Today's weather was more seasonal here in Hog Heaven: the temp was 30 degrees under sunny skies when I went out running this morning. And, there was a moderate northwest wind. Actually, not bad running weather. The core of today's run was a 6 x 1-mile speed workout. Add in the warm-up and cool-down, and I did right at 9 miles total. I intended to run the mile intervals at race pace, but even with my Garmin watch keeping pace, I ran over 30 seconds faster than race pace. On every interval. I need to curb my enthusiasm. Tomorrow is cross training and Sunday is a one-hour maintenance run.
I saw this bad news on msnbc.com yesterday: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46669027/ns/health-addictions/
To summarize: the Surgeon General says that teen smoking remains at an epidemic rate. One in five teens smoke: 600,000 middle school students and 3 million high school students. That's right, 600,000 sixth-eighth graders! After the mandatory hand-wringing, the article cites all the ways that government needs to respond. That's fine, I guess. But, what bothers me is that NOWHERE in the articles are PARENTS mentioned.
My question: Does it take a village to raise a child or does it take determined parents?
I'm old-fashioned, so I choose parents. Growing up, I knew that my parents would kill me (I don't think that they meant that literally, but I wasn't sure) if they caught me smoking. (A nod to the village here: way back then, the local village did reinforce parents. The school suspended kids caught smoking. My Sunday School teacher told us that our bodies were the temple of the Lord and smoking, among other things, desecrated the temple and displeased God. Our coaches warned us that smoking made us winded and reduced our chances of playing.) That said, the warning/threat that had the most influence on me was the one that came from my parents. Go figure.
When I became a parent, I followed the same prescription. I didn't care that times had changed. I didn't want to be my son's friend. I wanted to be the best father he could have. I wanted him to grow up healthy and wise. I hoped that the wealthy part would take care of itself. I didn't threaten to kill him, but I did make it clear that I would be very disappointed in him if he did something as foolish as smoke. He knew that I was serious and that I'd be watching. He also knew that I loved him very much and wanted the best for him. He's 29 years-old and he's never smoked. I don't think that it had anything to do with the government-mandated warnings on cigarette packs.
An aside: Remember the War on Drugs? The government declared it back in the 1970s. Talk about a long war. This one's been going on for forty years with no end in sight. Over that time, we've spent hundreds of billions of dollars in this fight. And, to what end? Approximately, none. That's why I laughed out loud when I read that Surgeon General Regina Benjamin told the AP that "We want to make our next generation tobacco-free, and I think we can." (When Benjamin said "we," it was clear that she meant the government.)
What I can't believe is that someone in a position of authority would say something so utterly preposterous. Even if the government outlawed tobacco tomorrow, the next generation wouldn't be tobacco-free. Don't they remember prohibition? Just saying.
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