What Im really thinking: the mother who smokes

I’m not a monster. I never smoke in front of or around my children. But they notice

I know it makes me a bad parent, but I can’t stop. I started smoking when I was 19 and working nights in a bar. The only way you could get a break was to have a cigarette, so I bought a pack. Apart from a few failed, half-hearted attempts to quit and the duration of my pregnancies, cigarettes have been with me ever since. In fact, the reason for starting again after my children were born is much the same as the reason I started in the first place: an excuse for a break.

For the five minutes the cigarette lasts, I am myself again. I am not Mummy. After all, what kind of mummy would do this? I’m not a monster. I never smoke in front of or around my children. I have bolt holes: the end of the garden, a walk with the dog. Give me a night out and I spend it in a cloud of nicotine. I’m far more sly than those mothers you see smoking at the pushchair, tapping ash into the pram, but am I really all that different?

In truth, it is getting harder to justify. No amount of teeth brushing and hand washing can completely eliminate the smell of smoke. The children notice. And I’m sick of the need to leave them. They notice that, too. Sometimes, I’m playing with them, listening to them, feeding them, and all I can think about is where the next cigarette is coming from. And there is the health risk. I know this, I’m not an idiot. It was all very well ignoring it when there was just me to worry about, but now I spend nights imagining what would happen to them if I got sick. Then I go for a cigarette.

I’m an addict. I’m filled with guilt. But I know I’m not stopping any time soon.

Tell us what you’re really thinking at mind@theguardian.com

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