Hate the Smoke, Not the Smoker

While walking with my family in Old Town this summer, we passed a man who puffed a cloud of smoke from his mouth. Sophia asked me, “Why do people smoke?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they want to get lung cancer,” I answered sarcastically.

Sophia stopped in her tracks. “Why would someone WANT to get cancer?” she asked, her face contorted as only a 6-year-old’s can.

My answer was probably a bit harsh, and I’m not sure it helped Sophia, who normally avoids cigarette smoke like the plague, understand my point. But our exchange got me thinking. While it’s vital to teach our kids about the possible effects of certain choices, it’s equally important to separate the actor from the act. How can parents educate kids on making good choices without vilifying a person who already made a bad one?

With all the information made available over the past couple of decades — including large-type warnings on the outside of every package of cigarettes — it’s common knowledge that smoking is a health hazard. Today’s children are educated early on the consequences of lighting up: lung disease, cardiovascular problems, cancer and bad oral hygiene, to name a few. But for those who started many years ago, smoking can be hard to stop. Like alcohol and fast food, tobacco and nicotine are addictive.

It can also be challenging to convey to kids, who tend to be more black-and-white than adults, that just because a person has a bad habit doesn’t make him a bad person. I don’t want my children to grow up believing that we judge a person based only on certain actions instead of on the total package of personality. No one, after all, is without flaws. And smoking, while dangerous and irritating to the senses, is merely one of a number of life choices many people make every day.

Certainly, more egregious crimes can warrant a cautious approach to picking whom to associate with, but there is a huge gray area. We all know a smoker or two. Chances are, the vast majority of them are simply regular people who happen to have a bad habit. For the ones I know, smoking doesn’t detract from their otherwise high moral character.

The same can be said about those who drink alcohol and, for that matter, anyone with a few irritating personality traits. (My kids regularly point out that I am weirder than most parents, so I’m included.) We are all subject to the same occasional judgments on our less attractive qualities. And none of us is worse than another because of them.

Sophia still grimaces and pinches her nostrils when she passes someone smoking on the street. Words like “gross” and “disgusting” often escape her mouth, sometimes louder than Tanya and I would appreciate. I’m happy she has developed such a strong aversion to cigarette smoke; hopefully, she’ll be less likely to take up the habit when she’s older. But there is a big difference between a cigarette and a smoker.