Parenting: 4 & 5-Year-Olds Community

OK...I am jumping on this post because cigarettes are only $5 a pack by you???!!! They are close to $10 a pack here in NY!!!!!!

I started smoking at 13 years old....socially....it was "cool" and eventually I smoked a pack a day until I was 23. When I became pregnant with DS1 I cut down tremendously. I gradually got from 20 cigarettes a day to just a puff or so a day. When I was 6 1/2 months pregnant, DH and I got married (on our dating anniversary). The morning of the wedding, I wanted a drag SO bad but I already had my makeup and everything on so I couldn't brush my teeth afterwards. I knew when the reverand said you may now kiss the bride and if my husband smelled the smoke on my breath he would have divorced me right then and there haha! So every September 1, we celebrate our dating anniversary, our wedding anniversary and my smoke free anniversary. This past September it was 13 years of dating, 5 years of marriage and 5 years of being smoke free!

I think I will tell my kids. My mom smokes, my sister smokes and my other sister smoked but quit 9 months ago! I make a big deal that cigarettes are gross and I don't want him near the smoke or anything. I want them to know it was a huge mistake and I wish I never did it. Quitting was the hardest thing I ever had to do.

TRIGGER

I never smoked. I grew up with mom who smoked 2 packs a day- which I don't even see how you can do anymore since you can't smoke anywhere, certainly not chain smoke like she and the rest fo her family used to.

My mom has quit before and started up again eventually- even after having a heart attack 5 years ago. She finds it very hard to quit and I know she has really tried before- though not really anymore- she says everyone has to have a vice. Plus no one gets out alive, though my sister and I tell her how much it's going to suck when she lives to 100 smoking but we die of lung cancer from her secondhand smoke. My sister has much more of a pronbelm with it than I do, but my sister saw her flatline when she had a heart attack and I didn't. I'm happy she's still alive and don't want to have the same argument with her every time I see her now, even though I wish she'd stop.

I never did it because cigarettes taste awful. As a child she would send me to the store to buy them for her- what a difference 35years makes- and when I was a teenager and she couldn't find her lighter, I would light them on the stove for her occasionally- and you have to take a puff to do it. I never learned to inhale right ( I always believed Bill Clinton!) but the taste is digusting, so I never started.

I'll tell my kids anything they wnat to know about me- by the time they ask the tough questions I think they will have realized that I am not perfect.

Vics, my mom was the same. She smoked up to the day she died. It was one of the reasons she refused oxygen. She was a two pack a day person. I too remember buying them for her as a child.

I have never smoked nor has DH. I don't think Levi ever will but I will physically harm him if he tries.

I also will tell him anything he wants to know about me. Parents aren't prefect and we shouldn't pretend to be.

My whole family smokes, I swear. My mom smokes so much she is rarely without a cigarette. I cannot stand the smell of them or even looking at them. My boyfriend of 3 years smokes and I wont even kiss him after he goes outside. We recently got engaged, and he knows that I will never be okay with him smoking.It is just awful. I also do not let him do it around my 3 year old. I do not want him to think that it is okay. My mom smoking for my whole life has placed a negative outlook on smoking as it should for everyone! YUCK!

I never smoked. Tried one cigarette once and almost choked I coughed so much.

I have an uncle who smokes. He tried to quit and made his family's life so miserable (for example, he accused my aunt of cooking the food different when she always cooked it the same. He's onery anyway and that just made it worse) that his kids went out and bought him a pack of cigarettes. He still smokes but goes outside, even at his own house.

An ex boyfriend used to smoke but had to quit cold turkey when he developed pneumonia and the beginnings of emphysema. It didn't bother me when we dated but after we broke up but were still friends, I would change my clothes after I came home from his place becuase I couldn't stand the smell.

My mother smoked my entire childhood. I hated everything about cigarettes as a kid but admit trying them as a 18-20 year old because almost everyone I knew smoked. Luckily for me, I still hated them and outgrew that phase of my life quickly. When I married DH and moved to Northern California I was so happy that NOBODY he knew or that lived near us smoked at all. No smokers in bars, hotels or anywhere-- awesome-- and it's been that way ever since. My kids have only seen a lit cigarette once or twice but know exactly how I feel about them and not only seem to share my beliefs but understand the health risks on all sides caused by smoking.

I can honestly say that if my mother had not stopped we would not have the relationship we have now. Before DD1 was born I told my mom that she was not welcome to inflict her nasty habit on my child like she did my brother and I and I really meant it. She hasn't smoked in 9 years and is a daily presence in all 3 of my kids lives. She even moved to our town and thanks me often for forcing her to think about her future in a way she was never able to do.

Nope - never smoked. Never tried cigarettes. My parents don't smoke but my brother started in his teens and still smokes at age 42.

I smoked a pack a day for 12 years. I quit 3 months after I watched my dad die of pancreatic cancer. When he found out he was terminal he took up smoking again - he had quit for a decade at least. I didn't really blame him, but, I didn't want to go that way.

By the time DD is old enough to consider smoking I suspect pot will be legal and cigarettes not. THAT would be an interesting conversation.

I'm proud of all you "quitters"!

I never smoked, but my father was smoking 4-4.5 packs a day by the time he quit when I was 4. You may think I'm exaggerating the number, but remember this was the late 70s early 80s and he could smoke at work in his office. My mom said he was basically never without a cigarette, he started when he joined the Marine Corps because smokers got a break and non-smokers didn't.

He stopped when he did because my pediatrician told him it was the cigarettes or me. I had had chronic bronchitis and the doctor told him he was causing it.

Growing up hearing about him smoking and then quitting for me, I never really considered it, as a teen I was a bit sensitive to it, but now it's almost a full blown allergy. I can't be around smoke very much at all, and even someone who smells like smoke general irritates my throat and sinuses and I start coughing and sneezing. A woman came in late to class Monday night and sat next to me and I had to get up and move because she smelled so bad from the smoke.

I smoke. I am not proud of it. It is an expensive and very unhealthy habit. I have tried to quit, no sucess. I never smoke around my kids.

You are right! They are almost $10 a pack here in Los Angeles.

I will probably end up telling my kids but I'll have to come here and run it by everyone. Hopefully, this is not a confession I have to make soon.

Happy anniversary on the smoke free and marriage.

H

I am proud of all the quitters too....for anyone who is ready to quit or wants to pass this along to friends and family, here are, IMO, the best WebMD resources that would have helped me:

Smoking cessation community . Interact with others and ask questions of the expert.


13 best quit smoking tips ever



Everything you wanted to know about "smoking cessation""026.and more!


My overall feeling is thinking of how much money the tobacco companies have made off everyone who is a smoker. Think if all that money was spent on health and wellness!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Haylen

I quit on 1/4/11!

Smoked since I was 13, stopped at 29. More then half my life.

I quit bc DS asked me too.

Everyone in my family smokes. My mom was COPD and smokes still!

It's really hard. Really really hard to quit. Don't give up! I know people who quit through acupuncture, hypnosis, drugs like Zyban....there are lots of options out there.