Community Chat

[Libbylady]

I grew up in a home with smoking parents who had no patience with my sister & I trying to get away from the smoke. I remember being spanked for holding my nose in a department store elevator where there were several smokers. My mother hauled me off the elevator, pulled down my panties and punished me for being rude. I was 5 years old.

In college, many professors allowed smoking in the classrooms. I had to chose my courses based on wether or not there was smoking. Sitting near an open window wasn't tolerated in the winter.

My babies were born in hospitals that allowed people to smoke in the rooms where the babies were. My sister had to recover from surgery for a week in a hospital room with 3 smokers. I hated visiting her, and she has never forgotten this horrible stay.

I worked in a nursery school where sick toddlers were taken to the teachers lounge to wait for parents to pick them up. The air in that room was blue. I refused to put my own child in that room one day when he began to run a fever, and I was fired.

Smoking in the workplace was a constant issue. I had to find jobs where there was no smoking. Sometimes it meant I had to take my breaks or meals out in my car.

I avoid smokers everywhere. It was always difficult to visit my parents & in-laws. DH was actually a smoker when we met on a blind date. I figured I had little to lose by telling him I couldn't be around smoke, so I wouldn't be dating him again. He quit immediatly, and I was pretty impressed. That was 45 years ago and we lead a smoke free life, have non-smoking sons and DIL's.

Life could have been very different if I could have grown up in a smokeless world Maybe my mother, father and father-in-law would still be around now. Lung cancer took all 3.

[Mersha]

On 1/4/2014 Hildegarde Withers said:

On 1/4/2014 Libbylady said:

I grew up in a home with smoking parents who had no patience with my sister & I trying to get away from the smoke. I remember being spanked for holding my nose in a department store elevator where there were several smokers. My mother hauled me off the elevator, pulled down my panties and punished me for being rude. I was 5 years old.

OMG! How awful.

That is horrible.

I am so sorry that you were subjected to that.