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My mother started at 15 years old  I am both an educator and the daughter of two smokers. Three years ago my mother, Miriam Dwan Hoffman, died of lung cancer after nearly a lifetime of smoking. She started when she was 15 back in the 1930's before smoking's negative health impacts were known. Back then, as it is now, young people smoked because they thought it would make them feel adult and "cool".
When medical studies made it clear that smoking caused cancer, my mother, with our help (my sister and I would collect a penny from her for every cigarette she and my father smoked) made an effort to stop. She was successful for about 10 years. When the car our family of six was riding in was almost knocked off of a cliff in the Sierras on a family vacation, the shock was too much and she started up again as soon as she could find a place to buy a pack.
It took her nearly 20 years before she was able to successfully quit again. Despite what I would call her heroic efforts to quit twice, she was diagnosed with lung cancer and died months later. In the last 20 years of her life she made an effort to live a healthy and vibrant life, eating properly, walking, taking swimming and piano lessons. Her mind was sharp and she still had many years of an active life to look forward to, but it was cut short by her having started to smoke as a teenager and the subsequent lung cancer. As the daughter of two smokers I know have to be concerned that I too may become a victim of second-hand smoke. Although I am a music teacher in |
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