If it weren’t Chrissie Swan…..
WARNING: Ranty Pants on!
If it weren’t Chrissie Swan, and just some other pregnant woman, hiding in her car, poisoning her unborn child, we wouldn’t be talking about it, wouldn’t even have rated a photo. But it was, and it has. We should all just walk on past and be silent in our judgement as what she does on a personal level is none of our business. But we haven’t and for the life of me I do cannot fathom why all the “cool” bloggers are leaping to her defence, be so accommodating and understanding?
Saying, poor woman, leave her alone, she is still a
GOOD MOTHER??
(click on link above)
(click on link above)
OMFG. Good Mothers do NOT smoke whilst pregnant. Are you insane comparing smoking to the other crap we do on that list??? How can you, as bloggers who court, even dictate public opinion, CONDONE what this woman is doing? I know, poor Chrissie blah blah. I do feel sorry for her that she is in the public eye and being the target of such open hatred, nobody deserves that, but I am not going to stand by and say women who smoke whilst pregnant are good mothers.
To be clear, I am not vilifying Chrissie on a personal level. What Chrissie does is none of my business. I am sure Chrissie is lovely and has many, many excellent mothering skills but saying that GOOD MOTHERS SMOKE and condoning this situation is wrong.
SMOKING whilst pregnant as far as I am concerned is child abuse.
And yes, you can say back in our parents era, they smoked like chimneys and all us kids turned out OK. We can say on occasion we do all the other things that appear on the list of things that GOOD MOTHERS do so why not add smoking to it? But in 2013, we are educated to the hazard that is smoking with an unborn child within our “protected” womb. We KNOW the damage it can do, why do you think in this case the mother was hiding in her car, shielding her dirty secret from her husband and friends – she KNOWS what smoking can do, and yet she chose to do it anyway! And yes, smoking is an addiction, I get that, but it is also a choice, a hard one to give up, but a CHOICE none the less.
If you choose to have a child you should give it the respect it deserves and choose not to smoke.
If it is currently illegal to be smoking a cigarette with your children in your car* how the fu@k is it OK to be smoking one with a baby in your womb???
Here are the FACTS on smoking during pregnancy – we ALL KNOW THEM and we are NOT good mothers if we ignore them.
*I live in WA where it is illegal to smoke in a car that is carrying children. It is a $1000 infringement.
My mum smoked throughout 5 pregnancies from years 1992-2007 and there was nothing wrong with us when we were born and nothing wrong now.
I’m now a smoker but personally, I would try my hardest to stop while pregnant as I would never be able to forgive myself if there WAS something wrong with my baby due to smoking.
I live in the UK and the same happens to pregnant women in the public eye. What I can say about smoking is that if someone is addicted to smoking, the stress of trying to quit smoking can cause more harm to the baby than smoking itself.
I smoked during one of my pregnancies and find his page disgusting! You know nothing about met life or my family but just because I smoked while pregnant, I am
A bad mother??? I’m not saying I am in the right but to pass someone off as a bad mother is wrong. As I said you know nothing about me. I loved your page up
Until now. I think you need to blog more about your own life instead of passing judgment onto others!
This*
Finally, someone who’s brave enough to state their opinion instead of jumping on the bandwagon! I totally agree with everything you’ve said. In my opinion, smoking whilst pregnant is a horrible thing to do. It’s apparently very common, 1 in 7 do it, but that doesn’t make it ok. It’s basically child abuse. How you could put your child in such danger is beyond me. I understand that it’s an addiction and it’s very, very hard to quit but if your child isn’t a good enough reason to quit, then I don’t know what is.
Just because someone it’s famous that has been caught, everyone is saying how they feel sorry for her and coming to her defence. No! This is not right! I’m not personally attacking her, don’t get me wrong, I think she’s a lovely person but she has made a horrible mistake. In one way, it’s at least made people come out and talk about this as this is clearly an issue that needs to be addressed. In my state, smoking in cars with children is also illegal. Then shouldn’t smoking whilst pregnant also be?
Also, saying that ‘my mother did it etc., etc.’ is a pretty silly excuse in my opinion. Our parents’ generation did lots of things that we now know to be extremely unhealthy, thalidomide for example? Or how about cocaine as a cold medicine, anti-inflammatory and all round multi-vitamin because that’s originally what it was marketed for. Does that make all those things ok? Because the previous generations did it and they’re (some of them) ok? We’re only hearing one side of the story there, we’re not hearing from the poor children who received horrible deformities because their mothers were unknowingly given an awful drug.
I’m sorry but smoking during pregnancy does make me very angry. I don’t even let people smoke around my children so there is no way I could ever understand how anyone could put the most precious thing in their life in so much danger.
I’m not going to sit by and let other people condone it just because of political correctness. These children need someone to stand up for them and be their voice.
(posting for Erica, who messaged me)
Tried to post this on your blog but can’t seem to get it to work. Feel free to post it under my first name.
Wanted you to know you’ve got some support out there too! And seriously – the stress of quitting is worse than smoking is the biggest cop out I’ve heard! (And it’s not the first time I’ve heard it) but thought I’d better not be too much of a bitch in my first comment on the story!!
So are you saying if a pregnant woman is addicted to illegal drugs and continues to use during her pregnancy but only occasionally is that ok? Even though she knows that what she is doing may cause ongoing health complications for her child? Sure you might get lucky and have a healthy baby, but you may also saddle your child with lifelong health issues that could have been avoided. And I realise that smoking is legal – but as Lisa pointed out, smoking with children in your car is illegal. I’m not saying it’s easy to quit – it’s not. I’ve done it. And relapsed a couple of years later. And quit again. It’s tough but so are lots of parenting and other life choices we make to do the best for our kids. Sure we all make mistakes but does that mean we should condone it?
I missed the whole thing but I loved your point about it being illegal to smoke with a baby in the car so how can it be ok to smoke with one in the womb?
I do not believe it is condoning the situation at all, what it is doing is actually offering a hand of understanding and compassion, which is severely lacking in the world today. If this is the worse thing a mother can do, we’ve all got to be a bit simplistic and narrow in our view of the world.
The fact she felt she had to hide her ‘addiction’ in the dark even from her husband is one small window into the view of how she saw herself. Not being able to ask for help and hating herself. Hating and self loathing I personally believe is far more detrimental to the health and wellbeing of babies and their siblings than the occasional cigarette.
Let’s look at womens mental, emotional and physical wellbeing and encourage women to talk about what their struggles are. Lets work hard not to isolate mothers, even though it is not something many mothers wouldn’t do. Everyone has a path, some are far more shitty and rocky than others.
A helping hand and an open heart and mind is a good start.
So glad it’s illegal to smoke in cars with kids where you are – I see it all the time here in QLD and it breaks my heart 🙁
Emily @ Have a laugh on me via Blogs and PR
I didn’t want to enter into this argument but I will say I didn’t enjoy the blog where it said good mothers smoke whilst pregnant. I understand it would be desperately difficultt to give up and I believe that it each person own battle. I try not to judge either way because we have all been less than perfect mums at some point. I personally think she shouldn’t have done it, but that is what I think of smoking regardless. (From Blogs and PR) picking a tricky blog today
This is pretty much exactly what I was getting at with my comment on The Shake! Well said.
Someone agrees with me – thank you. I do feel bad for her, she is under stress, she is in the public eye, this must be hell for her but at the end of the day that baby has a right not to be sucking down contaminated air, it’s not right. Maybe for once the Media got it right, just think if they didn’t take that photo of her smoking, she could still be sneaking around, her family and husband wouldn’t even know, she wouldn’t be getting the help she and that baby needs. For once I’m glad the Media was there cause now she’s getting help. She may have even helped other mothers out there that are going through the same addiction.
I bet if Lara Bingle was caught smoking whilst pregnant, nobody would be defending her! If they ban smoking whilst pregnant, they would have to ban drinking whilst pregnant
I hate the whole notion of “Good Mothers”. My experience working with kids and families, is that the vast majority of parents love their children and want what is best for them. Granted circumstances and parents own experiences get in the way of the ‘ideal’ way to parent. But who is to say that smoking when pregnant is any more damaging to a child, than swearing at them when we lose our temper, or feeding them too much prepackaged and fast food, or forgetting to put on sunscreen once in a while, or any one of the other 100 things that we parents do occasionally which will scar our kids.
Everyone (Chrissie Swan) included knows the dangers of smoking whilst pregnant. If quitting were easy, she would have already done it. She obviously knows that it is not the best for her baby, and she is probably dealing with enough personal guilt from the issue before it hit the headlines.
Before we get all judgey mcjudgey, maybe we should consider that no parent is perfect. No parent makes totally selfless decisions all the time. Maybe we should stop saying “good mothers” or ‘bad mothers’, and just say “mothers who are trying their best”.
Thanks for linking up with Blogs and PR #TUST
I’m going to stay out of the arguement as I hate personal attacks by the media and dont want to add any fuel to make them do it more.
Annaleis – Blogs and PR Team Member #TUST
Just to clarify – I wasnt really having a “go” at the people who smoke whilst pregnant, even though obviously, for whatever reason (addiction or whatever) just saying that we shouldnt be conditioned that its OK and that it falls in the same category as giving your kids Maccas or swearing in front of them or letting them watch too much TV which is what that blog over at the Shake was not INFERRING, but DIRECTLY saying. Whilst I dont approve of prenatal smoking, my judgement of it is silent – I just will NOT condone it and will publicly say so. Not ONCE, did I say anyone who smoked whilst pregnant was a BAD mother, not once, but it CERTAINLY doesnt make them a GOOD one. All the other stuff they do after baby is born will do that.