I can see your reasoning. My thought though is that at my sons young age he is impressionable and I don't necessarily want him to think that smoking/vaping is normal and OK. His grandparents on his mothers side smoke around him, which annoys me to no end. I'm not exactly hiding the truth from him, but setting a precedent that vaping isn't "good." Many vendors state on their sites that their products are intended only for smokers, and the underlying thought is that a non-smoker shouldn't start vaping. While vaping is better than smoking, not vaping or smoking is the best.
When he is older, a conversation about daddy's habit is most certainly in order.
When he is older, a conversation about daddy's habit is most certainly in order.
I can't necessarily agree with this and I'll show you why.
All four of my grandparents smoked like chimneys, they came from a time when it was the norm rather than the exception. I remember plenty of trips in cars with rolled up windows and a thick, blue haze inside. Out of their 5 combined children only one son picked up the smoking habit, and he was the black sheep of the family. Put together the 5 grandchildren, of which I am one, and I was the only dedicated smoker. My brother picked up the habit for about 5 years while working as a lead guitarist for a local band but then quit. I didn't start smoking because of my grandparents, in fact after spending years in those smoke filled cars I hated smoke as a child and pre-teen. I picked up the habit because I hung with the "hoods", the black sheep. Out of all my friends who smoked, very few of their parents did. There were a couple, but those particular parents tended to be the hard living variety, the ones that were probably considered black sheep in their own day.
I don't doubt that there are plenty of people that started smoking because their parents did it. I do however believe that there are several different external factors that end up in play, and one of the biggest is the person or persons with the most influence at the single point in time that a child decides whether or not they're going to smoke. I also believe that hiding anything from a child is like putting wrapped Christmas gifts in your closet while they're not looking. Somehow they figure it out, and when they do they're going to start poking at it while your not looking. For example, polls have shown that almost every single child of gun owners who hide their guns from their children know exactly where both the guns and ammo are hidden and exactly what tricks it takes to access them.
I'm certainly not saying that anyone is wrong in the way they are going about it, but I do think the key to smoke proofing a child is to be open about the addiction as soon as that child is old enough to understand. I explained to mine from pretty early on the concept of addiction in an age appropriate way, and continued those conversations into their mid to late teens. They're now in their early twenties/late teens and whether it be from what I said, sheer luck, or the Grace of God, I've got two wonderful young men that have never touched a cigarette, let alone any other possible addiction... well, besides video games that is.
