Traits of Trifling Parents

3.  Smoking Around Your Child

In my article “Sick By Association” I mentioned how parents’ second hand smoke can place their children’s health in danger.  I don’t defend my parent’s choice to choose to smoke in the home, but I can understand the limited understanding of its effects that they may have had in the seventies and eighties.  Most of the smoke from a burning cigarette does not get inhaled into the smoker’s lungs, it escapes into the air.  Meaning that anyone nearby is essentially inhaling all of the gases and chemicals in cigarettes right along with the user.

Were my parents trifling?  Not by any means, but I can show you hospital bills of bronchitis and asthma treatments that still make me question if that second-hand smoke inhaled in my childhood is the culprit.  Many parents get misled if they don’t see the effects of second-hand smoke immediately in their children.  But according to the American Cancer Society, about 3000 non-smokers die every year from lung disease as a result of repeated exposure to second-hand smoke.  Statewide smoking bans don’t even allow you to put strangers’ health at risk in public places; your children can’t choose where they live, but you can choose where you light up.