Last week, OK WASSUP! reported on a 2-year-old Indonesian baby whose parents allow him to smoke 2 packs of cigarettes per day. Now in light of international outrage from the story, the mother is aggressively speaking out.
“He’s crying because he wants a cigarette,” said his mother. The baby, whose name is Aldi, is nearly twice the weight of other babies his age, weighing in at 20 kilograms (44 pounds).
But Seto Mulyadi, chairman of Indonesia’s National Commission for Child Protection, believes the mother should find other things to occupy the boy’s time. “Smoking has been a part of our culture for so long it isn’t perceived as being hazardous, as causing illness, as poisonous,” Mulyadi said. “A lot of adults who are around children will smoke. They will carry a baby in one hand and a cigarette in another. Even mothers don’t understand that they are poisoning their children.”
“Well, I don’t want to give him cigarettes, but what am I supposed to do? I am confused,” his mother said. “I didn’t let him smoke, I even forbade him from smoking, but I was trying to stop him from getting sick.” The mother also said Aldi has smashed his head into a wall during a fit of tantrums after being denied a cigarette. She also said he vomits when he can’t satisfy his addiction. “I was smoking when I was pregnant, but after I gave birth I quit,” she said. “I don’t remember when, but we went to the market and then suddenly he had a cigarette in his hand. Even when he was a baby and he would smell smoke he would be happy.”
In a disturbing side story, it was discovered that the parents real motivation to get Aldi to quit wasn’t due to any health risk, but rather because they were tired of spending $4.00 a day for Aldi’s 40 cigarette a daily smoking habit. They simply can no longer afford it.
