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Posts Tagged ‘green parenting’

EcoMoms are in the air. A few weeks ago, Lynn Anne Miller reached out to me with some great links, that served as inspiration for an article in La Marguerite. I felt a kinship with Lynn. She and I are moms, with a background in marketing, and a passion for green things. Her story of leaving the corporate world, and following her passion resonated with my own. It is my great pleasure to host Lynn today, and to let her tell you her story:

It’s now been just over a month since my first post and the launch of OrganicMania. As a mother of two, I’m very concerned about building a healthy environment for my children.

Children

OrganicMania was started as a way to share my research and opinions about when it truly makes sense to go organic. But OrganicMania is turning into so much more than that – it’s turning into a community, and it’s become my passion.

Thank you to everyone who supported my fledgling steps – especially the bloggers who’ve offered advice or found my site and left comments. This means the women – WhyMommy of Toddler Planet, Sher of Wrekehavoc, Gift of Green, Rejin from Urban Botany, Beth from Fake Plastic Fish, MC Milker from Not Quite Crunchy Parent, Margaret from Whirlwind, Mama K from Non Toxic Tots and mama k nj, Emily from Wheels on the Bus, and Jessica from Surely You Nest. This also means thanks to my “token males” – Jeff Steele, the father of DC Urban Moms and Dads; the megablogger Geoff Livingston; Nicholas from The Place of Dead Roads and Dean Hua from Sachi Studios, who got my blog up in no time. Thanks to everyone who stopped by to post comments or simply to visit the site. And most of all, thanks to my wonderful DH who encouraged me to start Organicmania. He’s now calling himself “a blogging widower.”My life truly has changed since I began blogging. How? Let me count the ways. I have:

1. Realized that organics and green living are more than simply an interest of mine. I want to find a way to make these passions fit into my work life too. This is obviously a huge change, and I’ll be blogging more about this as I explore what new doors may open for me;
2. Met new friends, deepened existing relationships and even talked with some in “real life;”
3. Had more fun writing than I’ve had since my days as a newspaper reporter fresh out of college;
4. Learned a lot about the organics industry and the green movement;
5. Taught myself to do a few technical things on my WordPress blogging platform, boosting my technical self-esteem;
6. Moved from observing the blogosphere for years to feeling a part of it; and I
7. Feel incredibly happy about all of this.

I feel more alive as a blogger. Connected. It’s odd, because here I sit alone at a computer, yet I know I am plugged into a huge community. It also sounds trite, because I have known about this phenomenon for more than a decade. But it’s one thing to know about something as an observer – it’s something totally different to live it.

Perhaps these feelings are hitting me especially hard, because as a Mom, I’m not accustomed to taking much time for myself. All of my friends are asking, “How are you finding time to do all this blogging?” I think the secret is that I’ve just about given up housework! ☺

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Day 11 of Daily Footprint Project. The main thrust of the project has been to examine my personal contribution in terms of ecological footprint. Seems simple enough.

Is it really? That’s when the roasted chicken from Whole Foods comes in.

The Green Psychology of Families

I decided to buy the creature this morning, in anticipation of Catherine’s needs for a nutritious late afternoon snack. I know, I should not contribute further to pollution with yet another non recyclable plastic container. But I did. I was going to be busy all day. No time to cook. She was to have dinner with her Dad late, and I figured she could munch on the chicken when she got back from her school with her friends.

The chicken got me thinking.

As the nurturer in our home, I am responsible for purchasing the chicken. What happens to the chicken after that, is up to the consumers, my teenage children. How much of it gets actually eaten? How much of it goes to waste? I have little control over that part.

I am a member of the family system, and whether I want it or not, my ecological footprint gets muddled in the course of my interactions with other family members. I already alluded to the emotional component of green parenting, in regards to my need to nurture with more food than necessary – Day 1 of Daily Footprint Project -, and my difficulty setting limits, as in the laundry example – The Complicated Landscape of Green Parenting -. With Prad, issues of control, power, and authority, make it difficult for both he and I to take charge of our own green-ness, or lack thereof. When Prad insists on taking repeated far away trips, am I to stay home, or go along with him, but compromise my views on limiting air traveling. When I disagree with him on his stance on food portion control, and I generously buy and cook food as if there were a few more people in the house, how does that affect his own intentions?

All of the above highlights the importance of the ecological impact of not just each individual member in the family, but also the role of the family as a system, with a complex set of relationships, and emotions. The boundaries between I and the rest of the family are not so clear when it comes to our ecological impact, and it is simply impossible to separate my individual footprint from the whole.

Staying with a family systems framework, it is worth noting also, that as a member of the family I have the power to influence other family members through the positive environmental changes I choose to make on a personal level:

‘The connectedness and reactivity make the functioning of family members interdependent. A change in one person’s functioning is predictably followed by reciprocal changes in the functioning of others. Families differ somewhat in the degree of interdependence, but it is always present to some degree’. Quote from Bowen Center website.

Daily Footprint Project
Daily Log
Day #11

Water

personal:
flush toilet 3
wash face 2
brush teeth 2
wash hands 4
two showers at the gym
mom:
rinse dishes
communal:

Electricity/gas

personal:
electric toothbrush 2
microwave tea 4’
microwave oatmeal 4’
laptop on half day
mom:
heat chocolate milk
heat muffing
cook cream of wheat
communal:
lights

Food

personal:
oatmeal with organic milk
organic orange
tea
organic milk
organic chicken soup
organic bread
mom:
organic blueberry muffin
organic hot chocolate
cream of wheat with organic milk
roasted chicken
pomagranate
communal:

Waste

personal:
toilet paper
orange peel
chicken bones
mom:
uneaten baked potato
communal:
3 newspaper plastic wrappers

Recycling

personal:
mom: paper bag for muffin
cream of wheat paper box
communal:
2 papers
roll from paper towel

Transportation

personal:
drive to gym 6 miles
drive to business presentation 5miles
mom:
communal:
drive to grocery store 4 miles

Non food shopping

personal:
mom:
communal:

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Karen and I trade comments on our blogs on an almost daily basis. Although I have never met Karen in person, I feel I know her as a friend almost. Her blog, Best of Mother Earth, does have an earthy quality, that makes you want to linger. She writes some awesome articles on cooking, that always make me hungry. And a lot more. Posts on being a new dog owner, musings on parenting, tips on nutritional supplementation. When not blogging, Karen earns a living as a nutritional consultant. I especially enjoy Karen’s moments of greenness, such as the one she shares in this BlogAct.

I was divorced this summer and in the fall my eldest child moved out, to go to college. My teenage daughter, Kate and I describe our current world as “everything is different” She’s right. We are both transitioning.

On Sunday – every single Sunday, I do laundry – I have had a laundry day of the week for as long as I can remember – I started doing laundry in 1977, 30 years ago – yikes!

1560 weeks of laundry.

4 loads a week average – sometimes more – sometimes less

6240 loads of laundry. Wow. That’s a lot of laundry.

In my first marriage the husband would not buy a dryer, the first house we bought came with a washer. That was good enough – he said. Hey I was a stay at home mom, what else did I have to do? (don’t get me started) I hung to dry for 10 years. In the winter I dried clothing in a 6 ft by 6ft laundry room. Truthfully I didn’t mind all that. It made laundry ritualistic. I was green before my time!

I have these ah ha moments that I affectionately call domestic brilliance. In these moments I try and take the ho-humness out of housekeeping and find ways to be more efficient, face it folks – doing the dishes day in and day out is just plain boring, and when you get to the “doing laundry for 30 years” point — talk about the doldrums.

As I was recently sorting the whites from the darks (for the 1561 – ish time) I realized how little laundry there actually was. Now part of that could be because ½ my daughter’s wardrobe is on her bedroom floor ( hmmmm- that could be a future parenting post) or part of that could simply be because everything really is different.

I asked my Kate to count her underwear to see if she could get by with me not doing laundry that week. (I am not even going to say how many pairs of underwear that girl has) Needless to say she could definitely get by. I then counted my underwear, and lo and behold I had another 7 pairs.

We then counted socks and guess what – enough to cover.

I skipped laundry that week. I just didn’t do it! What a totally novel idea.

Officially I do laundry every other week. I have now reduced my laundry by 50% merely by wearing every last pair of underwear we own, wearing all of our socks, and by being more on purpose about full loads.

I will save money, water, electricity, gas and laundry detergent. I will pollute less, and wear all the clothes I own rather than the T- shirt that’s always on the top.

Now that’s green domestic brilliance, if I ever saw it!

Additionally I have completely altered one laundry day a week to a “we can do something else now” day of the week. Which is even more exciting! Count your underwear and your blessings!

Green Mandala me … being green

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Third day of Daily Footprint Project. Six pairs of jeans. I counted. Fresh out of the dryer.

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Part of my sixteen year old daughter’s biweekly laundry. I took her laundry out of the wash earlier, and put it in the dryer. I did that as a favor to her, and also because I needed the wash machine to do my own laundry. That’s when I realized. With my awareness more turned on than usual, I started counting the jeans. Six. I make do with one jean a week.

A big part of my footprint is related to my green softness as a mom. It is hard enough navigating the treacherous path of teen parenting, without introducing some more restrictions. If I was going to be pure green, I would hassle my daughter about so many things. Turning off the lights. Limiting her laundry. Using the Energy Preferred setting for the dryer. Even better, not using the dryer at all, and start using the drying rack more. Not driving to her school, that is only half a mile away. Not dumping recyclable plastics into the garbage. Turning off her computer. Unplugging her appliances. Eating leftovers. It’s not that I don’t tell her. I just don’t follow through with the kind of consequences and incentives that might make her take me seriously.

Call me weak, but I don’t have it in me, right now. I am fighting other battles, and I am not about to take on one more. If my children were little, that would be another story. The best I can offer, is to inspire her through my example, the small changes I am making every day.

Daily Footprint Project
Daily Log
Day #3  

Water  personal:
toilet flush 12(oops)
wash hands 4
shower 1
wash face 2
brush teeth 2
rinse grapes, apples
full load wash machine
mom:
communal:
rinse salad

Electricity/gas

personal:
desk light
laptop on since 8am
laptop plugged in overnight
microwave tea 2’
microwave oatmeal
microwave
full laundry load wash machine
my load in dryer (except for towels and sheet, that went on drying rack)
electric toothbrush 3’
mom:
cook cream of wheat on stove
put Catherine’s load in dryer’
communal:
lights, appliances

Food

personal:
cup of tea with organic milk
organic oatmeal with organic whole milk
grapes
organic whole wheat bread local
organic yogurt, local
prosciutto, US brand from Virginia
apples
mom:
cream of wheat with organic milk
communal:
organic green salad
pizza carryout (4 for Halloween kids dinner)
Halloween candies for trick or treat
organic bread

Waste

personal:
mom:
lots of plastic wrappers from Ikea furniture
communal:
three newspaper wrappers
plastic bag from organic green grapes
compost from salad/veggie peelings

Transportation

personal:
mom:
wife:
communal:
½ mile late night errand to local grocery store

Non food shopping

personal:
mom:
Ikea furniture for Charlotte’s room
rug, armchair, mattress, lamp
communal:

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