# Would you let your 14 year old do this?



## kittykatz (Feb 22, 2013)

Ok I just want to say Im not creating this thread to bash anyone, I just have my own opinion on this matter and I'm curious to see how many others agree with me.

First, Id like to give you a little background info on my husband. His mom and dad had him when they were in their early 20s, and then a couple years later they had my husband's brother. His parents stayed married for close to 10 years and then ended up getting a divorce.

Well, shortly after that, my husband's dad met a woman. She already had two kids herself (two girls), she had been married 3 times, and she was only in her late 20s/early 30s. My husband's dad ended up marrying her, and they ended up having two kids together. First they had a girl, then a few years later had a boy, which are my husband's half siblings.

They stayed married for a long time, surprisingly... I believe it was 15-20 years. Eventually I guess she got sick of him and kicked him out. It wasnt long after that and she had already found another man and got married to him. And youll never believe how they met! She worked as a nurse at a prison... and this guy was an inmate. They didnt stay married long... Not long after that, she met another guy, and Im not sure if they got married or if he just lived with her.... in any case, they ended up splitting up, just like all the others... and if Im not mistaken, shes with another guy currently, and Ive seen him refer to her as his "wife" on facebook, so apparently theyre married. So this makes how many times that shes been married? Six? Seven? I dont know I lost count. Anyway a couple years ago she was dating this guy that she met in prison, and she actually ended up getting caught, and lost her job over it... and now she isnt allowed to work for the state anymore... so I dont know where she is working at the moment but I have to say, I think it was a pretty dumb decision to risk losing your job for some guy, especially when you have kids to support. So as you can tell, this woman isnt very stable and she makes some really bad choices... and as a result of it, her kids have had all sorts of problems. A few years ago her daughter was having all sorts of problems, she was sneaking out of the house to be with boys, she thought she was pregnant at 13 (but apparently wasnt), and most likely the reason she was acting that way is because she saw her mom hopping from one guy to the next, and it set a bad example. 

Well now, her son (my husbands half brother) is getting into those teenage years. He is 14 now, and hes starting to act out too. Last summer him and his dad came over to visit us and I was shocked when I saw him pull out a cigarette, light it and start puffing on it. Apparently my husbands dad buys him the cigarettes because he says that if he doesn't buy them for him, hes just going to end up stealing them from someone and he'll end up with them anyway. Currently my father in law and his son live with my husband's stepsister... well I guess shes his ex stepsister now that his dad and stepmom arent married anymore... but anyway, she smokes, and my husbands dad says that if he doesnt buy the cigarettes, his kid will just steal them from the stepsister, and then the stepsister will be jumping all over my husband's dad about it... so his solution is to just buy them for him!

Not only that but apparently he smokes weed too, and my husbands dad does nothing about that either. When they were here visiting, we were all riding in the car together and my husbands brother said to his dad "Dad... do you remember that time so and so came over, and he brought that bag of weed... I wasnt sure if you saw it or not".... and his dad was like "yea... I saw it".. that wasnt the exact conversation but it was something like that.

Heres my opinion. You can't control your kids all the time... now matter how hard you try there are going to be times when you cant be there to watch their every move... So yea, your kid might still end up getting some cigarettes or some weed from someone... but Im for damn sure not going to make it easy for him by buying the cigarettes for him myself. In my opinion, all hes doing is enabling him, and chances are, hes already hooked on it and he'll be one of those people thats having health problems later on down the road because of it. My husbands dad even tells my husband things like "I wish he would stop"... and im like wth?! Hes 14 years old.... hes a child, you still have authority over him. If you dont want him doing something, dont allow it.... or like I said, at least dont make it easy for him to do these things. Theres no way in hell hes going to stop if he knows that if he wants a pack of cigarettes, its as easy as just saying "hey dad go get me some ciggs!". Why would he stop??

Whats your opinion?


----------



## Wiltshireman (Jan 23, 2013)

Would I let any 14 year old smoke cigarettes (NO).
Would I buy any 14 year old cigarette (NO).
Would I let any 14 year old smoke "weed" (HELL NO).

You do not say where you live but in the UK it is illegal for anyone under the age of 18 to buy cigarettes or for anyone over 18 to buy them on behalf of some one under 18. "weed" is just plain Illegal.


----------



## kittykatz (Feb 22, 2013)

I live in the US... and yea Im pretty sure the laws are the same here. I know for sure that you cant buy cigarettes if youre under 18, which is why he cant by them himself, he pretty much has to either steal them or have someone else buy them. 

And Im pretty sure that its also illegal here for someone to buy cigarettes for someone who is under the legal age. I would think it would be the same as buying alcohol for someone who is underage, which is also illegal. At least his dad doesn't buy him alcohol... at least not that I know of.

As far as marijuana goes, honestly I don't think marijuana is as bad. I mean I certainly wouldn't want my 14 year old doing it... but if I had a choice, I'd much rather my kid do marijuana than smoke cigarettes. I find it funny that alcohol and cigarettes are legal but marijuana is not... marijuana doesnt cause cancer... some people will try to tell you that it destroys brain cells but I think thats BS, theres no proof of that. 

Bottom line is, at 14 years old, I wouldnt be enabling my kids to do any type of drug whether it be marijuana, alcohol, cigarettes or whatever... now when they turn 18, thats their choice. Thats why there are laws about this sort of thing... because at 14, you dont have good enough judgement yet to make these kind of decisions.


----------



## 28down (Feb 26, 2013)

No i wouldn't allow it, or condone it, remember my dad making me smoke a huge cigar til I turned green!


----------



## FryFish (Sep 18, 2012)

My opinion: you should stck to the important facts and fill us in on any questions that are asked later... You spend too much time looking down on other people. The entire first half of your post could have been summed up in half a sentence: The kids parents are not good role models.

that said, no, I would not condone buying a kid smokes or letting him smoke weed... 

Why are you face book stalking your husbands distant family?


----------



## daisygirl 41 (Aug 5, 2011)

FryFish said:


> My opinion: you should stck to the important facts and fill us in on any questions that are asked later... You spend too much time looking down on other people. The entire first half of your post could have been summed up in half a sentence: The kids parents are not good role models.
> 
> that said, no, I would not condone buying a kid smokes or letting him smoke weed...
> 
> Why are you face book stalking your husbands distant family?


WTH?
Really?

No it's not a good idea, but the whole family obviously have
Issues with boundaries and 'rules'.
The only thing you can really do though is not allow him to smoke in your home when he visits.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## ScarletBegonias (Jun 26, 2012)

no to the cigarettes at any age
no to the weed at least til he gets to college.

If he sneaks and gets cigarettes from someone else,he should be made to chain smoke a pack til he pukes.

If he sneaks around and gets weed he should be made to smoke til he tweaks out.


----------



## kittykatz (Feb 22, 2013)

FryFish said:


> My opinion: you should stck to the important facts and fill us in on any questions that are asked later... You spend too much time looking down on other people. The entire first half of your post could have been summed up in half a sentence: The kids parents are not good role models.
> 
> that said, no, I would not condone buying a kid smokes or letting him smoke weed...
> 
> Why are you face book stalking your husbands distant family?


Im not facebook stalking my husbands family... his stepmom sent me a friend request and I accepted it to be nice. Isn't that what facebook is for? For people to post things so other people can read them? Its not like im constantly checking her fb page... but anytime she posts anything it shows up in my news feed.. so how am I NOT supposed to see it?? If she didnt want me to read her or her bf/husbands comments she wouldnt hsave sent me a friend request.And yea I could have just said his parents are bad role models... my mistake. I just like making sure I give all the details to avoid people making false assumptions when they don't know the whole story. Which is what you just did by assuming that I "stalk" by husbands family... without even knowing if im friends with them on fb or any of the details. All I mentioned was one particular time when I saw something that his stepmoms bf wrote... and all of a sudden im a fb stalker and that means I look at their fb page everyday. Sorry but I just think you're trying to start an argument here.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## kittykatz (Feb 22, 2013)

coffee4me said:


> kk,
> I wouldn't condone my children smoking at 14 or 18 or 45. If one of them decided to take up smoking at any point in their lives, they would have the good sense to hide it from me!
> 
> This is off topic but...
> The way you describe your husbands family and yours is very similar to the difference in backgrounds of my xhusband and myself. I always looked at getting to know his family as a way of getting to know him better and understanding people and life situations that were completely unfamiliar to me. Frankly, he viewed my family the same way. He always wondered what it would have been like to have normal stable parents, being married to me gave him that opportunity and made me appreciate my own family more as I saw them through his eyes and he always commented on how fortunate I was. However, getting to know his family gave me a more realistic view of what many families are like and taught me compassion and understanding for people brought up in different types of families. Their thinking may be far removed from how you were raised but you can learn something from getting to know them and accepting them without judgement.


 I agree with you. I don't purposely tried to judge them but so many of his family members are just so different from me.. and when they do things that I consider to be bad decisions its hard for me to not form an opinion of them.... even my own husband talks about his stepmom and what a bad role model she is... its just a fact. You can't do the things she does and say that you're setting a good example for your kids. However he will never say anything bad about his dad... he told me he would not allow his own kids to smoke weed or cigarettes, so he obviously doesn't agree with what his dad is doing.. but all he seems to do is make excuses for him. Because he recently had a heart attack and my husband said maybe he just let's his kid do whatever he wants because its less stressful than making him follow rules. Even if that's true, being a parent is stressful, that's just how it is. You can't let your kids do as they please just because its too much of a pain to make them do what they're told.... I understand what you're saying though and its hard but im working on it... id love to learn to be more accepting of people. That still doesn't mean il agree with everything they do though.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## kittykatz (Feb 22, 2013)

ScarletBegonias said:


> no to the cigarettes at any age
> no to the weed at least til he gets to college.
> 
> If he sneaks and gets cigarettes from someone else,he should be made to chain smoke a pack til he pukes.
> ...


 That's what id do. There are ways of making him stop as opposed to just letting him do whatever he wants. And its clear that he only smokes because he thinks it makes him look grown up... which is also mostly his stepmoms fault in my opinion because I feel that she left her kids no choice but to grow up fast.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

KittyKatz,
Do you or your husband smoke? If so do either of you do it in the home?

No I would not allow a kid of any age to smoke cigarettes. I would not buy them for the kid either. 
His father is right; if the kid wants to smoke he will find a way to get them. But that does not mean that the parents should provide them. I know that in the high school my kids went to there were some kids who sold cigarettes and all kinds of drugs to the other students. This was of course highly illegal. But being highly profitable there were kids who did it. 

Unfortunately, many children who grow up in a home with smokers will end up smoking. It’s not just the example their parents set. The second hand smoke also gets to them and they can start to feel the need for the nicotine.

You could turn the parents into the state for child abuse, or whatever the law is. 

You can absolutely tell the father and the kid that they are not allowed to smoke in your home. Tell them that you do not allow smoking in your home. So they will have to go outside to smoke.


----------



## janefw (Jun 26, 2012)

No
No
No
No

I have three boys - 20, 16, 12 .. they would under no circumstances be given cigarettes or drugs. If they steal them from someone, they will be punished severely. 

No boundaries whatsoever in that family. Poor kids.


----------



## naga75 (Jul 5, 2012)

haha i was still scared sh!tless of my dad when i was fourteen.
not too big to get an ass whoopin.
i lived.


----------



## kittykatz (Feb 22, 2013)

I admit that I gossip... and again that's something I was brought up in. My parents gossip about people... but in this particular case I wasn't trying to gossip. Again, I was just trying to give everyone a good idea of what kind of mom the kid has so that everyone would have a better understanding of why the kid is acting out. No my husband doesn't like gossip which is why I try not to gossip in front of him. Keep trying to convince me that my husband is so miserable... I can assure you he is perfectly happy with me and if he wasn't he would have been gone long ago. And you're one to talk about being a drama queen... you're the one who insists on coming into my threads and always making negative comments. You're just asking for drama.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## kittykatz (Feb 22, 2013)

EleGirl said:


> KittyKatz,
> Do you or your husband smoke? If so do either of you do it in the home?
> 
> No I would not allow a kid of any age to smoke cigarettes. I would not buy them for the kid either.
> ...


 no my husband and I do not smoke. My husbands dad does though... although I think he recently quit after his heart attack. I already told my husband that I didn't want his brother smoking in our house... but like I said, the response I got was "well he already knows not so smoke in the house". So as far as I know, he never smoked in the house. My husbands dad has talked about taking the stepmom to court before to get custody of the kids before but I don't think he's going to go through with that. Although I do agree that the kids would be better off with my husbands dad than their mom, his dad isn't making very smart choices either. Technically the dad could get in trouble legally for giving his kid cigarettes but I don't think it would be my place to step in. I know how much my husband cares for his dad and I wouldn't want to betray him like that.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## CantePe (Oct 5, 2011)

You know it's called "contributing to the delinquency of a minor".. big ramifications for that...

Nothing you can really do though, it's their household and if they are in yours all you can do is enforce the rules of your house.


----------



## kittykatz (Feb 22, 2013)

CantePe said:


> You know it's called "contributing to the delinquency of a minor".. big ramifications for that...
> 
> Nothing you can really do though, it's their household and if they are in yours all you can do is enforce the rules of your house.


I agree.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## FryFish (Sep 18, 2012)

You seem genuinely interested in feedback and improvement kk... that is why I read your threads.


----------



## unbelievable (Aug 20, 2010)

This kid needs a parent. "No" to the cigarettes, "No" to weed. The argument is that if you don't give them to him he'll steal them? It's probably too late for this kid and the criminal justice system will have to try to do the job his parents have neglected. I met a 14 year old kid a few years back, basically the same scenario. He was a little turd, openly smoked, talked to his mom like she was nothing. I heard the same garbage that he'd just steal if his single-mom parent didn't supply him. That's been about six years ago. He got into drugs, murdered his own baby, and now, he's doing life. Two lives lost because his parents couldn't be bothered to be parents.


----------



## Tigger (Dec 5, 2007)

coffee4me said:


> :rofl:
> Isn't it the truth! My dad never laid a finger on me growing up but I always thought if I did something really bad .... like smoke. He's beat the crap out of me. Now a days, it is politically incorrect to have your children fear an ass whoopin.


That is the problem. Kids have no fear of the ass whoopin. They run the show and we are seeing the affects of that.


----------



## Tigger (Dec 5, 2007)

There seems to be no shortage of lazy parents who don't want to parent. I wouldn't let him smoke around you.

Parents like this are the ones that need a trip to the wood shed.


----------



## kittykatz (Feb 22, 2013)

FryFish said:


> You seem genuinely interested in feedback and improvement kk... that is why I read your threads.


As I said before, I have no problem with negative comments if I think someone is sincerely trying to help... but if they're making comments just for the sake of being negative and rude, that's what I don't appreciate. I thought maybe I was wrong about you and actually felt bad for being snippy with you in another one of my threads.... but then you come in and post something like this and it really makes me wonder.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## kittykatz (Feb 22, 2013)

unbelievable said:


> This kid needs a parent. "No" to the cigarettes, "No" to weed. The argument is that if you don't give them to him he'll steal them? It's probably too late for this kid and the criminal justice system will have to try to do the job his parents have neglected. I met a 14 year old kid a few years back, basically the same scenario. He was a little turd, openly smoked, talked to his mom like she was nothing. I heard the same garbage that he'd just steal if his single-mom parent didn't supply him. That's been about six years ago. He got into drugs, murdered his own baby, and now, he's doing life. Two lives lost because his parents couldn't be bothered to be parents.


 That's awful... its sad but I think you're right... most likely he will end up in jail. To top it all off, his mom even tells him that one days he going to go to prison... she said he's going to turn out to be a serial killer or something like that, because he's gotten into trouble at school for brninging a pocket knife. Supposedly kids were picking on him and that was his way of defending himself. My husband even said this himself "that's a sure way to make sure your kid ends up going to prison. If he grows up with his own mom saying he's going to wind up there someday."
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## FryFish (Sep 18, 2012)

> but then you come in and post something like this and it really makes me wonder.


I lack tact... you lack experience... luckily your flaw will be fixed with time.


----------



## unbelievable (Aug 20, 2010)

Expect low behavior from a kid and that's what you'll get. Demand their best and that's what you'll get. His own mama told him he was good for only prison? That might be the saddest thing I've heard and I've heard plenty. Think I'll send my mama some flowers tomorrow. Without decent parents, I wouldn't have stood a chance, either.


----------



## kittykatz (Feb 22, 2013)

unbelievable said:


> Expect low behavior from a kid and that's what you'll get. Demand their best and that's what you'll get. His own mama told him he was good for only prison? That might be the saddest thing I've heard and I've heard plenty. Think I'll send my mama some flowers tomorrow. Without decent parents, I wouldn't have stood a chance, either.


Completely agree.


----------



## EnjoliWoman (Jul 2, 2012)

There is something you can do - report it to the authorities. It's illegal to give minors cigarettes, much less weed.

Before it becomes a habit that kills him, I'd call social services.


----------

