I am a very devoted mother who is extremely dedicated and makpid on my children’s chinuch. something happened yesterday that shook me to my core.

My oldest son, who is 12 years old and enrolled in one of the top schools in Lakewood, came home from yeshiva and told me that a classmate of his had come to school with a fruit-flavored e-cigarette that he had taken from his older brother. He then brought my son behind the school building and began smoking it! He told my son that it’s not a “real” cigarette, because, as was evident, it didn’t taste like a real cigarette, so what harm could there be?

My son protested, saying his father had warned him against smoking, but the boy was persistent and confident in his assertion that it wasn’t dangerous. He then pushed my son to choose which flavor he wanted to try. Watermelon, cherry, strawberry, you name it, this kid had it. My son says he took a quick, short puff and then ran away. The boy then called over another classmate to convince him to try vaping, and then younger boys in the school, telling them that vaping is considered “purim shtick” and is perfectly OK.

This is the story of just one dumb kid, but there’s a much larger issue here.

We see so many people, especially bochurim, walking around with e-cigarettes as if it’s something to be proud of. Study after study has shown that the vapor from e-cigs can seriously harm the body, and its long-term effects could be disastrous, but we simply don’t know it yet because vaping is too new.

Especially now, with Purim upon us, I am worried about how many children will be encouraged to take a puff of an e-cigarrette. Is this what you want your children to be doing with their Purim? Potentially throwing away their lives? I would hope not.

There are so many who are fooled by its apparent innocence; what harm could there be in something that tastes like a strawberry or watermelon? What’s the harm of inhaling a little water vapor? The fact that it tastes sweet and nice, unlike the acrid taste of tobacco just compounds the issue, because now young children think it’s safe. It is anything but safe! And our kids are being pulled into this, unaware of the its inherent dangers.

There’s no way we can stop everyone from vaping. It’s a reality we will have to live with until people learn the hard way that it is unsafe. What we can do is teach our children. Don’t just sweep the issue under the rug and hope they won’t find out about vapes or come into a situation where they are tempted to try it. They will find themselves in that situation, whether you like it or not.

It is our jobs as parents to educate. Teach your children, especially your sons, what vaping is and why it is so harmful. Explain how the companies that create these devices purposely put in nicotine to get you addicted to it and unable to stop even if you wanted to. Teach them that if they love themselves they would never try it and wouldn’t bother being friends with those who do.

Furthermore, it is in my opinion absolutely incumbent upon schools and yeshivos to crack down on these behaviors. Schools and yeshivos cannot only focus on the spiritual health of their talmidim, they must focus on their physical health too. To look the other way when children vape is not only a serious dereliction of duty, it could also result in those people who ignore the issue to have blood on their hands.

Please, do yourself and your children a favor. Educate them about vaping. Demand that their yeshivos take the issue of vaping seriously and help in cutting out this awful practice from our society.

Wishing all a freilichen Purim,

A worried mother.

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