“I smokin’.”
I looked up from the laundry bin I was putting clothes into as my 2-year-old came into the bedroom.
“I smokin’,” he repeated.
He had a giant plastic bolt — far too big to be a choking hazard — sticking out of his mouth. I watched in horror as he breathed in deeply, removed the toy from his mouth and blew out into the air.
“Where did you learn that?” I cried, but he was already running out of the room, oblivious to my panic.
I racked my brain to try to figure out just where he would have been exposed to people smoking.
No one in our families smoke, he spends his daytime hours in the comfort of a completely smoke-free daycare and smoking in businesses and restaurants has never been legal in this state for his entire life.
So … it begs the question: Where did he get exposed to smoking? And not only that, but how did he know what it was called and know enough to imitate it?
The only conclusion we could come to was media exposure, and we are now being more vigilant than ever about what he sees on television. But what else has he seen — that I would rather he not — that he isn’t verbalizing yet?
It’s terrifying to think about what else he’s picking up as he studies the world around him, absorbing so much along the way. And it’s impossible to know what lessons or truths he is taking away with those observations.
For example, when I was a girl, I had a grandfather who smoked heavily. I didn’t know him to be any other way. In my late teens, I took up smoking; I’m sure, in part, it was the early exposure to it and the fact that seeing someone I loved do it made it somewhat permissible.
Then again, I had a cousin who also shared this grandfather, and it had the opposite effect. The boy asked grandpa repeatedly to quit and even went so far as to having no-smoking signs attached to his bedroom door (I gotta hand it to the kid — he was committed).
I’ve been smoke-free for nearly a decade, and haven’t really even though about it just as long. I thought when we started our family that it was enough to keep my kiddo away from direct exposure to cigarettes, but now I realize that exposure can be much more subtle and still very effective.
Even commercials on television nowadays features adult themes — even under the guise of tongue-in-cheek humor — we never saw 30 years ago.
There’s still no way to know what is going on in that little, beautiful brain of his. I will start by reinforcing that smoking is yucky, and do everything I can to influence him into healthy habits, but honestly I never imagined I would be having this talk with a toddler.
— Sarah Leach is editor of The Holland Sentinel. Contact her at (616) 546-4278 or sarah.leach@hollandsentinel.com.
I looked up from the laundry bin I was putting clothes into as my 2-year-old came into the bedroom.
“I smokin’,” he repeated.
He had a giant plastic bolt — far too big to be a choking hazard — sticking out of his mouth. I watched in horror as he breathed in deeply, removed the toy from his mouth and blew out into the air.
“Where did you learn that?” I cried, but he was already running out of the room, oblivious to my panic.
I racked my brain to try to figure out just where he would have been exposed to people smoking.
No one in our families smoke, he spends his daytime hours in the comfort of a completely smoke-free daycare and smoking in businesses and restaurants has never been legal in this state for his entire life.
So … it begs the question: Where did he get exposed to smoking? And not only that, but how did he know what it was called and know enough to imitate it?
The only conclusion we could come to was media exposure, and we are now being more vigilant than ever about what he sees on television. But what else has he seen — that I would rather he not — that he isn’t verbalizing yet?
It’s terrifying to think about what else he’s picking up as he studies the world around him, absorbing so much along the way. And it’s impossible to know what lessons or truths he is taking away with those observations.
For example, when I was a girl, I had a grandfather who smoked heavily. I didn’t know him to be any other way. In my late teens, I took up smoking; I’m sure, in part, it was the early exposure to it and the fact that seeing someone I loved do it made it somewhat permissible.
Then again, I had a cousin who also shared this grandfather, and it had the opposite effect. The boy asked grandpa repeatedly to quit and even went so far as to having no-smoking signs attached to his bedroom door (I gotta hand it to the kid — he was committed).
I’ve been smoke-free for nearly a decade, and haven’t really even though about it just as long. I thought when we started our family that it was enough to keep my kiddo away from direct exposure to cigarettes, but now I realize that exposure can be much more subtle and still very effective.
Even commercials on television nowadays features adult themes — even under the guise of tongue-in-cheek humor — we never saw 30 years ago.
There’s still no way to know what is going on in that little, beautiful brain of his. I will start by reinforcing that smoking is yucky, and do everything I can to influence him into healthy habits, but honestly I never imagined I would be having this talk with a toddler.
— Sarah Leach is editor of The Holland Sentinel. Contact her at (616) 546-4278 or sarah.leach@hollandsentinel.com.
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