Going to a Smoking household

Question

We have a married couple friend who have eleven-year-old kids. The parents smoke in the house and my husband and I have casually mentioned before that that might not be so good for their kids but since it's their house, we didn't push it. However, we now have a five-month-old daughter who we don't want exposed to too much second-hand smoke and they smoke a lot. They want us to come over this weekend (I haven't seen them in over a year. My husband just ran into them yesterday) after some carnival or something on post. The only problem is that we don't want to say, "Don't smoke around our daughter, even if it is in your home." Is there a more tactful way to say it?

Answer 1

You didn't mention anything wrong with their kids, so why would anything go wrong with yours? They've tolerated it for 11 years too. You'll only tolerate it for a few hours, if that.  Just relax and go visit.  

Answer 2

You're right, you can't tell them not to smoke. But what you can say is "We'd love to see you, but we can't expose our daugther to second-hand smoke. Is there any way you can accomodate her?"

Answer 3

What Zoralink said!

Answer 4

Ask them to come over to your house or dont bring the baby. it is so rude to smoke around other peoples kids. when we go to my mother in laws, they all go outside and smoke when the grandkids are over.  

Answer 5

Tell them the truth. My husband and I will not bring our daughter into his brother's house because his wife smokes worse than a factory chimney. I don't care if she smoked while pregnant with all five kids and smoked when they were/are growing up. I don't care if she smokes around her granddaughter who is only a couple of months older than our ten and a half month old. The woman reeks of smoke. (Sadly, my BIL is in remission of multiple myloma and she still smokes around him and probably wonders why he gets sick with things like pneumonia.) Actually, I do care that she smoked while pregnant and around her kids and granddaughter.

Last night we were at my BIL's long enough for my husband to drop something off. He wasn't gone but two minutes and came out reeking of smoke. Disgusting. So for a few minutes I had the back window open so that the car could air out and our daughter's exposure would be minimal. A couple of weeks ago we took my BIL to the city so that he could have his six month check up. He came to the car reeking of smoke and my husband and I had the windows down for at least ten minutes.

I'm an ex-smoker but was around many people who smoked and had no qualms with not smoking around other people.

Why not ask if they want to meet you at the carnival and just make that the outing? Also ask that they don't smoke around yuor baby. If there are any problems, you can always say that you need to go home and nurse your daughter or put her to bed, etc. When my daughter was only four months old, I didn't like to stay out long with her.