To all of you smokers with kids.

[toobfreak]

I've noted an increasingly ingrained fear of tobacco, especially in women and wives, probably from all of the negative media, that they think that just seeing someone smoking a pipe is bad for them or a wisp of smoke. Do they really have any idea how much smoke previous generations were exposed to, or just how much smoke exposure it takes to cause a significant medical risk? People who are isolated from germs with hand cleaners and sanitizers never build up a higher resistance because their bodies have little to resist against. It takes heavy and constantly repeated exposure to smoke to give a real increased risk of cancer, etc. If a kid had an already existing asthma condition or something, I could see it, but a little smoke in the area? Don't these people know what is already in the air we normally breathe? The tobacco fear industry has gone from one extreme of massive exposure to instead of just reasonable moderation, to an almost phobia about it, trying to stamp it out of existence.

 

[pappymac]

A lot of it is common sense. I stopped smoking except for an occasional cigar or pipe from 1987 until my youngest daughter moved out for college in 2003 because she had allergies and asthma. As a result, I don't smoke a pipe while in my truck and I don't smoke inside the house. I smoke either outside or in my garage with the garage door open. We now have 7.5 grandkids and they will see me smoking outside but since they are sitting in my lap I don't worry about it. If they happen to come in the garage while I'm smoking, I just turn on my ceiling fan to clear the smoke faster.
I also don't believe in drinking and driving.

 

[pipestud]

I just light up and crack the window. Wife, kids, dogs and me all appear to be healthy and just fine.

 

[tbradsim1]

Things change, my Dad and Mom smoked like a Choo Choo train with me in the house and car. I smoked like a train around my kids. For Katrina I took in my daughters 2 babies one 5 months old the other 2 so her and husband could go back to work. Things change I started smoking on porch while they were there. I used to drink and drive, no more, things change. We use my Tundra to go visit my son in Texas, I don't smoke in it because I want my wife and anyone with us to be comfortable. Things change.

 

[ashdigger]

I just light up and crack the window. Wife, kids, dogs and me all appear to be healthy and just fine.

You forgot to add......when I can see them if it's not too smokey.
I drive with my windows cracked too, but my kids are old enough to walk home if they bitch too much.

 

[zack24]

My father used to smoke cigarettes in the car on long trips- the windows were always down, because otherwise I'd get carsick from the motion, the smoke , and the heat in the '56 Plymouth....and trust me- no one wanted to be in the car with me when I was carsick....

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I remember smoke pouring out of teachers workrooms at school, I had a teacher that would stand in the doorway and smoke while we took tests. Going to the doctor would take all day. I remember that my pediatrician would examine us, and then we would return to the waiting room, and then we would have to set in his office while he smoked cigars and diagnosed us, and I remember a few times feeling very nauseous and the smoke made it worse. You could never go to a single restaurant where the smoke was not as thick as soup. The malls would have a layer of smoke hovering just at head level of everyone while we Christmas shopped. My dad chained smoked Winstons with just a small crack in the window while we drove across country.
This is about the first time in history that we aren't constantly breathing thick, dense, eye-reddening smoke all the time. At least when I smoke in my car, a pipe doesn't produce nearly as much smoke as a cigarette or cigar.

 

[derfatdutchman]

As far as smoking around my son, I try to avoid him when I smoke. The only place I will smoke around him is outside.

 

[jmagen]

I'm like the majority here. Smoke in my truck alone (alot), but not w/ other ppl in the truck. Only around the kids while around the yard. The know its something I do, but not something I must do 24/7.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

"Is Papa smoking?"

"He's awake isn't he?" ...overheard in my house.

 

[sablebrush52]

I never smoked around my son when he was little. I don't smoke indoors anyways, so it wasn't a big concern, but I didn't have any desire for him to follow in my addicted footsteps before he became an adult. These days I smoke my pipe around him when we're taking a walk.
I smoke in the car with the windows rolled down, but never with anyone else in the car, unless that person is also a smoker. I don't see my freedom as needing to be so absolute as to rob others of theirs.

 

[toobfreak]

If things change, then they ought to occasionally change for the better, too, not just the worst, right? A lot of what people are saying is as much for concern for children as it is for fear of getting blamed for or yelled at by someone, like smoking was some sort of sin.
I grew up with a family doctor that had a lit cigarette in his mouth and one in the ashtray all of the time. He was a doctor! Every public place you went was full of smoke. The home was full of smoke. It didn't make me WANT to smoke, I started that on my own, but it did make me more tolerant of smoke.
I ran barefoot, out in the winter with no coat, no hat, took off over hill and dale far from home, went to school and home without supervision, got banged up and bloody and my folks just brushed it off, beat other kids up and they beat me up and no one made a fuss over it. Just another day. Even took rubber knives to school and ate chocolates shaped like a gun! In fact, the school sold it to me. Ate candies that looked like cigars; I did all of that and worse and we all grew up fine and became good citizens.
This is the first generation of kids being raised free of smoke, free of fat, free of discipline at school, lo-cal, lo-sugar--- kept in line, not allowed to blink much less relax, and what do they do? They sit and play with an electronic gaming phone and internet browser all day long. You watch--- they will grow up more sickly and susceptible to every little thing and with more mental and emotional issues than any of us!
During WWII, the emperor of Japan was talked out of trying to invade our homeland because he was told there would be a gun behind every rock and tree. Every person ready to fight for their country, willing and ABLE. Is that true today?
Kids today are growing up in a protective bubble that is artificially created around them not reflective of the real world, then the rest of the world is trying to be changed to suit them! That's not how real life works. We are protecting our kids today to a degree that borders on neurosis and I feel sorry for the world of tomorrow when they are asked to run it! They will not be ready for it.

 

[bassbug]

If things change, then they ought to occasionally change for the better, too, not just the worst, right?

Our generation, with its newfangled industrialization, automation, technology and ideas ran the world better than the previous generation.
The same will be true for our children's generation. History has proven that.
Every generation believes that the previous one was primitive and the next one will ruin what we so proudly built...for the most part, every generation is wrong

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I was promised that technology would save me time, do things better, and completely take over other things for me. I'm not sure that technology has lived up to its promise. It seems to be a timesuck and causes more problems than it saves.

I still know quite a few people who don't even own computers, devices, or cellphones. I have considered getting rid of mine also. I think that social media and this forum are about the only thing keeping me tethered to them... for now. My friends who do not have any technology seem far more happy than anyone else that I know.

 

[toobfreak]

The same will be true for our children's generation. History has proven that. Every generation believes that the previous one was primitive and the next one will ruin what we so proudly built...for the most part, every generation is wrong

Rubbish. That might have been true for several generations but that pattern does not hold today. Young people today are for the large part clueless, indifferent, rude and very confused. Nor do I think the last generation before me was primitive! The generation before me won WWII with every woman helping build planes and working in factories, there is no such unity today, we live in a loony bin.
We were promised a world today where automation would have us living in comfort with only a four day work week. Instead we are working more and getting less. My parents generation you didn't have credit cards, you paid for everything or you just did not buy it, and your wife did not work, she kept a home and raised a family. You'd be embarrassed for your wife to work! Now every couple works, the kids hardly ever see the parents and strangers raise the children. And you can't make up a new blend of pipe tobacco without paying the gov. a million dollars. Progress? Something's gotta give. :mrgreen:

 

[bassbug]

I've had quite the opposite experience.
I have not had to buy a stamp to pay bills and hope that my cheque will get there on time and be cashed at the right time.

I have not had to walk into a bank for almost anything.

e mail makes my communication 1000 times (if not more) easier and faster.

I can buy products that previously were simply not available to me (think pipes and tobaccos)

I get my news as it happens, not a day later.

I can pick up the phone or start up Skype and talk to friends and relatives anywhere in the world without incurring huge bills.

I can go to a strange city and find my way around and even find the types of shops and attractions that interest me almost instantly.
That's real time savings and doing things better. As far as taking over, you just have to remember that YOU are in control of the technology, not the other way around
You can take all those and with some very insignificant changes apply them to our parents generation compared to THEIR parents generation.
I think we sometimes tend to forget just how much technology changes our everyday lives for the better and we just take it for granted.

 

[bassbug]

Rubbish......Progress? Something's gotta give.

Spoken like a true curmudgeon...
With all my heart and sincerity, I respect you and the fact that you are firm in your beliefs.
If I could change one thing about the new generation, it would be to have them be as confident as you.

 

[bassbug]

Oh, and if it makes any difference, I still light my pipe with matches, when I'm not sporting a beard, I shave with a straight razor and I still practice my penmanship to write love notes to my lady

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Young people today are for the large part clueless, indifferent, rude and very confused

Absolute BS. I work with kids, and they are challenged more than my generation ever was. They have to know way higher math, and reading skills. They seem far more inquisitive and show a far greater understanding than my generation ever did.
Back in the days of Pliny the Elder, people still said that their generation was better than the existing one.

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for

authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place

of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their

households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They

contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties

at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."

 

[tbradsim1]

The purpose of this thread was consideration for other people, whether babies,Female or Males. Just cause you or me likes to chew on a smoking stick, others might not. As for the young Gen, my Grandpaw on Dads side whipped him with trace chains because he didn't plow straight, yet he and his brother served, fought from Africa to Germany. My Dad said you ain't gonna make it, you're not tough enough. Fought in S Asia, took a bullet there. Son and Daughter I thought humph designer jeans and soft lifestyle is ruining them, then Desert Storm, Son in 82nd Airborne, Daughter Crew Chief on C-130 Gun ship, they beat Sadam back. It's not as bad as we like to think, still lots of good young people, I"ll host a drink with them.