Tangentially,

Well because the last post was just BUZZING with differences of opinions, healthy debate and funny hatecomments, I've decided to put my opinion down.

I'm talking about a recent vote to make smoking in the car with minors illegal. Now. In general, I think it's a good idea to do your best as a parent to protect your child from things that can hurt them. I think that includes second hand smoke. Children don't have an option to get away from the smoke from cigarettes and, yes, I think that parents who hot box their children are doing their children a disservice, especially with all of the data available about the effects of continual second hand smoke.

Now, with that said, here is my opinion: I think it is an incredibly slippery slope to be sliding on. The slope being a slop that begins to define what one can do in their personally, privately owned vehicle with their own children. I also feel that if this is put in to effect that many other laws need to be put in effect as well. Laws like "If you have children, you can't watch porn in the house." That one's from the girlfriend. And I know how ridiculous that is, but that's what needs to be thought about. If they can tell me I can't smoke in my vehicle, then they had better be paying for my vehicle. As long as I am paying, I can do what I want.

I don't smoke in the car with Emily, as a rule. I think it's gross and I don't want her to be the kid that smells like smoke. And yeah, health concerns blah blah blah. However, my reasons don't matter. I don't smoke with her in the car. And I think parents who do need to learn some facts about the dangers of it, and realize what they're doing to their children. But. It's my car, and it's my child. Therefore it is my choice.

I know that seems ignorant, that there are people who think this is a wonderful law and I'll say that I think it comes from a good place. But there are all sorts of things one shouldn't do in a vehicle (put makeup on, eat, get in to a song, talk, sign documents, groom animals, etc...) but they do. I saw a woman TWEEZING HER EYEBROWS at a stop light. Surely that's dangerous. And if she hit my car and killed my daughter, I'm sure Arizona would write a law against the use of tweezers in vehicles. So, again, I think this law comes from a good place. But I think that it's a dangerous starting point. I think that once we begin telling people what they can and cannot do with their possessions, clothing, and bodies, that we are transforming from a nation that is built on the freedom to make choices, even if they're bad choices, to a nation built on the notion that common sense doesn't exist.

And then I type that and find myself thinking, well, we DON'T have much common sense as a nation. What kind of person needs to be warned not to use a chain saw near their genitals, or not to throw a lit cigarette in to a pile of brush in fire season, or not to leave a child unattended in a walker at the top of a staircase? Who are we that we need these dire warnings and rules? Where did common sense go? I know that I have it, that I employ the use of it all the time when weighing my parenting decisions, my driving decisions, my grocery decisions. So why can I, and why can't other people? Why, especially, are parents not allowed to use common sense both from the law and from the demands of online parenting communities?

I once posted that I leave Emmy in the tub. She's three years old, NEVER SHUTS UP, and I go to the next room with both doors open and fold laundry while she sings. It's not like I leave her in there, hop in my car, go party for two hours and then come back. When I posted this I got 100+ comments about what an awful parent I am and that I deserve to see my daughter drown. Really? Because I'm pretty sure that in actuality I'm a single mom who has to fold the clothes, a mom that has taught her child that the bathroom rule is that you have to keep singing if you want your "piracy" and that at some point, one needs to give their child some room to learn some lessons.

That's probably a bad example, and there's probably someone whose cousin's boyfriend's mom's best friend left her daughter alone in the bathtub when she was nine years old for thirty seconds and came back in to find her daughter blue because she slipped and drowned in a half an inch of water. And if that happened to you, or your cousin's boyfriend's mom's best friend's daughter, I am very sorry. But for me, it works. It does. And for me, vaccinations work, and spankings work, and all sorts of things work. Leashes don't work for me.

I don't know what this all has to do with each other. I don't. I know that I suck at staying on topic (which is maybe why no one comments, even though I average about forty readers a day, come on people). I know that I am angry that rights seem to be taken away left and right and NO ONE CARES because it's in the name of safety. If this country is really worried about our kids, why don't we make fast food illegal? Start regulating our food industry and really start educating about the dangers of unsafe sex?

Hell, let's make a mandatory park that has checkin via fingerprint, eye scan and a drop of blood from both parent and child, a park that requires kids to work out for an hour a day? Why don't we try prohibition again? Because drunks are pretty fucking dangerous, don't you think? I know that drunk drivers are, yet people like http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=4262751 are let off with a 30 day sentence because of deep pockets. Why don't we just go ahead and ban conversation, because you never know when some kid will overhear something that will damage their minds. And shit, while we're at it, we can just get rid of parents all together, because those damn parents just fuck their kids up. Right?

It's part of life to fuck up, to make mistakes and learn from them, and while it's a parents' job to make good decision, they do have the RIGHT to make those decisions. They do.

I'm too angry to finish this. Not about smoking in cars, because like I said, I don't think one should smoke with kids around when it can be avoided. But about the impossible state of our country.

So excuse me while I go put twenty cigarettes in Emily's mouth, light them simultaneously and then laugh while I teach her to smoke twenty at a time.