Here's an image: Hold your infant in one arm, take a drag with the other.

[Fairy]

At my SIL's this weekend, there was a family there with their two young children, one was 4 or so, the other was brand new, no older than 3 months. She and my SIL were on the porch with other folks, so I went and sat by them and was immediately assaulted by the smoke. I don't like being rude, but I will not exist in the same medium as cigarette smoke. So, I just went to stand right back up when I saw this girl was not only sitting with her baby laying across her lap, but she was smoking a cigarette right over him. AND, jsut a bit later, she was carrying him in one arm while taking a drag of her cigarette with the other. I tried not to register my disgust, but I'm an easily readable girl. Luckily, my MIL approached right when I was in shocksville, sat down right next to her and lit up. IN FRONT OF THE BABY! I wonder if she did it to spite me cuz we've made cleawr she is not to smoke around DS, and this annoys her. So, lucky for me, her presence stole focus from me as I got up and walked away in utter disgust.

I understand it's a habit. I understand that it's hard to break this habit and that few people actually want to be a smoker in this day and age and think it's not harmful. I understand that drive that NEED to have your addiction. What I don't understand is a) insisting on feeding your addiction in the presence of an infant whether the mother is doign the same or not when there's tons of otehr places she could have gone, and b) why a mother would not hand off her baby first, then go smoke. I'm jsut puzzled.

[elizabethkott]

:47:

Are.
You.
Kidding.

Sadly, I know you're not.

Yeish.

I suppose we should all be thrilled that she at least made the responsible choice to not nurse the baby while smoking, right?
I wouldn't even drink a hot drink while nursing or holding J when he was that little! God forbid some of the still lit ash falls on the poor baby's face or something!!! And that's just in addition to the poor dear's smoke inhalation....

:eek:

[egoldber]

Sadly, this is just really normal in the area where I grew up. :(

[Fairy]

I think it's actually kind of normal in the area this gathering was, too. All my IL side of the family is like this with at attitude to smoking like "get over it, your baby isn't gonna die." My SIL is the lone one who feels as I do, but this whole to-do didn't seem to faze even her. I just never ever grew up this way, nor do any of my friends have this attitude. But it does seem normal for the area I was, as it's not hte first time I've encountered shock from smoking behavior.

[momof2girls]

Smoking with a baby in one's arms is very common in the smoking area just outside Cinderella's castle in DisneyWorld. It is child abuse IMO and it sickens me when I see it there.

[Tondi G]

I think I would have offered to hold the baby while everyone had their smoke break!

YUCK!

[SkyrMommy]

:duh: I just don't understand that line of behavior at all. But, if the adult is in denial about how bad smoking is I guess they can't possibly understand the awfulness for the little ones.

Sigh... my cousin & his wife smoke around their children. At family events they do go outside, but everything about them smells when they come in & when the wife held DD for a bit, DD smelled just nasty when she came back to me.

[MamaKath]

Yuck! Sad to think that this is considered normal in so many places.

[♥ms.pacman♥]

Yuck! Sad to think that this is considered normal in so many places.

:yeahthat: i agree. :shake: i grew up in CA mostly, and i think most everyone (including me) would be *shocked* to see something like this (holding a baby in one hand, smoking a cig with the other).

[LexyLou]

I don't think I could hide my disgust. I really don't.

[klwa]

Sadly, this is just really normal in the area where I grew up. :(

:yeahthat: Yep, I wouldn't think a thing about it being odd. Would I do it? Heck, no. But wouldn't occur to me to be shocked when others did it.