The Reality and Fantasy of Green Living with Kids

 

The Reality and Fantasy of Green Living (Photographs: - set of three - Upper left-hand corner, very neat arrangement of produce; upper right - photo of the overgrown garden, Giant cargo bike holding two children and also not interested in learning.

Skimming through Pinterest, I’m slightly overwhelmed looking at all of these lovely photographs. Let’s be realistic. I’m a lot overwhelmed.

I squint looking at homesteading blogs, wondering how these women grow all of their own food and make time for their kids. I sigh looking at the “green living” posts with their homemade cleaners. Does it count as green if I just don’t clean at all?

Maybe you feel the same way looking at me. You may think, “How does she find time for all of this stuff?” The answer is that I don’t. Not really.

Personally, here’s how my reality doesn’t come even close to matching my fantasy:

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How Becoming a Chef Turned My Husband into a Feminist Role Model

White man in a white chef's jacket in a classroom, holding a piece of French bread pizza

Two weeks ago, I was finally able to call my husband a chef. Looking at him in his white culinary school jacket with his name on it, I realized this situation wasn’t quite what I imagined when I watched him walk across that stage. Because instead of him being the head of a high-end fancy restaurant, he was teaching a bunch of preschoolers how to cook.

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50+ Awesome Acts of Kindness for Kids and Families

Want to teach your kids kindness but don’t know where to start? From learning how to listen to fighting poverty, here are more than 50 acts of kindness with real, concrete impacts for kids and families to do together. 

Text: 50 Awesome Acts of Kindness for Kids and Families; Background photo: Hands clasped together

“Was that a kind thing to do?” I asked my four-year-old right after he snatched a toy away from his younger brother.

He looked down and said, “No.”

“What would be a better choice?” I said, hoping he can figure it out on his own.

Teaching kids what kindness is and how to demonstrate it in everyday life isn’t easy. Even adults struggle to listen to people without judgment or jumping in with their own opinions.

It gets even harder when you think of kindness beyond being “nice.” Compassion and respect for all people involves examining a number of our society’s toxic systems and working to change them.

It can be overwhelming.

To make it a little easier, I’ve assembled a list of 50 acts of kindness for you and your kids to explore together. I’ve broken them into five categories, from building a kind mindset to challenging inequality. Many of these draw on research from Harvard University on encouraging kindness in children. You can get more information on almost every activity by clicking through on the link.

To get five days worth of in-depth descriptions of some of the most high-impact activities right to your email, be sure to subscribe to our Family Kindness Challenge!

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A Letter to My Kids on the Anniversary of the Trump Presidency

It’s been a full year since Donald Trump became president. A full year since he stood on the National Mall and swore to “faithfully execute the office of President of the United States,” just as Barack Obama had done eight years before. Attending President Obama’s inauguration was one of the most patriotic moments of my life. Instead of attending Trump’s inauguration, I joined with half a million other women in the next day to raise our voices in protest.

Photo of a white woman in a red and gold Wonder Woman shirt and black sweatshirt looking at the camera in a selfie.

Needless to say, I entered Trump’s administration ready to fight. In my Instagram photo from that day, I’m wearing my Wonder Woman shirt, my smirk and stance challenging the camera.

But despite my attitude, I was worried. In fact, I had been worried since I blearily read the results the morning after the election. I was worried for you and even moreso for the many families less privileged than ours. As we’ve seen since then, my worries about the treatment of immigrants, LGBT folks, black people, and poor families were justified. Everything has been as bad as we expected. In some cases, it’s been worse.

And yet.

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How to Reduce Your Mom Guilt and Still Love Your Kids

Do you suffer from mom guilt, even when you spend as much time as possible with your kids? Try out these three tactics so you can be a less stressed, more content mom. 

How to Reduce Your Mom Guilt and Still Love Your Kids. (Photo: White woman and baby sitting on a furry beanbag.)

The last time my husband and I had a date night, my eighteen-month-old (nicknamed Little Bird) roamed his grandparents’ house, looking for us in every room. He called out “Mama. Mama” in this tiny little voice.

Thanks for the stab through the heart, kid.

Mom guilt is so real. Sometimes it’s deserved, sometimes it isn’t, and sometimes it doesn’t matter because your kids love you so much that they’re distraught if you leave for a split second, much less the entire evening. Yet we’re told to “take time for ourselves” and make sure you have “me time.” Good luck being able to minimize the mom guilt and still carry out self-care.

On top of the self-care piece, mom guilt actually hurts rather than helps our parenting. If we’re constantly paralyzed by feeling inadequate, then we can’t fully appreciate the times we are present.

As the Queen of Guilt – mom and all other types – perhaps it’s ridiculous of me to write this article. But because of my tendency to run right into Guilt City, no stops ahead, I’ve had to deal with it straight-on for the sake of my mental and emotional health. Taking these steps has helped me reduce my anxiety significantly. Hopefully, they’ll help you too.

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Love, Lullabies, and Watching Your Baby Grow Up

Love, Lullabies, and Watching Your Baby Grow Up (Photo: Small child in a thick jacket and hat walking on a sidewalk next to snow)

Opening my mouth, I started to sing the lullaby I had sung to my two-year-old every night for the past year. “Christopher Robin and I walked along, through branches lit up by the moon,” I warbled off-key. Locking eyes with his big blue ones, I saw him shake his head.

I stopped singing.

“You don’t want me to sing?” My voice went up a half-octave. Another head shake and a finger pointing to his crib.

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Finding Space for Beauty Over and Over Again

Photo of a sunrise with silhouetted trees. On top of it, a screenshotted message from a cell phone saying "Storage Almost Full"

Finding space for beautiful things in our lives can feel impossible. After all, they’re so full. How can we fit in any more?

My phone has persistently reminded me of this fact over the last few months. It’s given me the “almost out of space warning” at least 30 times. I’ve deleted old videos, apps I’ve used twice, and music I haven’t listened to in years.

When a radiant sunrise caught my attention the other day, I picked up my phone to take a photo. Of course, I got that “out of space” warning. In response, I cleared out even more “stuff” so I could capture that moment. That shining, beautiful moment.

Because that’s what we do as moms – we find space, however we can.

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My 2018 Wish for You

Goodbye 2017; hello, 2018!

The world felt like it went to hell in 2017, but you know what? It was an opportunity for us to fight for what we believe in harder than ever before. Even – and especially – when it felt like we may lose. As my morbid but truthful friend says about our bodies’ continual wars against death: “And even if it looks like defeat is assured, like there is no hope, like we absolutely cannot win… well, we can handle an unwinnable war on ten million fronts, what’s one more?”

In 2018, we’ll continue to fight that good fight for us and our kids.

But I hope within all of that difficulty and challenge that you take time and space to have fun.

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2017’s Best of We’ll Eat You Up, We Love You So

2017's Best of We'll Eat You Up, We Love You So (Photo: Cartoon of a party hat)

2018 is approaching at astonishing speed! 2017 was a hell of a year in so many ways.

Politically, it was….well, it was bad. But it wasn’t as bad as I thought it could be, mainly because I have a dark imagination and have read a lot of dystopic fiction. I’m actually surprised at how non-despairing I am coming to the end of the year!

My attitude is decent in part because of the good things in my personal life. Those have made up for a lot of the big picture shit. Sure, life with a preschooler and toddler is far from easy. But the worst of the one to two kid transition is over. We had some great family trips. Most importantly, I felt like I could finally breathe again. Even if I haven’t managed to get any more sleep than I had been.

Throughout the year, my posts have chronicled the ups and downs, as well as offered some hard-learned advice.

Here were my top five most popular posts original to 2017 (leaving out the gift guides). Fortunately, they’re also some of my favorite!

Here are a few more that weren’t quite as popular, but either people said meant a lot to them or I just personally liked:

If you missed them at the time, I also published articles in the Washington Post, Mamalode, Her View from Home, and Perfection Pending.

I hope everyone has a great New Years and is ready for 2018!