5 ms·

> With what we've known about 2nd hand smoke for decades now, I think we can universally say smoking in front of your kids is bad parenting. Is spending time w

by jefftk 4y ago

> With what we've known about 2nd hand smoke for decades now, I think we can universally say smoking in front of your kids is bad parenting. Is spending time with your kids in front of the fireplace similarly bad parenting? Because the health effects of an open fire indoors are worse.

throwaway27727 4y ago
But it's not viewed as bad, which is the point here.
lukas099 4y ago
My unconscious judgement is that the smoker is someone who does this all the time (which might not be true) and the fireplace-user is just lighting a fireplace as a special occasion (also not necessarily true). So if I see a scene of a parent smoking, I will judge them as a bad parent, but not really the fireplace user. To answer your actual question, yes, doing something that is worse than smoking near your kids is bad parenting (unless it's a rare enough event to cause negligible harm).
moron4hire 4y ago
I'm confused. That's... not how fireplaces work. The exhaust goes up the chimney, not into the room. The heat in the room is radiant heat from the bricks in the chimney. Also, how is one other (potentially bad or not) activity germain to the one being discussed? What about clowns? What about how Swedish fish candies are made?
- jefftk 4y ago
  > The exhaust goes up the chimney, not into the room. Most of it, yes, but there's still a very large increase in particles in the air, far more than when smoking. > how is one other (potentially bad or not) activity germain to the one being discussed? My parent was saying "given the health effects, you should not smoke in front of your children". I was asking how they squared this with an activity with much larger health effects that I suspect they think is fine to do with your kids.
  - dahfizz 4y ago
    Particulate count is the least of your worries when it comes to cigarette smoke. The tar, acetone, cadmium, carbon monoxide, etc etc etc is going to do a lot more damage. Do you have any evidence that indoor wood fires are more damaging that cigarette smoke?
karaterobot 4y ago
I looked around for studies concluding that wood smoke from indoor fireplaces had worse health effects than chronic secondhand smoke exposure. I found a few that link wood smoke and lung cancer, which makes sense to me because wood smoke is a carcinogen. But I didn't find anything claiming it was worse than secondhand cigarette smoke, which is the part of the claim I find unintuitive. Can you point me to whatever source you used to make the above statement?
- HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
  Do those studies link "wood smoke from indoor fireplaces" or just "wood smoke" to lung cancer? The level of smoke exposure from a modern indoor fireplace is considerably less than from an outdoor fire pit. I will happily have my fireplace burning all day long on a subzero winter day, throwing on the occasional fresh log. But if I have a bonfire outside in summer, I need to be standing upwind.
  - karaterobot 4y ago
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3002194/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3002194/ is the one I was mainly thinking of. This is about indoor solid fuel burning. They looked at coal and wood, and found very strong effects in coal (duh) but also some effects in wood. But, I didn't see any comparison to cigarettes or secondhand smoke from either of them. It would be really surprising to me if it were the case, because secondhand smoke certainly seems like it creates more particulates in a house, since most wood smoke goes up the chimney. Plus, if you smoke, you're probably not only smoking for part of the year, like with fireplace use. But, my intuition is not a strong argument, so that's why I'd love to see the study.

by jefftk 4y ago

throwaway27727 4y ago

But it's not viewed as bad, which is the point here.

lukas099 4y ago

My unconscious judgement is that the smoker is someone who does this all the time (which might not be true) and the fireplace-user is just lighting a fireplace as a special occasion (also not necessarily true). So if I see a scene of a parent smoking, I will judge them as a bad parent, but not really the fireplace user. To answer your actual question, yes, doing something that is worse than smoking near your kids is bad parenting (unless it's a rare enough event to cause negligible harm).

moron4hire 4y ago

I'm confused. That's... not how fireplaces work. The exhaust goes up the chimney, not into the room. The heat in the room is radiant heat from the bricks in the chimney. Also, how is one other (potentially bad or not) activity germain to the one being discussed? What about clowns? What about how Swedish fish candies are made?

jefftk 4y ago
> The exhaust goes up the chimney, not into the room. Most of it, yes, but there's still a very large increase in particles in the air, far more than when smoking. > how is one other (potentially bad or not) activity germain to the one being discussed? My parent was saying "given the health effects, you should not smoke in front of your children". I was asking how they squared this with an activity with much larger health effects that I suspect they think is fine to do with your kids.
- dahfizz 4y ago
  Particulate count is the least of your worries when it comes to cigarette smoke. The tar, acetone, cadmium, carbon monoxide, etc etc etc is going to do a lot more damage. Do you have any evidence that indoor wood fires are more damaging that cigarette smoke?

karaterobot 4y ago

I looked around for studies concluding that wood smoke from indoor fireplaces had worse health effects than chronic secondhand smoke exposure. I found a few that link wood smoke and lung cancer, which makes sense to me because wood smoke is a carcinogen. But I didn't find anything claiming it was worse than secondhand cigarette smoke, which is the part of the claim I find unintuitive. Can you point me to whatever source you used to make the above statement?

HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
Do those studies link "wood smoke from indoor fireplaces" or just "wood smoke" to lung cancer? The level of smoke exposure from a modern indoor fireplace is considerably less than from an outdoor fire pit. I will happily have my fireplace burning all day long on a subzero winter day, throwing on the occasional fresh log. But if I have a bonfire outside in summer, I need to be standing upwind.
- karaterobot 4y ago
  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3002194/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3002194/ is the one I was mainly thinking of. This is about indoor solid fuel burning. They looked at coal and wood, and found very strong effects in coal (duh) but also some effects in wood. But, I didn't see any comparison to cigarettes or secondhand smoke from either of them. It would be really surprising to me if it were the case, because secondhand smoke certainly seems like it creates more particulates in a house, since most wood smoke goes up the chimney. Plus, if you smoke, you're probably not only smoking for part of the year, like with fireplace use. But, my intuition is not a strong argument, so that's why I'd love to see the study.