Smoking Pipe around Children...

[The Benedictine]

I know we’re talking specifically about pipe smoking, but I hope all the “I don’t do its” are just as careful about what the kids eat, drink, watch, listen to, etc.

I don't see the issue. I grew up around pipe and cigarette smoke. My nephews have as well. My sister smokes like a chimney.

Funny story about today: cake home from work and my sister wanted to try a pipe. I told her it's fine and to pick whatever tobacco she wanted. She picked my rustica. I warned her it was strong. Ten minutes later she puked.

 

[Some Joe Blow]

Everything we do -- including with our children -- falls somewhere along a sliding scale of risk. Discerning where on that scale you're comfortable might involve comparison to other activities, including those which probably pose equal or greater risk and yet somehow aren't controversial.

I'm bearing in mind that you're asking only about
(a) your own children (because, obviously, you do whatever other parents want regarding their children)
(b) indoor smoking (because I can't imagine anybody worrying about anything outdoors)

I'm blessed with 7 children, ages 2 to 17, and I'll share our take on this for whatever it's worth:

My kids all love my pipes and pipe-smoking. Some are more fascinated than others. They all have preferred pipes that they ask me to choose (and that they ask to inherit someday), and many have preferred tobaccos (RE: the room note). Commenting critically on the room note has turned into a minor facet of our family culture. For them the pipes are a feature of Dad, and perhpas of Dad-ness.

Our home is large and the smoke tends to dissipate quickly and easily. We don't notice any lingering smell the next day (granted, I typically smoke one pipe every-other day ... the results might be different if I were smoking multiple pipes every day). It doesn't concentrate in an area in a way that creates an obvious danger-zone.

What with heavy incense in church, and wood smoke, oil lamps, and candles in the home, it's hard to believe that my few pipes a week change the situation much. Which has been a pretty standard situation through history.

Having said all this, I do stop smoking inside the house during a baby's first year. Is that really necessary? I don't know, but I play it safe for that first year of lung development.
In the case of our youngest, he was a preemie who spent 5 weeks in the NICU, so I played it extra safe and didn't smoke inside the house for 18 months, just to make sure that he was really thriving first. (Now he has his own cob that he sticks in his mouth whenever I smoke. He sits beside me and asks to borrow the tamper. Seriously.)

Thank You very much for the reply on this! This was certainly a great help and gave me more perspective on how other Fathers are going about this.

 

[fireground_piper]

Last thing I want is to hang out with little kids. I'm glad that mothers seeing me constantly smoking pipes keeps them and their kids away from me. If I never have to hold someone's baby, I will live a much happier life.

Finally, someone who gets me!

 

[pappymac]

I don't see the issue. I grew up around pipe and cigarette smoke. My nephews have as well. My sister smokes like a chimney.

Funny story about today: cake home from work and my sister wanted to try a pipe. I told her it's fine and to pick whatever tobacco she wanted. She picked my rustica. I warned her it was strong. Ten minutes later she puked.

See. You were not being helpful.
If you would have picked out the tobacco for her, she may have lasted 15 minutes before puking.

Seriously though, I had a friend interested in trying a pipe so I gave him a cob loaded with burley blend I had on hand.

He was a cigarette smoker so I warned him, "DON'T INHALE!"

He inhaled. And, before he finished the pipe he covered his new Nikes with leftover lunch.

 

[Briar Lee]

Of far more concern is to set a good example for your children.

My father died suddenly when I was 13 in 1971.

He spanked me one time, when I pushed a neighbor kid off my old bicycle, and he said it was because I didn’t let him ride my brand new one.

I saw him get his gun to go kill a man one time, who’d propositioned my mother on a gravel road and made her cry.

When we went to town he was clean and well dressed and never told dirty jokes or flirted with the waitresses that fawned over him.

Every Sunday morning and evening, and every Wednesday evening, my father opened the church services at the Humansville Christian Church, as the Superintendent of the Elders.

He started my mother’s shiny, clean car every morning she ever taught school and told her how pretty she was and thanked her for how well she was raising me.

He was by far the happiest man I’ve ever known, who whistled a tune most all of the time.

And my father’s friends were all like him, even Harry Hosterman who smoked a pipe.

 

[SBC]

Of far more concern is to set a good example for your children.

My father died suddenly when I was 13 in 1971.

He spanked me one time, when I pushed a neighbor kid off my old bicycle, and he said it was because I didn’t let him ride my brand new one.

I saw him get his gun to go kill a man one time, who’d propositioned my mother on a gravel road and made her cry.

When we went to town he was clean and well dressed and never told dirty jokes or flirted with the waitresses that fawned over him.

Every Sunday morning and evening, and every Wednesday evening, my father opened the church services at the Humansville Christian Church, as the Superintendent of the Elders.

He started my mother’s shiny, clean car every morning she ever taught school and told her how pretty she was and thanked her for how well she was raising me.

He was by far the happiest man I’ve ever known, who whistled a tune most all of the time.

And my father’s friends were all like him, even Harry Hosterman who smoked a pipe.

I'm saving this post for my future reference. This is who I want to be.

 

[Briar Lee]

The woman who took this photo was my father’s fiancé in 1940 on his 21st birthday.



My father dumped her to marry my mother in 1946.

In 2009 I had a sale of my mother’s household articles (minus a mountain of things I kept) and an incredibly beautiful lady about ninety years old, a head taller than anyone else in the crowd, saw me and waked up to me and said, you must be Bruce’s son.

And I cried and said that’s the best compliment I’ve ever had.

You must be Janis Tillery.

She sat down beside me and cried and spent a half hour telling me and my youngest son what a good boy he was, and gave me a bunch of photos she’d saved.

After she left my son asked how did you know she was Janis Tillery?

I said because when my Mama got mad at my Daddy, his worst sin, was him having a “long giraffe necked blonde girlfriend named Janice Tillery” before he met her.

And my mother also said the first time she met his parents, his mother looked her up and down and said Bruce why would you want that skinny little river rat when you could have Janis Tillery for the asking?

Only my birth, caused the old lady I called Mammy to shine up to my Mama.

Mammy died when I was two, and if she walked through the door I’d run to her, and want her to hold me.

Never say one word around a child, you don’t want them to remember for life.

 

[ofafeather]

Never say one word around a child, you don’t want them to remember for life.

Truth

 

[Briar Lee]

Truth

My mother more or less kept her lucidity to the last day of her life but as she lay dying, there were brief times, she’d mistake me for my father.

Once she giggled and said let’s go visit your father Briggs. It’s a shame he’s the only man I’ve ever met more handsome than you.

When I walked up beside you to that storybook perfect new house and your mother insulted me, Briggs took me out to the big red barn and gave me a horse and a brand new saddle, and sent us off to Spout Spring Hollow to meet Eva, Dixie, Helene and Wanda (Brigg’s sister and three young daughters, who also worshiped my father).

By the time we got back your mother had supper, and she wasn’t as good a cook as I was afraid she’d be.

Then she said oh, you are Van, not Bruce.

And I said I hope to be as good as Briggs, some day.



Briggs wore a tie, to do chores. He was 60 in 1940. It’s my only photo of Briggs without a cigar.



Because, his father Alvin wore a nice hat and a tie, all the time.

Always be nice to your children’s love interests.

My mother held Briggs when he died in that house in 1952.

 

[Gerald Boone]

Just wanted to get opinions on the matter, Haven't smoked in quite some time just to avoid exposing the kiddo to smoke. But wanted to hear some thoughts on the matter, I personally grew up with cigarette smoke around my entire life whether Mom, Dad, Grandma or Grandpa were holding me and having or smoke or whether it was in another room. Looking back I surely wouldn't condone it now, but however this was cigarette smoke not pipes and cigars which don't contain half the junk in cigarettes.

Anyhow. I'm not looking for the green light on smoking while holding my infant, but wanted to hear some experiences and how long I should wait before exposing my children to my pipe smoke. Normal conditions I'd smoke in my study which is just the room adjacent to where my child is.

Please share your thoughts, Much thanks in advance!

I think the

No.
Not while holding an infant. Not only are you exposing them to the smoke but to the occasional hot ember flying up from the bowl. I have too many t-shirts with burn holes to risk burning an infant.

I have never had a problem smoking my pipe while around children when I'm outside. As a personal rule, I don't smoke inside because I don't want to risk the smell of burning pipe tobacco lingering in the house.

I to have those shirts with holes.

 

[Gerald Boone]

Just wanted to get opinions on the matter, Haven't smoked in quite some time just to avoid exposing the kiddo to smoke. But wanted to hear some thoughts on the matter, I personally grew up with cigarette smoke around my entire life whether Mom, Dad, Grandma or Grandpa were holding me and having or smoke or whether it was in another room. Looking back I surely wouldn't condone it now, but however this was cigarette smoke not pipes and cigars which don't contain half the junk in cigarettes.

Anyhow. I'm not looking for the green light on smoking while holding my infant, but wanted to hear some experiences and how long I should wait before exposing my children to my pipe smoke. Normal conditions I'd smoke in my study which is just the room adjacent to where my child is.

Please share your thoughts, Much thanks in advance!

I think what Pappymac said was great advice: Not while holding an infant. Not only are you exposing them to the smoke but to the occasional hot ember flying up from the bowl. A hot ember accident and you may never want to smoke ever again. Turn that study into the ultimate mancave and smoke in comfort in the Utopia you have built.

 

[DotAndBang’sPipes]

I’m 44 years old. I have little girls. My wife has birthed these girls with the oppressive weight of “mommy blogs” promoting kale chips and all kinds of other recent trends. I don’t smoke in my house for resale value reasons, but I do in my office/shed. And when my daughters come out to my office and I’m smoking - which is every time- I just pleasantly conjure the centuries of other fathers and daughters who related in the beautiful fog of pipe smoke and I’m brought back to sanity. Thankfully my wife also seems to have enough circumspection to grasp this, too. There are so many things to be afraid of in this world, pipe smoke is not one of them. Maybe that’s just romantic idealism, but I’d like to share that perspective with my daughters as they grow up.

 

[Briar Lee]

When I was in the fifth grade I won a couple of King Edward cigars at a stand at the annual school carnival that was held in the gym.

(Can you imagine a public school today giving out cigar prizes to fifth graders in public?)

I knew all those teachers were in cahoots and I correctly predicted the teacher who ran the booth would snitch me out, and to my father and not my mother. My father was the President of the School Board.

My father asked me the next day about my cigars, and he offered to go with me down on the creek and smoke them without my mother knowing.

We conspired to steal a few strike anywhere matches from Mama’s match box over the stove and went out to smoke our cigars. I could take you now to the spot where my father showed me how to unwrap them and we each lit up.

He turned green and got sick and I just loved mine, and smoked the rest of his after he went to milk.

I’d remembered to take along some peppermints to cover up the smell, and sat down there on the creek safe, and worried Mama might come out to the milk barn and catch him, but she didn’t.

I had two more foil wrapped Canadian Club cigars I saved and smoked later.

Every day of my life, I’ve known smoking was not something you’d brag about to your mother you were going to start up.

And everybody that ever gave me any advice about tobacco was against me enjoying it.


I just though that in my particular case, I’d be able to quit any time I wanted to.

I’ve given up giving up tobacco.

 

[Richmond B. Funkenhouser]

My parents smoked around me. Everything was always clouded with smoke.

They loved me more than anything, the best parents you could ask for.

My mom is a very healthy old lady, with a clean and fresh house. We'll sit in her living room chainsmoking and talking for hours. If she runs out of Virginia Slims she'll bum one of mine and complain about how strong they are.

My old man quit when I was a kid, he had a bad cough... Maybe it was just a chest infection, maybe he had started to develop COPD. Back then he wouldn't go to the doctor if he was snake bit.

We were all glad he quit... His cough was concerning.

As far as how I run my shit here with my family... Nope, I ain't going there. Not in this crazy new world.

But I told my boy... if anybody ask you, tell 'em I don't smoke.

 

[Richmond B. Funkenhouser]

And my boy is healthy. He's 12 and built like a ninja. Football practice in the morning (he's a linebacker), and Basketball practice in the afternoon.

I can't remember when he was sick.

He's been carrying 50lb bags of feed since he was 10.

If you want you're kids to be healthy, whether you smoke around 'em or not, get them outside under the sun that God put in the sky for them.

Serve 'em Grade A milk from Bugtussle or Pettycoat Junction... Or Wherever it comes from.

 

[jpberg]

And my boy is healthy. He's 12 and built like a ninja. Football practice in the morning (he's a linebacker), and Basketball practice in the afternoon.

I can't remember when he was sick.

He's been carrying 50lb bags of feed since he was 10.

If you want you're kids to be healthy, whether you smoke around 'em or not, get them outside under the sun that God put in the sky for them.

Serve 'em Grade A milk from Bugtussle or Pettycoat Junction... Or Wherever it comes from.

That’s kinda where I land on questions like this.
Should I smoke around the kids is maybe one tenth of the question.
If the kids are out in the sunshine and rain raising hell and worrying their mother the whole time, I wouldn’t worry about a little smoke.
If little Billy is angry because the smoke is bothering him while he’s drinking his Coke and eating his Cheetos and little Debbies while watching SpongeBob on his iPad, and he’s three, well, I still wouldn’t be focused on a little smoke.
Honestly, I suspect that either Mama or Grandma frowning on smoking in general has more to do with the question than reality does.