Table 2 Conflicts

Self-criticism/ Being a good vs bad parent

“I can’t stand it [smoking while walking with the stroller], but I do it sometimes. It’s out of fatigue, those moments of fatigue. I always look at myself with a critical eye; on the other hand I also do it about twice a week.”

“It makes me feel bad and I know it’s bad. I get so mad at myself but…it’s a conflict, a huge conflict… I mean it goes against everything that… as a parent you want only good for your children, and here you’re sticking poison in their face….”

“I think it means being a bad father…. It doesn’t make them bad people just because they smoke. What I meant was the bad aspect of smoking…but I will never smoke next to my children, even when they’ll be 10 years old.”

Acceptance of imperfection – no guilt

“I’m not sorry for smoking nor am I trying to obtain anyone’s approval. I don’t have guilt feelings over smoking. That doesn’t mean that I need to smoke more. I’m aware that I need to do something”

Judgement of ‘others’

“I see it when they’re [others] looking at me. When I’m walking around with the carriage and I’m holding a cigarette… No, it doesn’t affect me…Maybe bothers me for a moment, but it passes.”

Conflicts with family

“There are arguments about that for example, about my mother, we argue about her smoking, me and my partner, it upsets her [my partner] that she [my mother] doesn’t make an effort not to smoke around the kids”

Participant: “I fight with them [my parents] about it all the time…that they shouldn’t smoke next to the children.”

Interviewer: “And what do they say?”

Participant: “In my house I’ll do what I want.”… It happened once or twice, that I was there with the children and my dad lit up a cigarette, so I just took them and left.”