Smokin’ in a Blizzard

It’s been pretty cold here the last few days.  The cold and snow typically get people to bundle up and only go out when they have to.  Yesterday, however, I drove past a car with the driver’s side window down.  At first, I thought it was because the driver was smoking, which turned out to be the case, but as I took a closer look, I noticed that a young boy was sitting in his car seat in the backseat of the car.  Now, this blog isn’t about telling people not to smoke – smoking is gross and everyone already knows that.  If someone chooses to smoke, they’ve already given up.  What this blog IS about is challenging males to be better, to be TrueMen.

In the case of this father (the assumption here is that the man driving the car is the child’s father), not only was he smoking around his child, which is statistically proven to [enormously] increase the chances of his son smoking, starting at a young age, but more importantly he was playing freeze-out with his two year old in order to smoke!  Yesterday’s high was around 28 degrees Fahrenheit!  Does it sound to you like the father has his child’s best interest at heart?  Or, as it appears to me, does the father have his nicotine addiction as his number one priority?

It’s pretty simple to see what the virtuous thing to do here is.  Yes, quitting smoking would be a virtuous thing.  However, the virtue of prudence is what this man should be striving for.  Prudence would tell him that he 1. shouldn’t be smoking around his child and 2. that he should wait until he’s not in the car to smoke, thus not having to roll his window down when it’s freezing outside and his child is in the backseat of the car.  C’mon, brother, put your kid’s needs and best interest before your cancer-sticks.

Man up!