Should second-hand smoke be illegal in a home with children?

LaughingRN · Mar 12, 2011

we have to choose our battles... i realize that...but being a child of a smoking parent, with asthma, not smoking a cigarette a day in my life, is much different then skipping some veggies!

I don't think that your use of "we" is fair. You can't prioritize health issues related to lifestyle, with asthma over others simply because of your personal anecdotal history.

I see children at work everyday who are taking blood pressure medications. Children.

I have children that are diabetic with "adult onset" diabetes at ages you wouldn't believe. Sure, the health issues aren't killing them yet, but when we start to see children or young adults in their early 20's with MI's and strokes does it then become a real health problem?

The point is, I think everyone on here agrees smoking with children in an enclosed area is terrible, but we need to look at the larger social issues attached to enforcing such new laws you are proposing, as well as fairness.

btw, I have asthma, which required hospitalizations when I was younger and many meds now, but my parents were non-smokers- so the issues don't always go hand in hand

stefanyjoy · Mar 12, 2011

I'm a smoker (Well, I'm on day 2 of quitting for the last time!!), and while I disapprove of government interference in our homes, I have to say child protection should be the exception. I mean, if a parent does not care about their child's health enough to smoke in their home with the child present, it really makes me wonder if they are a fit parent at all. I don't buy into "well, people just need education!" EVERYONE knows smoking poses serious health risks. I believe parents who smoke inside their homes are knowingly causing harm to their children, and that is child abuse. Just my :twocents:

So yes, it should be illegal to smoke in the home, or in a car, with a child present.

sevensonnets · Mar 12, 2011

I know how such a law would be enforced. DHS would be more than happy to go door-to-door to round up children living with smoking parents. Wouldn't that be a windfall for the foster care system?

WildcatFanRN, BSN, RN · Mar 12, 2011

Are you kidding me? When smoke is blown in my face, I CANT BREATHE!!!

No one can breathe when it's blown directly in your face.

I'm just getting tired of all this "your an unfit parent because *insert lifestyle choice". My husband doesn't smoke around me or our daughter, but because he smokes he's an unfit parent? CPS is overworked as it is with parents who actually abuse their children, you know beat them, neglect them, kill them. But heaven forbid if a person smokes in their own home and they have children. Yes, I know smoking is not good for you. But equating second hand smoke with child abuse seems to me to trivialize real abuse. Who is going to enforce these laws anyway? There are equally as intrusive laws on the books depending on where you live concerning what a person can or cannot do in their bedroom, who's enforcing those? If a person's only failing is the fact that they smoke, yet their child actually has a loving home, food on the table, isn't beaten or emotionally abused, and unlike a few actually don't have any health issues...is that parent still unfit? I guess what comes next is a questionaire for pregnant women that asks "does anyone smoke in your home?" If the answer is yes, I guess they should take the baby away as soon as it's born to protect it from living in a dangerous home with unfit parents. (last sentence is in extreme sarcasm....I hope)

LongislandRN23 · Mar 12, 2011

I think that smoking around children is irresponsible to say the least. Do I think there should be a LAW and make it ILLEGAL? NO! People need to mind their own business. The goverment should not be intruding in our lives.

Chin up · Mar 12, 2011

Hey, what do I know. I grew up in a home full of smoke, lived in a house full of lead paint and was surrounded by cars spewing leaded gas. When my mother took me to the doctors, he smoked as he spoke to my mom about my health. When we visited my nana in a nursing home, the nurses smoked at the nurse station. When I became a teen, I put leaded lipstick on, foundation with embalming fluid and nail polish with formaldehyde. I sat on grass full DDT and drank from bottles full BPH. Because I wanted to be thin, I drank copious amounts of Tab soda. Oh, I am also a DES girl, never wore a seatbelt and never sat in a baby seat...I am surprised I am still alive..

Seriously, we get it. I would hope parents do right by their kids, but just because some don't, it does not mean a law has to be made. There are great parents who smoke and horrible parents who don't. Do we take away their children and put them in foster care...do we tell pregnant smokers to get an abortion...you can't put people in a bubble. Life is a set of choices...ours...and it is called free will. People make good and bad choices everyday, that is life. Until perfection arrives, live and let live.

LongislandRN23 · Mar 12, 2011

I can't smoke in many public places, I cannot have my car windows tinted too dark, I cannot J-walk (not that I would just saying), I cannot park at certain times and certain places b/c I will get a ticket (b/c the town is poor not for safety), gay couples cannot marry, there is a 10% tax on indoor tanning, I cannot drink beer in public (not public intoxification), it seems that people in 3rd world countries may have more daily liberties. What's the next the goverment is going to tax me/not allow me to cut my hair??

blondy2061h, MSN, RN · Mar 12, 2011

I think smoking should be illegal, period. I know this is an extremely unpopular belief, though. Also know it will probably never happen.

Despareux · Mar 12, 2011

I admit, I am very, very torn on this subject. The first time I went into this woman's home (years ago), she was sitting at her table smoking a cigarette. Her 6 month old baby, who was born at 25 weeks gestation, was lying in the living room with her nasal cannula and oxygen tank in use. I was shocked! I asked why she didn't smoke outside and she admitted to me that it wouldn't matter if she went outside or not because the baby's father refuses to smoke outside. Over the years, she and I developed somewhat of a friendship. So many times I tried to talk her and her boyfriend out of smoking around her baby. I showed them both supporting evidence of the dangers of second-hand smoke. Nothing I did helped.

That baby is now a 5th grader with mild learning disabilities and a chronic smokers cough. As a matter of fact, all of her other children have some sort of learning/behavioral problems, and every one of them have a smokers cough.

Now I don't know if their cough is an actual smokers cough. But they have moved many times, so I don't know if there is an association to where they have lived, but all of the kids have a year round cough. Every time she attempted to quit, she would joke that her kids were going through nicotine withdrawal because they seemed irritable.

Just because a child may appear normal and healthy does not mean they are. Smoking is dangerous and I feel that this family was grossly negligent.

starzrn · Mar 12, 2011

Hey, what do I know. I grew up in a home full of smoke, lived in a house full of lead paint and was surrounded by cars spewing leaded gas. When my mother took me to the doctors, he smoked as he spoke to my mom about my health. When we visited my nana in a nursing home, the nurses smoked at the nurse station. When I became a teen, I put leaded lipstick on, foundation with embalming fluid and nail polish with formaldehyde. I sat on grass full DDT and drank from bottles full BPH. Because I wanted to be thin, I drank copious amounts of Tab soda. Oh, I am also a DES girl, never wore a seatbelt and never sat in a baby seat...I am surprised I am still alive..
Seriously, we get it. I would hope parents do right by their kids, but just because some don't, it does not mean a law has to be made. There are great parents who smoke and horrible parents who don't. Do we take away their children and put them in foster care...do we tell pregnant smokers to get an abortion...you can't put people in a bubble. Life is a set of choices...ours...and it is called free will. People make good and bad choices everyday, that is life. Until perfection arrives, live and let live.

okay, let me ask you this...is there anything that would cause you to want a child removed from a home? I used to feel like I was suffocating around my dad in the car and our home...where was my free will to breathe?

CBsMommy · Mar 12, 2011

I would like to know, OP, what did you do when you walked into the house full of smoke with an infant?

neuroms · Mar 12, 2011

It should be illegal as it amounts to extreme neglect with endangerment, if not outright abuse. If I saw that a child had been left in a car with the windows up on a hot day, I would call the police. How much more harmful is it to force a child to be inundated with literally toxic air 24-hours a day for his/her entire childhood?