normally would be better, considering most people don't inhale cigars. Well, parents do! So it's actually even WORSE than smoking cigarettes! Ugh!
Anyways, it still blows my mind how naive they still are about it all. I come over and immediately start coughing or covering my mouth because of how smoky it is. My mom will say some comment about how they haven't smoked inside all day and how she has no idea why I smell it. DUH! You'd think after almost 30 years of smoking inside, they would realize that the smell travels and sticks to EVERYTHING! Clothes, blinds, carpets, even the furniture smells like smoke!
It makes me really sad to think about all of this, especially considering that my grandfather died from complications of smoking (emphysema and lung cancer). He even stopped at one point! He smoked for 40 years, but didn't smoke for 20 and STILL had all of those problems. I really thought that would jog some kind of motivation for my parents to stop, but no. I really hate to think about when I have kids, and how I'll be hesitant to bring them over to their house because of the smoke. I really hope that they quit before it's too late.
What's even sadder, is that I'm the only one in the family that didn't pick it up. My brother and sister have both smoked (and one still does now) cigarettes on a regular basis. I know that had they not grown up with it around them, they would have been less likely to be smokers.
There are so many things that come to mind, about what my future children could do to really get me angry...smoking is totally one of those things. I would FLIP out if my child started doing that. And hopefully since I don't smoke, don't condone it, and also have family history to prove how awful it is, my children will hopefully grow up as non-smokers like I did.
Thoughts?
P.S. I LOVE that there are so many non-smoking restaurants now! Woo! I still see smoking hotel rooms, but as long as they have non-smoking options, it's cool. Glad the public/government has been getting their act together with that!
