The WHO (World Health Org) has deemed May 31st – World No Tobacco Day.
Its easy as parents to take the high road and get on the soapbox about the evils and viles and redundancy of smoking. Its easy to point to charts and graphic pictures of dirty lungs and scare our kids [and discerning adults] into never venturing north of a cigarette. But think back a moment to those days in high school.
Everyone was doing it. You werent harming anyone. Its not like you were having rampant sex and there would be millions of little babies [remember the eggs?] because of your mistake. It made you cool. It made you sexy. It made you awesome to have that cigarette in your hand. You were flying high, you were suave, you were hot and you were smokin’
Peer pressure, in my opinion, is why kids anywhere smoke. You dont have to come across peer pressure in school. If your parents are doing it, it’s a free pass for you to do it. If your co-workers are doing it, it’d be cool to infiltrate that smokers circle and be a part of it. If everyone on the block is doing it, do you really want to be the weirdo not? What we learn as kids, it is hard to unlearn as adults and we take that chain of peer pressure induced smoking and pass it on to those around us.
So instead of going on a soapbox about the evils of smoking, maybe we could just try to not influence others around us to pick up a stick. Lets try, if we could, to curb our smoking in front of kids and impressionable children.
Wee Baby Love 