Do you think that smokers who are parents are selfish?!
Question: My mom is a smoker and my 2 brothers and I no longer talk to her because she smokes. She is 60 yrs old and we just assume she's going to die in few years from some sort of cancer and consider her dead anyway. We have pleaded and begged for her to quit but instead of quitting she just said that we irritated her and she smoked even more. So, we told her none of us would ever talk to her again unless she quit. We all think she is extremely selfish for still smoking.
Answers: My mom is a smoker and my 2 brothers and I no longer talk to her because she smokes. She is 60 yrs old and we just assume she's going to die in few years from some sort of cancer and consider her dead anyway. We have pleaded and begged for her to quit but instead of quitting she just said that we irritated her and she smoked even more. So, we told her none of us would ever talk to her again unless she quit. We all think she is extremely selfish for still smoking.
It's really tough to know what it's like to have an addiction. I've never had one, but can imagine it's terrible. Nicotine and smoking are absolute addictions. Maybe you could sit her down and talk to her about how much you care and how hard it is for you to see her doing that to her body. You want her around for a long time and smoking will kill her - that's sad - share you feelings...
I dont know, but you are being equally as selfish as you claim your mom to be.
How about instead of acting like a child, you get her the MENTAL help she needs to quit. YES, cigs are more of a mental addiction, than chemical. The chemical addiction is gone in 3 days. THat mental addication lasts for years though. It is hard to quit any addiction, but even harder when the family isnt supportive.
Besides, smoking is her own choice, just as speeding down the highway in your car is your choice. Equally as deadly, and I bet you do it atleast sometimes. Do you want your children to quit speaking to you because you speed?
It only becomes selfish if she continues to smoke around you after you ask her not to.
For example, I asked my mom not to smoke around me. I am a cancer patient (which may have been caused by my smoking, and its not lung) and dealing with my own addiction. We had a huge discussion about her not smoking around me at all, not even outside. No sooner than we got home she sat on my back porch like a frieght train. That is selfish.
However, not being able to beat her addiction is a mental illness that needs to be treated psychologically, not with threats of never speaking to family again.
Read up on the psychology of addiction.
She is an adult with an addiction.
If spending time with her is so important that you resent her for possibly cutting her life short by smoking, why are you denying yourselves the opportunity now?
She should not smoke in your houses or around you, but you are wrong for refusing to speak to her.
My mom is 78 yrs old and has been told she has the start of empasima. She quit last year cold turkey and has not smoked since. I am very grateful and understand your frustration. I and my siblings have asthma from our parents habit.
This is a serious addiction and all addictions become self-serving. However, cutting your mother off for smoking is pretty cruel and I do not agree that was a loving or unselfish thing to do on your part unless she was hitting up the convienence store with a gun and stealing her fix or she is this horrid vile woman who treated you like garbage and only fed you bugs for breakfast lunch and dinner and beat you before you went to bed. Two wrongs don't make a right.
As selfish as you feel she is being, I think you and your siblings are being extremely harsh! If she died alone or fell and broke her hip and laid in her pee for 10 hrs before someone found her, you would be in huge regret. Life is too short to let some cigarette smoke cloud your relationship and for that to happen. It can. Do you love your mother really?
Did you do everything your mother asked growing up when she demanded you do it because she knew it was good for you? I bet not! She can't make you and you can't Make her. Love is to be unconditional ~ Love the person and hate the sin. This is hating the person. What things has she love you inspite of? Now it is your turn.
I can only imagine how much more her addiction has become her comfort as she lives in depression and sadness over your rejection and her lonliness.
Are you or your siblings parents? How would you feel after lifetime of sacrifice and giving if your kids decided you were too fat and until you went on a diet and lost weight they would have nothing to do with you? Love is to be unconditional ~ Love the person and hate the sin. This is hating the person.
You are as guilty of being selfish as your mother is. Go love your mother to health and ask that she not smoke when you are there or if she comes to your house ask that she step outside and smoke. Get an air cleaner for her home so that when you are there the air is being cleaned and if you have to clean it or change the filter so be it. That is a quick fix that you all can love each other with.
I know smoking is a bad habit. But how can you just completely and utterly ignore your mother just because she smokes? Its not like she's a mass murderer for goodness sake! You aren't perfect either, and neither is your mother. I do NOT think that smokers who are parents are selfish. I think that parents who smoke around their children (i.e. in the house or even outside around their children) are YES selfish. Your mom is your mom. It just doesn't sound like you care very much about her. If my mom smoked I would still love her. Just because your mom smokes doesn't make her a bad person. Only god has the right to judge others.