Britney's latest bad-mommy episode
Well, they caught Britney Spears in a less-than-flattering parenting moment again -- smoking in front of her toddler, who could also reach out and grab her cigarettes and lighter.
As anybody with an Internet connection or eyes to scan the supermarket mag racks knows, the pop princess has been repeatedly criticized for her parenting, from the way she carries her kids to driving with one of them sitting in her lap.
This is the perfect subject for a summertime Guilty-Mom poll. What do you think about Britney's latest mom dust-up? You have until Friday at noon to weigh in.
Baltimoresun.com's 
Comments
Are you serious? I presume that most of you lived through the 70's?
Eric
Posted by: Eric | July 23, 2008 2:40 PM
Yep. Lived through the 70's. Breathed secondhand smoke. Had asthma. Watched best-friend's mother die of emphasema from smoking. Your point? That this is good behavior to model for your children? That you shouldn't keep matches and lighters away from kids? That toddlers haven't ever eaten their parents' cigarettes and had to go to the ER for a nice dose of ipacac syrup?
Posted by: Momof2 | July 23, 2008 4:12 PM
Sorry, Eric--on this one I am of the opinion that any mother who smokes is by definition a bad mother, whether she does it away from the kids or not. There is just too much evidence about the horrible medical effects to herself and others. I lost two uncles to emphysema, and I have vivid memories of the oxygen tanks.
Posted by: Dahlink | July 23, 2008 5:25 PM
She should try to smoke away from him, but the pictures look more like a mom supervising her child and taking something away from him. My almost 4yo climbs on stools and chairs and gets ahold of stuff inadvertently left out from time to time. Maybe she was further away from him and had to come closer to take the lighter away?
I feel bad for her. It's a crying shame that she can't even be in her own home without someone hanging from a tree branch with a telephoto lens to take her picture. Is nothing sacred? I think the media bends over backwards to make Britney look bad.
Posted by: Kayris | July 23, 2008 8:59 PM
I remember riding the hump in the back of a two-tone 1950s Chevy with my mom and grandmom to either side of me and my dad and granddad up front. Windows rolled up, smoke filled, going across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in the rain. One bridge, single lane each way. Wipers scraping the glass. I got sick. No more after that. From then on, I was allowed to ride up front, and roll down the window to throw up. On the Bridge you couldn't stop. It crossed no one's mind that it was the cigarette smoke that did me in or perhaps you shouldn't smoke in front of kids. Unfiltered Chesterfields, Pall Malls Kents. I knew who smoked what, even at an early age. My dad is still alive at 83, but both men developed smoke-related illnesses, and my granddad died of lung cancer.
Posted by: Nicole` | July 29, 2008 11:00 AM
Kayris commented I think the media bends over backwards to make Britney look bad. But Britney makes it so easy for them!
Posted by: Dahlink | July 29, 2008 7:30 PM