Archive | Safe & Natural Parenting RSS feed for this section

7 More Things That a New Mom Needs, Postpartum Edition

Posted on May 23, 2011 by in Blog, Safe & Natural Parenting

Building on the success of our 15 Things New Moms Really Need list, I’d like to add seven more things that a post-partum mom really needs. Per usual, add to this list as you see fit. What were among your personal lifesavers?

Me? My husband (see item 5), as well as:

1. Nipple Cream
Hell hath no fury like a baby’s first few weeks of nursing. No matter what they tell you, it hurts. It freakin’ hurts. And then, one day, it doesn’t. The timeline varies woman to woman, but one thing I think we can all agree on is a good nipple cream goes a long way to alleviated discomfort from dry, chapped or cracked nips.

Lansinoh, the only topical nipple cream endorsed by La Leche League International, “is more effective than expressed breastmilk, combined with breastfeeding education, in reducing nipple pain and promoting healing of nipple trauma.”

2. Medela Nursing Shells
Nursing pads are a no-brainer; nursing shells are a stroke of genius. Should any soreness ensue, new moms are going to want to air out their nipples as much as possible. They’re also going to want to leave the house. These nursing shells from Medela will help alleviate that discomfort, and prevent further irritation. They also come with reusable absorbant inserts to catch any leaks, of which there will be many.

3. A Boppy
Seeing a pattern here? We here at SCP are big time breastfeeding advocates and believe that in order for a woman to nurse successfully, she’s going to need a lot of support. For example, the Boppy!

Do not succumb to any imitators or substitutes. The Boppy is hands down the most versatile, nursing friendly and useful nursing pillow that will have several lives – from birth through all stages of infancy. My Brest Friend is also good, though it not as versatile.

4. A Belly Bandit
Trust me, combined with nursing, using the Belly Bandit is an almost foolproof way to get your figure back after pregnancy. Moreover, women who have had c-section births are going to need some post partum support. The Bamboo Belly Bandit is antibacterial and more durable than cotton. It’s also a sustainable crop grown without the use of pesticides, fungicides, herbicides and excess water. It’s one of the greenest fibers around.

5. A Live In Cleaning Service
Allow me a gender stereotype for a moment. Upon viewing my husband on his hands on knees mopping the floor by hand, followed by folding laundry and stacking it neatly in my son’s armoire, my sister proclaimed: “by God, he cleans like a woman!”

If hiring a full-time maid is not in your budget, challenge your husband to a gender-bending contest. A clean home is a happy home and, believe you me, you’re going to want to be in as happy and clean a home as possible because…

6. An Over Stimulation Ban
About a week – give or take – after giving birth, get ready for the crash. It’s a pretty major one of the hormonal sort and, if you’re lucky, it will happen once and level off. The day it happened to me, I sobbed for an entire day despairing that I was the worst mother on the planet, though I’d only been one for all of five days. It was brought on by, you guessed it…a mess in the kitchen and house full of well-wishers. The great thing about new babies is that they’re new for a good amount of time. Take it easy in those early days and ban all over stimulation.

7. More Pajamas
Not for mom, though that would be nice. More pajamas for baby, who can poop up to ten times a day. They’re on an exclusively liquid diet so you can imagine how pervasive a flood it can sometimes be. No diaper, I don’t care what brand or material it is, can fully withstand it. If you’re planning a visit to a new mom, come armed with a couple pairs of pajamas. She’ll love you for it.

 

What did I miss? I’m looking for other new mom essentials.

 

Ban Barbie? How to Protect Our Girls From Unrealistic Standards

Posted on May 2, 2011 by in Safe & Natural Parenting

Screen shot 2011 05 02 at 12.18.40 292x300 Ban Barbie? How to Protect Our Girls From Unrealistic StandardsI love this project from Galia Slayen, a student at Hamilton College in upstate New York. Prompted by the struggles she had as an adolescent with an eating disorder, she created a life size Barbie – built to scale – to demonstrate just how absurd Mattel’s standard of beauty is. A standard that we’ve been buying for our little girls for decades.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

While Slayen does not blame Barbie for her anorexia, she does attribute some of her body image issues to the iconic plaything. In her piece on The Huffington Post, she writes:

If Barbie were an actual women, she would be 5’9″ tall, have a 39″ bust, an 18″ waist, 33″ hips and a size 3 shoe.

At 5’9″ tall and weighing 110 lbs, Barbie would have a BMI of 16.24 and fit the weight criteria for anorexia. She likely would not menstruate.

If Barbie was a real woman, she’d have to walk on all fours due to her proportions.

With horse hooves for feet (a size 3 shoe?) that last point is a real nuh duh.

Of course, this isn’t the first time Barbie’s come under scrutiny. The same goes for her bug-eyed, bubble-headed girlfriend in the fishnet stockings. Nevertheless, Bratz and Barbies have become an irrepressible presence in the lives of girls, just one among a slew of other hyper-sexualized paraphenelia being hurled at her each day.

Take, for example, the padded bikini top being marketed to seven year-olds and their parents, since they are ultimately the ones making the purchase. The bikini, which has been renamed the “lightly lined triangle”, is from none other than Abercrombie & Fitch Kids who, curiously enough, do not sell one-piece bathing suits for girls. This is the same company that sells ‘cute butt’ leggings for ten-year olds and came under fire a few years ago for purveying thongs to 7 year-olds.

As a mother and a woman, I can’t help but worry for our girls. What about you?

If you’re the parent of a girl, how are you protecting her from becoming hyper-sexualized or falling prey to unrealistic standards of beauty? Have you considered banning Barbie from your home?

It’s Autism Awareness Month: Okay, now can someone tell us what the heck is going on?

Posted on April 5, 2011 by in Safe & Natural Parenting

From over-diagnosis to “Extreme Male Theory” (even internet dating) the exact reason for the increase in autism is still up for debate. It’s enough to drive a mom insane.

bedtime reading for moms 300x199 It’s Autism Awareness Month: Okay, now can someone tell us what the heck is going on?

And you used to read fiction! Welcome to bedtime reading, for moms.

The first time I was due to take my son in for vaccines, I was so overloaded with information—pros and cons, horror stories galore, questions regarding my own parenting ethics—that I cancelled the appointment. I know there are other moms out there who are just as tormented by the dreaded letters MMR, along with TDaP and HIB as I am.

It is such a complex and loaded subject that for me to venture an opinion as to how any mother (other than myself) should handle the great vaccine debate would be foolhardy. As for the experts, some trusted sources say they are incontestably a danger while others insist that they’re not.

Ugh. Seriously, ugh!

No doubt, to make an informed decision requires a lot of mommy research. The most helpful, un-biased information I came across was in The Vaccine Book. You can see how battered and dog-eared my copy is!

Elsewhere in the scientific and medical community, the trend is, indeed, moving towards a consensus that the constant onslaught of toxic chemicals into our homes (via Teflon, plastics, and formaldehyde) is making us sick and absolutely puts the development of our children’s brains at serious risk.

Particularly risky, endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), which are found in every home in America. Moreover, as Dr. Karp explains, “our exposure to them has risen in parallel with the surge in autism diagnoses.”

I can’t help but raise my eyebrows at that one.

There’s also been a theory proposed by Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen called Extreme Male Theory, which speculates that certain environmental factors are contributing to the over-masculinization of fetal brains and that’s why it’s no accident that autism-type disorders are up to ten times more common in boys.

And…according to the World Wildlife Fund, our kids are exposed to more than 70,000 human made chemicals on the market today and that’s gotta make you wonder.

Look, the definition of the Autism Spectrum Disorder is a broad one and I don’t know if we will ever know for sure what causes it. I even met a lawyer who herself was assigned to the Spectrum when she was a child, married a man on the Spectrum and the two of them, not surprisingly, have a child on the Spectrum. She suggested Internet dating had something to do with it. No kidding.

In her estimation, sites like e-Harmony are bringing together adults who were once deemed “socially awkward” but who are now (unbeknownst to them or not) on the Spectrum. Um, okay. I said, but the argument has merit.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.

Do you think vaccines are to blame for the rise in autism rates? What about household chemicals? Does either scenario impact your vaccination schedule or the way you clean your house? Please share! Together, maybe we can figure this stuff out.

Expecting? 15 Things You Really Need on Your Registry

Posted on April 1, 2011 by in featured, Safe & Natural Parenting

My son was born in 2009, making it a recent enough event that I know what’s on supply and far enough away to know what’s a total waste of money and time. The crib, for example, can wait. In fact, ours ended up being used as a giant laundry basket. The same goes for the buggy.

Seriously. Save your money! It’s impossible to predict what your mutual sleep and strolling needs will end up being until you meet your baby. There’s an abundance of other ways your friends and family can part with their money.

1. Non-toxic cleaning products:
safecareclean Expecting? 15 Things You Really Need on Your Registry At around 37 weeks into your pregnancy, you are going to go into major nesting mode with a zest for laundering and cleaning that will feel otherworldly. What you eat, your baby eats. What you inhale goes right into his delicate little system, too. That’s why it’s of utmost importance that you switch to natural and non-toxic cleaning products early in your pregnancy. To maintain your supply, hint to your family and friends that this Safe Care Clean starter kit would make a really good gift.

 

 

2. Lots of Aden + Anais muslin baby swaddles:
The first time I came across these gorgeous and versatile swaddles was in a boutique clothing store in Brooklyn, NY. Now, I see them everywhere. And there’s a reason. They’re cute, they make incredible gifts and you really can use them for just about anything. We used ours for swaddling (obviously), blanketing, shading, cuddling, picnicking. They are so versatile, in fact, that the folks over at Magic Bean have put together a list of twenty ways to use them.

3. Baby slings, wraps and carriers:
Slings are investments you should probably make post baby. I went so wild for Hot Slings that I bought four of them without even knowing whether or not they’d be right for my body or my baby’s. They’re certainly pretty. But it turned out they were completely wrong for us. I switched to the Maya Wrap until my son was about six months old and then settled on the Ergo, which I use to this day.

My son is over 33 pounds and, dare I say it, the Ergo is still (mostly) comfortable.

While you won’t get immediate use out of your Ergo, it’s a must to stick on your gift registry. In my opinion it is the best soft structured carrier on the market and I’ve tried a few, trust me. I was nursing a slight, um, addiction for a while. While the side carry is so hard to figure out that I didn’t even bother, it has made up for that awkwardness with durability. Ranging in price from $114 to $145, if someone else wants to shell out for it, let ‘em.

4. Lactation support:
Perhaps it’s because I had such a hard time with nursing in the beginning – indeed the circumstances surrounding my son’s birth created a hot bed for the sorts of problems I experienced – nursing was very painful. I’ll get into breastfeeding later, but remember while a “bad latch” is immensely frustrating and you might even feel guilty because of it, don’t beat yourself up.

For some of us, it takes a little more time and a lot of patience to learn the art of nursing. This isn’t something you can put on your registry, but it’s definitely something you can source from your mom friends. Before you give birth, ask them to hook you up with a really good lactation consultant and put her on speed dial. The same goes for La Leche League International. Check out your local group now so they can be there to support you in your hour of need.

5. Cloth diapers starter kit:
starter kit 150x150 Expecting? 15 Things You Really Need on Your Registry I so regret not using cloth diapers and I take all the blame for not doing the research I should have done. I understood cloth diapering in general, but found the whole process of getting set-up oddly intimidating. I’ve spent who knows how many thousands of dollars on throwaway diapers when I could have made a much better investment, for my family and the planet, up front.

Next time around, I’m going to invest in a starter kit and be done with it. I suggest you do the same. It’ll be worth it.

6. Plenty of pajamas:
You will be amazed at how often they poop and how pervasive their poop is. By pervasive I mean…well, consider their liquid diet. With newborns, there’s no such thing as too many pajamas. Precious, lacy, delicate (i.e. stain unfriendly) get ups, on the other hand? Proceed with caution.

7. Hats:
My son was a winter baby and I didn’t take into account how many hats he would need to round out the season. Basic skull caps made from organic, soft material is the way to go.

8. Night light:
night light 150x150 Expecting? 15 Things You Really Need on Your Registry Sleeping through the night means slumbering in five-hour stretches. For a newborn, there’s no such thing. You’re going to be up every three hours at least. Embrace the night with a decent night-light, like this one made from recycled materials. Your toes will thank you for not stubbing them to death.

 

 

9. A good book:
You know, babies sleep a lot and you will be amazed by how much down time you’ll have on your hands. Now’s the time to read the entire Millennium series if you haven’t already.

10. Breast pump:
Engorged breasts seriously suck. Don’t rent, like I did, or cheap out on anything but top shelf. In my opinion, Medela pumps are the best consumer choice. They’re reasonably priced, portable and, above all else, effective.

11. A really good (PVC-free) changing pad:
changing pad 150x150 Expecting? 15 Things You Really Need on Your Registry Vinyl is waterproof. That’s nice. But…it’s also really toxic for their little butts and for the planet. Since you will want to leave the house to show off your bundle of joy, make sure you register for a changing pad that can go with you and grow with you. Inhabitots features some really inspiring examples.

 

 

12. Boppy Nursing Pillow:
I’ve tried other nursing pillows and my own pillows and must say that when the Boppy came into my life, it revolutionized the way I nurse. It’s no wonder that they’ve received so many awards and accolades. Well-deserved.

13. Activity mat:
play mat 150x150 Expecting? 15 Things You Really Need on Your Registry Oh, the time you and your little one will spend on your activity mat. Ours became a real litmus test of how much he was developing month to month. Most of the videos in my vast library of my son’s first three months were shot while he was on his mat. Those are memories that I’ll forever cherish.

 

 

14. Book, books and more books:
And if there’s a book you really like, ask for two copies. Baby saliva is a powerful solvent that will eat through your board books turning Sandra Boynton’s dancing cows and pigs into cardboard mush.

15. Cuteness for the sake of it:
reed as lion 2 150x150 Expecting? 15 Things You Really Need on Your Registry Look, spending $35 on a baby sweater is a bit indulgent. But I gotta say, if the in-laws are buying…come on, let them spoil you. I specify you and not your baby because they’re already cute by virtue of being babies. Sweaters like these are made for the sake of mommy, and there’s not a single thing wrong with that.

 

 

Did I miss anything? What are must haves for new moms? Tell me in the comments below!

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice, Except When You’re Writing About Parenting

Posted on March 24, 2011 by in Safe & Natural Parenting

Parenting isn’t always pretty and in a mommy market obsessed with the grittiest of nitty personal details, Safe Care Parenting wonders, what happens when blogging and writing about parenting gets downright Care-less?

305126703 a63c5fd185 b 300x225 Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice, Except When You’re Writing About Parenting

This blog is called Safe Care Parenting. We’re very specific about what we write about and why we write it. We’re not inflammatory or even all that controversial. But in a buzz-obsessed marketplace where even the most inflammatory comments are a currency as good as gold, maybe we should reconsider our approach.

In old media, shock jocks like Howard Stern ruled the airwaves. In “now” media, an emerging trend these days seems to be shock mom everything. It’s driving traffic and sales, yes. But does it come at a long-term cost? Do parenting memoirists have a responsibility to protect the families about whom they write (i.e., theirs)? Or are we living in a brazen new world where parental discretion is a bore?

Here are three examples to get the conversation moving…

1. Last week, this Babble blogger pondered, “I think I love my son just a little bit more than my daughter.” And that’s not all she mused about…

There are moments – in my Sophie’s Choice type musings – when I wonder which child it would really be worse to lose…if I were ever forced to choose…It’s like watching a bus accident on TV: you can’t help but wonder, “What if that was my kid??”

…Then I feel terrible and ashamed for ever having thought such a thing, because I really love my daughter and I would never want to lose her at all. When she’s not being defiant, she’s a lovely little girl…

2. Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, author of the critically acclaimed memoir “Hiroshima in the Morning,” posed an interesting question in an article she wrote last month on Salon.com. In an essay titled, Why I Left My Kids, she asks, does being a good mother mean being a full-time mother?

In 2001, 16 days after my youngest son’s third birthday, I walked out the door of my Brooklyn, N.Y., brownstone with one piece of luggage. I was leaving my family. Two sons, age 5 and 3, and my childhood-sweetheart husband, my partner for 20 years.

…

The question I am always asked is, “How could you leave your children?” How could you be the mother who walks away? As if my children were embedded inside me, even years after birth, and had to be surgically removed? As if I abandoned them on a desert island, amid flaming airplane debris and got into the lifeboat alone?

Hyperbolic. Inflammatory. But that’s part of the point. Because my relationship with my children survives. In fact, it has improved.

3. And, of course, you’ve no doubt heard all about the Tigress herself, Amy Chua. She wrote Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, a brutally honest account of extreme parenting, “the Chinese way.” In a WSJ article that went mega-viral, she wrote:

Chinese parents can get away with things that Western parents can’t. Once when I was young—maybe more than once—when I was extremely disrespectful to my mother, my father angrily called me “garbage” in our native Hokkien dialect. It worked really well. I felt terrible and deeply ashamed of what I had done. But it didn’t damage my self-esteem or anything like that. I knew exactly how highly he thought of me. I didn’t actually think I was worthless or feel like a piece of garbage.

As an adult, I once did the same thing to Sophia, calling her garbage in English when she acted extremely disrespectfully toward me. When I mentioned that I had done this at a dinner party, I was immediately ostracized. One guest named Marcy got so upset she broke down in tears and had to leave early.

I think most of us would agree: calling your child “garbage” is extreme. But it does, indeed, generate conversation. Uncomfortably honest explorations of motherhood, such as Rizzuto’s, are not experienced in a vacuum and provide insight into otherwise taboo points of view. And Kate’s blog certainly got us babbling in contrition, admission, admonition, you name it—‘cause if you’re a mom, chances are you have an opinion. Over 400 wrote in on the comments and 3,000 liked it on Facebook. From the looks of it, though, her status as shock mom of the week might have left her with some egg on her face.

You can’t unwrite words. Let me delete that. You can unwrite words. Once you hit publish you can’t take it back, kind of like calling your kid garbage…for better or worse.

Let us know in the comments below: do you think these shock moms are being refreshingly honest or demonstrating shockingly bad taste?

The Five Second Rule? Well, That Depends on Our Protagonist

Posted on March 11, 2011 by in Detoxing Your Home, Safe & Natural Parenting

A Tale of Two Germs: The Country Microbe vs. The Big City Bug

dropped food 300x200 The Five Second Rule? Well, That Depends on Our ProtagonistHumans are funny about microbes and germs, as well we should be. Some of them are dangerous. As such, we launch antibacterial crusades in our kitchens, bedrooms, play areas, dining areas—you name it—often to the detriment of our immune systems.

The more obsessed we, as a species, have become with “clean” the more our immune systems have shifted away from fighting infections to developing more allergic predispositions.

Basically, overly sterile environments lead to higher rates of illnesses, particularly among children, so much so that when we—and they—do come in contact pollen, mold, animal dander and dust, the consequences can be disastrous. Add to that Petri dish smaller households with fewer children passing germs to one another and decreased outdoor playtime, over cleaning (hyper-sterilizing, we’ll tag it) has become the dangerous new epidemic.

Look. Soap serves its purpose; the more natural the better. But there’s something to be said for letting kids get their hands dirty, and that is:

The Tale of the Innocent Country Microbe…

In a study published online in The New England Journal of Medicine last month, researchers found that kids who grow up in environments that afford them a wide range of microbial exposures, such as traditional farms, are protected from childhood asthma and atopy.

Apparently, the chance that kids growing up on or near a farm developing asthma was reduced by up to 51 percent, particularly if there were any cows, pigs, and hay involved.

…vs. the Plotting of the Big City Bug

I was riding the B or D line—can’t remember which—into Manhattan one morning years ago, watching a twenty or thirty-something year-old immigrant mother feeding her toddler bits of banana. She dropped a piece on the surface of the subway car and, quite reasonably, left it there. The mother’s mother was with her and made a show of picking up the banana to feed it to her grandchild.

This, of course, did not go over well with her daughter and grandma proceeded to put the banana into her mouth, which had been on the floor for all of 1.35 seconds, and swallow it with an obvious “bite me!” air as if to comment on Americanization of her daughter’s sensibilities. As an American, I could see her point. Some of us are very fastidious when it comes to the encroachment of germs, but upon further introspection I don’t think it’s fair to assume this wordless exchange had anything to do with cultural or inter-generational differences. It was likely a continuation of the five-second debate that’s been taking place in households all over the world for millennia.

“The five-second rule probably should become the zero-second rule,” Dr. Roy M. Gulick, chief of the division of infectious diseases at Weill Cornell Medical College, told the New York Times—bursting bubbles from here to Timbuktu. “Eating dropped food poses a risk for ingestion of bacteria and subsequent gastrointestinal disease, and the time the food sits on the floor does not change the risk.”

The risk of bacterial transfer depends on things like the type of floor (a NYC subway car, in this case), the type of food (bananas are rather absorbant), the type of bacteria (hmmm, transit proof), and how long the bacteria have been on the floor (knowing the MTA, who knows?).

All that adds up to, “Grandma! That’s gross.”

What to do when a germ encroaches on you?

Don’t panic or carpet-bomb the sanctity of your home with gallons of bleach or industrial-strength antibacterial drones. You can “see them working”, sure. But that’s because of the isobutene, safe enough…but a highly flammable and explosive substance that could very well cause narcosis, nevertheless.

Opt for a natural solution like vinegar and switch to non-toxic products like Safe Care Clean.

And never underestimate the power of open windows, chem-free dusting, and keeping the moldy beast at bay.

It’s a new sort of “clean” to get used to, but as Mr. Dickens wrote:

It’s a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done.

Next week on classics Friday: Of Mites and Men…

Forget the Joneses’ and Kardashians… Keeping Up With the Greens!

Posted on March 9, 2011 by in featured, Safe & Natural Parenting

Does “zero waste” really mean zero waste? I mean, come on. Nada, zilch, nein? Well, no. Rachelle Strauss, author of the hugely successful green blog My Zero Waste, did have to dump this in the landfill last month:

Picture 1 300x176 Forget the Joneses’ and Kardashians… Keeping Up With the Greens! In the meantime, my trek to the neighborhood bin looked more like this:

377871280 fe082af39c b 225x300 Forget the Joneses’ and Kardashians… Keeping Up With the Greens! That, however, is not my trash. But it very well could be.

That’s how Richard (we’ll call him Mr. Green from now on) felt after the Mrs. shared an article with him about the shocking number of albatross and sea turtles dying after suffocating or ingesting plastic bags.

“My husband said that could have been his plastic bag.” Lord knows, it could have been mine, too…or yours.

Such was the second wake-up call for the Greens, coming on the heels of a “traumatic” family vacation where they ended up being evacuated due to “strange weather”.

“I’d read about climate change and here it was, it was happening. My daughter was three at the time and I kept thinking about her future. We had to do something.”

They set up a local Freecyle group, opted out of plastic for good, and embarked on a Zero Waste “experiment” that the Greens now sustain as a way of life.

What is Zero Waste?
Zero Waste is a philosophy that, quite simply, ascribes to the common sense principles of 3R living: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle (as any parent or caregiver who’s sat through an episode of Bob the Builder already knows).

Ultimately this means any trash that ends up being sent to the landfill is minimal.

Take a bottle of milk, for example. Silica-sand is formed into glass and then made into a bottle, which is filled with milk and sold to the consumer. Normally, that bottle makes its way to a landfill, if not recycled.

If the consumer were to dispose of it using the Zero Waste method, that bottle would be returned to the original distributor, who would then wash it, refill it, and sell it to someone else. The only “waste” produced is the water the bottled is washed with, but even that can have many uses.

Sounds great for the Greens and the planet…but how realistic is Zero Waste for you and your family?
Very. Mrs. Green explained that they used to be on a 2 dustbin a week habit, that is throwing out as much trash as the rest of us. They didn’t even recycle.

The first step you are going to have to take is a grimy one. This might be a good time for you to leverage some “you owe me” points from your partner.

“Put on some gloves,” Mrs. Green advises, “get in that bin and take an audit of everything that’s in there.”

Ick.

Get over it. You won’t know what you’re dealing with until you get your hands dirty and figure out what the heck is going on inside your Hefty bags. Mrs. Green says, “You might end up thinking, ‘oh I didn’t really need to buy that’…‘I could recycle that’…‘There’s a better way I could buy this product in the future’.”

Composting, like, for real.
Theoretically, composting sounds like a great idea. I’m always saying to my husband, “let’s start a compost!” But I’m pretty clueless.

So were the Greens at first. “We just learned as we went.”

Yes, even the Greens made some mistakes in the beginning like “green slime that stank.” Apparently you have to put bits of cardboard and pieces of paper in the compost, as well.

And no cooked food scraps! Save those for the wormery.

Let’s talk about family dividends.
Most of the things we do as parents are done with our kids—and their kids—in mind. Planetary kindness is a big part of that. As are the long-term dividends our kids reap when they develop healthy relationships with food and other stuff.

We’ve talked about using green-onomics to help our kids learn about the real value of stuff.

Imparting a Zero Waste philosophy can have the same impact.

Once kids are old enough, let them serve themselves from a container kept separate from the dining room table. You might be surprised at how adept they are guesstimating the portions they need.

“My [10 year-old] daughter really knows how much she can eat not how much she thinks she can eat. And she knows when she’s full.”

Enough idealizing…be sure to honour yourself.
“If I can recycle it, I recycle it,” Mrs. Green says. “If I have inferior recycling information I will contact the manufacturer.”

That is hard-core. If you’re going whole hog, though, why not? Those hoofs were made for treading new frontiers. At the same time, though, Mrs. Green strongly suggests being true to who you really are.

Some people really are canners. Others make incredible jams …just because. Zero Waste living inches towards trouble when people like the rest of us (that would be me) save those glass jars for the distant day that they might suddenly decide to—eureka!—make chutney.

“You could become a hoarder if you’re not careful,” Mrs. Green warns.

Living like this is not a healthy value to pass on to the kids.

“It’s a matter of honouring who you are. If you’re not realistically going to reuse those glass jars to make chutney, recycle it or pass it on.”

But won’t the flies cometh?
Here’s a shocker. Avoiding the landfill does not mean garbage is going to take over your home.

“My recycling area is literally three shelves. It’s very ‘kind of’ normal.”

Look.

recycling2 300x241 Forget the Joneses’ and Kardashians… Keeping Up With the Greens!That is normal.

I’m done with the Joneses’ and even more done with the Kardashians and all their stuff. The Greens are ushering in a new kind of family norm.

Mommy & Me Sustainability! Ethical, Eco Wear

Posted on February 1, 2011 by in Safe & Natural Parenting

Mommy dearest (and Papa, too),

A wash before wear is not enough to protect you and your kids from some of the harmful chemicals used by many of today’s clothing manufacturers. Earth Pledge, a non-profit that has partnered with the fashion industry to promote sustainability, estimates: “at least 8,000 chemicals are used to turn raw materials into textiles.”

For example, cotton harvested by commercial retailers is often treated with pesticides to keep bugs at bay; we’re talking cancer-causing cyanide, dicofol, naled, propargite and trifluralin, all of which have been classified by the US Environmental Protection Agency as the most dangerous pesticides in the pesticide spraying business.

Flame and stain retardants applied to baby clothes are rife with heavy metals and other toxic chemicals. Synthetic fabrics—including the outdoorsman’s favorite: fleece—are spritzed with Benzene, Ammonia and Ethylene glycol. Formaldehyde, too—a neurotoxin and carcinogen—is used to treat many of the fabrics that we buy.

And what of sustainability? The production of fashion, high and low, uses more water than any industry after agriculture.

Vexing, isn’t it?

Since nudity is not an option for most of us and failure to adequately clothe our children could warrant a visit from child protective services, there is a plethora of alt clothing lines and options out there to help us sort out of this fashion faux pas.

Photo credits: Emily(yo) wearing Objectos Responsables; WOMbat women and WOMbat kids; Human Wear; Kate Quinn Organics; Circle Tees; and The Kind Life with Alicia Silverstone

UA-21322651-1