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Parents: Time to Panic

Jill

No one wants their kids to smoke. But what if your kid is pretending to smoke, kinda-sorta? From an actual news broadcast, kids are smoking Smarties.

Like the blogger says:

Up next: “A warning for parents in these winter months. As your children exhale into the cold air, they could be pretending the resulting cloud of vapor is cigarette smoke!”

Not gonna lie, I’ve done that. It made me feel cool, like James Dean.

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23 thoughts on Parents: Time to Panic

  1. What kid hasn’t done that? As long as it’s only pretend, what’s the big deal?

    Just like not every kid that pretends to shoot someone is actually going to grow up to shoot people, not every kid who pretends to smoke when it’s cold enough to see your breath is going to smoke.

    (would it be worse if the kids were holding their hands in such a way as to suggest a joint rather than a cigarette? a crack pipe perhaps?)

  3. Heeheehee…I wish I’d thought of this as a way to hide when I was ACTUALLY smoking from my parents: “No, Mom and Dad, I wasn’t really smoking, I was just pretending to with one hand while the other was awkwardly placed behind my back for fun, ’cause it’s cool.”

    Actually after the hell I went through trying to quit years after I realized how uncool it was, I really really hope my kids pretend and leave it at that.

    (On another note…my daughter pretends to fly around while being her alter egos ‘Supergirl’ and “Underpants Man’ – don’t ask, she’s a creative little thing – and I’m not concerned with her trying to leap off our shed. Sometimes pretending is all you need…were these people never kids??)

  4. I was a vapor smoker as a kid, too. And I did the dragon thing Dao mentioned, too.
    And I confess that as a twentysomething, I still do it sometimes.

  5. Uh, the broadcast is about “smoking Smarties” not pretending the vapor is smoke. Still ridiculous, but a little different.

  6. I’ve always used the cold weather as an opportunity to practice smoke rings. I have yet to succeed, alas.

    Also, I have to admit, I have a certain grudging respect for the advertisers who managed to convince so many people that an activity as gross as cigarette smoking is actually really cool and socially transgressive.

  7. Smoking smarties.. Damn culture shock.. when I saw that, my first thought was ‘How do they do it without the chocolate melting?’

  9. i did that, too. i especially remember doing it at the daycare i went to for preschool – quite possibly because the teacher’s smoked during recess. My parents didnt smoke and i dont smoke (minus some social smoking in my dumber years).

    That said, my kids now are very aware of the dangers of smoking, much more than i was – probably cause they watched their daddy do it and the struggles he had quitting. theyve never pretended (that i can recall). we live in texas and it’s rare enought to see your breath that they simply enjoy seeing it.

  10. Andie:
    Smoking smarties.. Damn culture shock.. when I saw that, my first thought was ‘How do they do it without the chocolate melting?’

    Hehe, I was very confused by that too, until I clicked over to the video and realized what they were actually talking about. I had no idea some people in the US called rockets ‘smarties’.

  11. My dad asked me if I’d ever heard of this like two years ago, and I told him it must have been a weird dream he had. Why did I ever doubt him?

    (To be clear, he said that he heard it on the radio. My dad is not to blame for this story existing.)

  12. *eyeroll* Oh, good lord.

    Remember candy cigarettes? We used to pretend to smoke those, too. Now they’re called “candy sticks.”

    Kids pretend. Wooooo, moral panics.

  14. Oh, for…

    1. This is not new! Every kid since forever pretends that their condensed breath is smoke, and has used whatever they can get their hands on as props.

    2. Any kid who expects a cigarette to taste like candy is going to be sorely disappointed, so it’s probably better to distort their expectations young.

    3. THOSE AREN’T SMARTIES. Those are Rockets. Smarties are candy-covered chocolate buttons. I refuse to accept otherwise!

    4. If you are going to “smoke” candy, the Popeye candy sticks with a bit of red food dye on the end are much more realistic.

    5. GET OFF MY LAWN.

  15. I remember “smoking” bubblegum cigarettes wrapped in white paper with powdered sugar you could puff out the end. There was also Big League Chew shredded gum in foil packets team parents would give to us at tee ball games. Good times.

  16. When I did start smoking for real, when I was 15, I remember all the things I did to hide it. And not just to hide it, to also conceal the smell. Whether they worked or not, I have no idea.

  17. I loved me some bubblegum and candy cigarettes as a kid, but I never had any real interest in smoking real ones because my parents smoked like chimneys and I could go into the cabinet at any time and get a pack of Kool Kings if I wanted them. But I didn’t, because I already reeked from living in that house.

    My friends appreciated the smokes, though. I never saw the transgressiveness, because when your dad smokes four packs a day, you can’t possibly keep up.

  19. Wow. First, are those candies called Smarties in the states, not Rockets? I was also wondering how you could smoke Smarties without melting the chocolate.

    Second, I absolutely love news pieces that warn against the dangers of doing something, and then go on to tell you exactly how it’s done. It’s not like, we’d prefer they don’t do it at all but we’ll teach them to do it properly in case they try it when we aren’t looking (like how a lot of sex-ed programs work). It’s like, this one particular thing is bad for you, especially when you do it in this one specific way that we will now provide step-by-step instructions for.

    Third, detention for possession of a candy that you might possibly pretend is a cigarette? Wow.

  20. Why would anyone pretend to smoke with Smarties, though. They are delicious and meant to be eaten. My daughter, normally willing to share freely with her halloween candy refused to pass along a single Smartie to her mother. I felt so unloved.

  21. I’m with the Canadians/Brits/etc, I wasn’t sure how you could smoke Smarties… and then I thought maybe it was a delicacy thing, like smoked salmon.
    When I was a kid I revelled in going to the corner store for Popeye sticks and pretending I was smoking… added points if grown-ups working in their gardens commented on my health choices!
    I also remember when snorting Rockets (US Smarties) was a “thing” when I was in junior high. My dad walked in on me and my friends trying it out and oh did I ever get a lecture about “drug-related behaviour”.
    but neither attempts at being pseudo-cool seem to have had any lasting negative effects save cravings for compressed dextrose-y candy.
    and also, while my friends and I were pretending to smoke when it was cold out and we could see our breath, we were simultaneously making up anti-smoking songs to sing to grown-ups we knew who smoked. the idea that somehow kids will “smoke” sugar and that will be their gateway to actual cigarettes is ridiculous.

  23. bwahahaha!
    Watching the clip made me laugh outloud! After trips to the dentist my mom used to give us 10 cents to buy candy. What was my favourite? Licorice pipes! I’d be smoking that baby all the way home.

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