Yesterday my 7-year-old daughter, Anya, was wearing a T-shirt I’d never seen before. It was a Barack Obama shirt. I asked where it came from. She said that someone gave it to her back in the fall, after he was elected. But why finally wear it now?
Well, the kids are on spring break and Anya had a chance to visit one of our favorite New York institutions, Economy Candy, which happened to be featured this week in a Times article about how candy sales are rising in these tough times.
At Economy, Anya discovered a new treat that is now her favorite: candy cigarettes. (Frankly, I am surprised that some well-meaning zealot hasn’t gotten them banned.) She apparently spent an hour or two observing smokers on the street to get their moves down pat.
So yesterday morning, when she woke up, she thought of herself as a smoker. Cool! And who’s the most famous smoker she knows? Our president, of course. On went the shirt.
I have no idea if Obama has given up smoking or not. But considering how much he admires Abe Lincoln, he might want to think about Anya’s choice of T-shirt as the equivalent of little Grace Bedell‘s letter urging Lincoln to grow a beard.
Every schoolchild in America seems to have watched his inauguration; Obama doesn’t really want them to think of him first and foremost as a smoker, does he?
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I am not smoker, but I saw the stress that my father and several relatives went through went they quit smoking. With all the stress currently on the President, I think people should cut him some slack on his smoking.
I was surprised to hear he was a smoker when I heard about it on NPR. They said that he never allows himself to be photographed while smoking–for the kids, I guess.
They also joked that we should let him have this simple vice. With so much pressure, and so much power, if that’s what he turns to, we’re in good shape.
My parents were horrified when, aged 5, I told them I was “thinking about quitting smoking today” at breakfast – I’d been copying the shearers on the farm and going behind the sheds for a smoke. After the general panic subsided, they asked me to show them what I meant. What I was doing was just holding cigarettes and mimicking their behaviour, and then copying adult conversations about quitting.
I am not sure that younger children make the President Obama – smoking link, but rather that your President needs to set an example for the adults who smoke in front of children.
I think that the power of suggestion, whereby children imitate adults in all their vices, is the real issue here, however subtle the distinction.
If I’m not mistaken, Michelle and he made a deal that if he were to run for president, he would have to quit smoking. Actually, I believe this was well-publicized.
I was surprised that they still sold candy cigarettes when I was a kid (late 80s), and I’m still surprised they’re still around. I guess the anit-smoking people are too busy making commercials featuring people who have to talk through a hole their throat.
No, probably not, but children tend to be focus on superficial details. Good thing adults don’t do that…
Please God! Don’t let him stop now or the whole Western World will fall!
The story I read said the only way Michelle would agree to a presidential run was if he quit smoking, which he says he did.
I’m pretty sure many states have banned candy cigs. I used to get them off the ice cream truck when I was a kid, and I wound up smoking for 20 years. Quitting was the hardest thing I ever did, so I certainly hope he got that over with before adding all this new stress to his life.