If you remember our post where I introduced you to the Universal Rule of Parental Fairness and Justice, I mentioned that there was a second infamous factor at play that caused your otherwise saintly children to behave in ways that are – to be polite – obnoxious and unquestionably contrary to your verbalized instructions and expectations. That second factor is known as the Law of Secondhand Smoke.
Secondhand Smoke
I’m almost certain that when you hear or read the words Secondhand Smoke, the first thing that comes to mind, is the smoke that comes from a burning cigarette. Well as toxic and life threatening that this form of secondhand smoke is there is another form that you might unknowingly be exposing your child to that is no less dangerous.
Before I introduce you to this new form of Secondhand Smoke, let me take a moment to remind you about the American Cancer Society’s (ACS) description of Secondhand Smoke. According to the ACS, Secondhand smoke is a mixture of 2 forms of smoke that come from burning tobacco:
- Mainstream smoke – the smoke exhaled by a smoker
- Side stream smoke – smoke from the lighted end of a cigarette, pipe, or cigar
Mainstream Smoke
At first puff, most of us, particularly those of us who don’t smoke, would assume incorrectly that Mainstream smoke is the most toxic form of Secondhand Smoke. In truth, Side stream smoke has the higher concentration of carcinogens. Perhaps this explains why not only do I not ever want to smoke but I loathe standing anywhere near a smoker.
If you are not a smoker, you have come to appreciate that no matter how you try to hold your breath, how you try to air out your clothes or how quickly you take a shower when exposed to a smoker, none of those efforts are preventative. Not only will you have been victimized by the scent of smoke but worse you will have already been unsuspectingly polluted. From the moment the smoker lights up to the time they have had their last drag, if you are anywhere nearby, your lungs and body suffer more than the person puffing away on the cancer stick.
As I am going to detail, our relationships with our children and the world that our children live in is similar to being exposed to Side Stream Secondhand Smoke.
Ahh Fresh Air!
As parents we would all like to think and believe that our children are only inhaling and exhaling all of our good parenting’s pure 100% pollutant free freshly ventilated “stay on the straight and narrow” clean air. Lamentably, from time to time, we learn that our little angels inhale less of our “clean air” and more of society’s polluted second-hand smoke-filled air.
During those times when our children are confronted with Secondhand Smoke exposure, we would like nothing more than to believe that all the time that we spent talking to them has some pollutant repelling “air freshener” effect. I’m here to tell you it doesn’t. While our spoken interactions should have the greatest significance on our children’s lives, what we articulate to them is no sure-fire guarantee that they won’t suffer the ill and often times life threatening effects of Side Stream Secondhand Smoke.
For the record, Side Stream Secondhand smoke are all the undesirable opinions, unwelcome perspectives, objectionable thoughts and distasteful behaviors from the outside world and sometimes from inside of your own home that affect the lives of our children. While this form of secondhand smoke is oft-times disguised you will recognize it as ALL the ways of thinking and living that you preach as being diametrically opposite to what is good for your child. Side Stream Secondhand smoke from your home is simply EVERYTHING opposite to those expectations you proclaim to have for your children.
Smoking Room
Imagine for a moment the last time that you walked through an airport. While walking through the airport you probably noticed a room labeled “Smoker’s Lounge” or “Smoker’s Room”. Now if you are not a smoker you will undoubtedly never enter this room. However, the next time you see this room do yourself a favor and pay close attention. This room is symbolic of what it is like each and every day when we send our children out into the world. Without recognizing what we are doing, we knowingly and willingly send our children out into the “Smoker’s Room”.
Like the carcinogens that engulf the lungs of the smokers, our children share spaces and enter rooms with people who breathe poison onto and into them. Sometimes the exposure is so vicious that our children’s lives take on the appearance of the last person who enters an already crowded and smoke satiated smoking room. The person we knew as our child disappears overwhelmed and consumed in total by the poisonous heavy smoke of a cruel world.
Like the smoker entering the Smoker’s Room, the velocity and absorption of the contamination in our children’s lives is dependent on the number of smokers in the room. Far too often for our children, the speed and depth of the real world’s poisonous perversion is analogous to the unfortunate last smoker who enters the Smoking Room. The defilement of the smoker’s health and well-being is exacerbated not simply from the damage caused from Mainstream Smoke, smoking their own cigarette, but rather by the cumulative and exponential damage caused from the Secondhand Side Stream Smoke of all the other smokers in the room.
The Real World
You need to know that Side Stream Smoke feels almost imperceptible at first. Side Stream Smoke are those seemingly inconsequential conversations but more likely behaviors our children overhear and witness which on occasion involve us as well as those people who we would never want to parent them.
On an in-house level, Side Stream Smoke is transmitted the following ways. A reality TV show which we watch that our children on occasion come into our room, sit and watch with us. The dispassionate fashion (words and/or deeds) which we approach our relationship with our spouse or significant other. The disrespectful, sometime contemptuous manner that we conduct ourselves with the public. Our inability to stop working even after we have already worked a full day and come home later than promised. Texting while driving, exhibiting road rage and spending an entire car ride talking on the phone rather than talking to the people in the car with us are but a few of the examples of in-house Side Stream Secondhand Smoke that infect our children.
Side Stream Secondhand Smoke are also those incidents involving others outside our children’s home. Things which appear trivial on the surface but when observed constantly even in the smallest measures infiltrate our children’s most inner thoughts and minds. These are incidents were we are not present to witness first hand. An incident at school where a bully goes unpunished and the victim is chastised for being a baby. A school acquaintance who cheats at everything but never seems to suffer any negative consequences. The handsome son of wealthy parents who is the least respectful, talented and hardworking of all the children but is always the student promoted to a leadership role. The pretty girl at school who is constantly rewarded because of her looks even though her grades are anything but attractive. These are some of the examples of Side Stream Secondhand Smoke that infect our children when they are not in our presence.
Call the CDC
I hope you can see that this form of Secondhand Smoke is just as unhealthy for society as the traditional form. Let me tell you, if calling the CDC would eliminate this outbreak of Secondhand Smoke, I would have made the call a long time ago.
I’m sure that like you, I would love nothing more than for my son to be exactly the person that I have always envisioned that he would be 100% of the time. Like you, I would love nothing more than for my son to be forever free of exposure to and potential contamination from Secondhand Smoke. Like you, I would like to believe that I am a non-smoker and bear no responsibility for the exposure of Secondhand Smoke on my child or any other child/children through the infection of my own child. And like you, I would simply be lying.
Stop Lying
Turn on the news, read the paper (not a blog post of 500 words or less), listen to public radio and you will know that Secondhand Smoke is at epidemic levels. Until ADULT human beings become better at being human beings, beginning with and including me, our children, our nation and our world are going to continue to suffer the ill effects of Secondhand Smoke. As a human beings, until expressions like Good Samaritan become the standard for adult behavior and not an exception to be applauded and awarded, Secondhand Smoke will continue to overwhelm the lives of our children, eat away at the fabric of this nation and destroy this world.
Ask yourself, “did I breathe life into my child today or did I contaminate them yet again with Secondhand Smoke?”