Holy Smokes!

Last night I caught my three year old smoking. Well, she hadn't really sparked up a ciggy, but what she was doing was almost as shocking. She had taken a pair of table legs from a doll house and had one hanging from her lips while the other was gripped firmly in her hand. When I told her to take the white plastic tube out her her mouth she quickly demonstrated to me that it was ok, she was just puffing on a cigarette. I was horrified. Initially I blamed it on my sister (sorry Sis!) since she is the only person that my daughter sees smoking on a regular basis. However, my sister never smokes in our house, so I was a little surprised that a three year old would so demonstrably mimic a behaviour that she hadn't really been exposed to that much. Then it dawned on me. The culprit wasn't my sister, but a movie - Grease. Both of my little ones love musicals, with all of the singing and dancing, bright costumes and high energy. A dvd that sees high rotation in our house has been Grease. Admittedly a lot of the subject matter is much too mature for a five and three year old, but I (obviously naively) thought that it would be over their heads, that they would bop along to the tunes and not clue into the grown up stuff. Wro-ong! Big lesson for me. There is lots of smoking in Grease and apparently as a result I have a three year old who has decided to take up the habit. Now I'm thinking it's just a matter of time before my five year old picks up on the sexual content. Needless to say this title has been pulled from our dvd library until later notice. Much later!