Out of the Mouths of Babes

Floormodel’s Weblog reminded me that it is acceptable, and indeed admirable, to write about grandchildren in blogs.

My oldest grandchild, aged 6, asked me if grandpa smoked. I assured her he did not. She relaxed and said "thank goodness. Scientists have discovered that there are very harmful chemicals inside each cigarette. When a person smokes, the harmful chemicals are sucked out of the cigarette, go into the smoker's mouth and down into his lungs. Then he gets lung cancer and has to go to hospital".

I said "so if it is so clear that the chemicals in a cigarette make people very sick, why would any sensible person smoke?" My very clever granddaughter thought for a moment and said "They cannot help themselves. They must be addicted". I was briefly silent so she added , smiling, "I bet you didn't think I knew what addicted meant".

With all my fancy education, I didn't know about the harm cigarettes did until I was at university. So I asked her how she knew all this information. Clever girl said "oh we did a Risk Management talk at school".