Green Mamas Tribe! - Page 3

[mlh]

Originally Posted by koofie

Wouldn't having a couple of eco-friendly kids be better than one non-eco friendly kid? I'll think about it that way. Plus, if you have one kid who solves a major eco crisis, it should negate almost any other "bad" things that might occur from having more kids... I need to talk to Ari about going into a science field when she gets older...

I was thinking about this also. If I raise my child to be "ECO" then isn't that better than those who don't care about the earth. We are pretty set on our 2 children, but may have 1 more. I have always thought that good people should have more kids...but that's not always the case and there are tons of people having tons of kids that are not so eco conscious.

[fairymom]

I think I am a little bothered by where this thread is going.I have six dc and would never dream of a life w/o any of them!But am starting to feel a little alienated by the topic. I am raiding my children to love the earth and respect her and do what they can to help her get better- yes I believe the earth sick and in need of healing. When this thread started I felt as if this was going to be a place to share ideas and experience and help each thru example.

qoute harmonymam: post 1
"This tribe will be a space for mamas of diverse backgrounds (cultural, spiritual, religious, etc.) who are committed to striving for a more just and sustainable relationship with the Earth-- in the way we raise our children, the way we manage our homes, the way we eat, the transportation we use, etc.

It should be a place of hope and inspiration, where we share what we are doing mentally, physically, and spiritually to protect our earth and all of life for our children and future generations, as well as how we might be contributing toward advancing the public discussion and ultimately the transformation of society toward Earth Community (also known as The Great Turning). "

I guess really I am just disappointed.And don't know what else to say.

[Millie Ivy]

I don't know, Fairy mom, I am on # 4 and definitely am ok with more than replacing but this convo so far seems really exploratory and not offensive, to me. People have been talking about the concept while still seeming to maintain that there are ways to have more children while having it be a benefit to the earth (i.e. "ECO kids, etc) rather than a harm
I understand feeling squeamish about the start of the topic, but I think it's pretty great so far, and I have been a part of many a less respectful convo on the subject.

Love and Light.

[Dakota's Mom]

Please don't feel excluded from the discussion FairyMom. I am also the mother of six children, five homegrown and one adopted. I also have eight beautiful grandchildren. I feel that we each one need to do are part to raise healthy, aware children who love and respect our great earthmother.

Kathi

[koofie]

Originally Posted by Dakota's Mom

Please don't feel excluded from the discussion FairyMom. I am also the mother of six children, five homegrown and one adopted. I also have eight beautiful grandchildren. I feel that we each one need to do are part to raise healthy, aware children who love and respect our great earthmother.

Kathi

I agree! I think that people should have as many kids as is right for them. Who knows, kid #7 might cure cancer, or win the Nobel Prize, or save the life of a family member (or all three)! Please stay involved in the discussion!

Oh, in GREEN news, I convinced DH to join an organic food CSA-type thing! If it works out, we may also buy locally-produced milk and meat too!

[mlh]

Originally Posted by koofie

Oh, in GREEN news, I convinced DH to join an organic food CSA-type thing! If it works out, we may also buy locally-produced milk and meat too!

We have done a CSA for the past 3 years and LOVE it! We are currently doing Door to Door Organics which has also been wonderful. We love our fresh food and can't wait for the summer time farmer's markets and local farm visits!

[harmonymama]

Fairymom,
I am so sorry you felt alienated by the discussion about family size, and I really appreciate your honesty in sharing your feelings about it. For my part, I felt a little uncomfortable about my last post as perhaps coming across more strongly than I really feel! So I am really glad you voiced your feelings as a proud mama of 6 precious little ones! I think discussions of population growth, family size, and sustainability are really complex, and there are no easy answers, but I am always suspect of those who would claim definitively that having more children is bad for the earth. I personally have met families of 12 in Africa who have a much lighter footprint than your average family of 2 in the U.S.! Mostly , I think it is really easy for the discussion to get too abstract and use terms that would diminish the infinite value and dignity of each human life. I have appreciated your contribution to this tribe, and I do hope you stick around!

On CSAs- I think they are fabulous! I've been a member of several and loved it, ate veggies I never would have otherwise, and such a good motivator to eat more veggies! My family and I are right now exploring a move to an ecovillage with a CSA onsite. I am so excited about it and hope to get a working share. We'll learn so much!! We're going for another visit next weekend. Wish us luck!:

[Millie Ivy]

Yay! I am so proud of all of the cool, loving, thoughtful mamas on this thread and how they handled this! Woot!

On another topic, and please hear this as totally not confrontational, just making a comment, it seems a little redundant to have a Green Mama's tribe here. ;-) But that's just me.

[koofie]

Originally Posted by harmonymama

On CSAs- I think they are fabulous! I've been a member of several and loved it, ate veggies I never would have otherwise, and such a good motivator to eat more veggies! My family and I are right now exploring a move to an ecovillage with a CSA onsite. I am so excited about it and hope to get a working share. We'll learn so much!! We're going for another visit next weekend. Wish us luck!:

We're veggie-picky and thought a lot of CSA veggies might go to waste, but a new service opened up where they deliver veggies from various local and slightly farther organic farms. I figured if we had a standard, bi-weeklu order, we would be less likely to forget to get veggies at the store and we could try something new. They seemed to offer less of the veggies that we don't care for.

Good luck with the ecovillage! DH and I have talked about it, but they are few in our area and DH has a job where he has to drive a lot, so we need to be centrally located until his dream job comes along (or we can figure out a way to work from home together)!

[jrabbit]

Originally Posted by Bella Babe

On another topic, and please hear this as totally not confrontational, just making a comment, it seems a little redundant to have a Green Mama's tribe here. ;-) But that's just me.

i view it as an opportunity for us to be chatty instead of topic-oriented all the time. i doon't see it as redundant personally

[Millie Ivy]

hm. I can see that, I guess. Thanks!

[jrabbit]

Shelley - great!

and on the chatty note ... can I gripe for a moment? not really a gripe, but it's something that i noticed yesterday, as we hosted a garage sale, my first personal garage sale in about 12 years - but i did run sales for charity for 6 years, so i have experience with the whole concept. i find them interesting - watching to see what people are interested in, and how they will buy things second-hand but wouldn't dream of recycling or consuming 'less' stuff. how **i** think that re-use goes hand in hand with most 'green' behaviors, but it's just not how most people are, i have to admit.

i don't really know where i'm going with this train of thought, but i spent most of the day contemplating my habits. another mama was there with us for awhile, and she would see something that was broken or imperfect and want to just throw it away 'for me' - but what i saw was an opportunity to pass on something to the 'right' home, where it could get fixed and have a whole new life. honestly, much of the imperfect stuff is going to end up on freecycle, but we're having one more sale next weekend - and i want to give the stuff a CHANCE at a second life.

i realized that i spend an extraordinary amount of energy rescuing things from the trash = cleaning things up and searching for a way to re-use them. i also realized that i'm unusual ... it's not the 'easy' way. but it is second nature to me now. i honestly can't see any other way to behave.

well, i could go on and on - but does anyone else see a parallel?

--janis

[Buddhamom]

I only brought up the subject because my sister had brought it up with me and I had never really thought about it and was curious about others opinions and thought this was a place where I could get some perspective by other intelligent and open minded Mamas. I am very sorry if it offended anyone as it was not my intention. PLease forgive me.

So I will change the subject. The town my local WalMart is in is banning plastic bag use by all stores : However, the Wa;Mart has put up a table with a petition paper AGAINST the ban. Can you believe that? My DH and I are so furious.

[Dakota's Mom]

I've heard rumors that in the next two to three years there is going to be a ban on all nonreusable bags in stores. People are going to have to bring their own. Don't know how true this is. But wouldn't it be a great idea.

Kathi

[harmonymama]

I hope that rumor is true. Rwanda instituted a ban on plastic bags a couple of years ago, because they were causing an environmental nightmare. Its amazing how people get used to things when they have to! If you didn't have a bag, the store would either give you a reused box, or you had to buy a reusable bag. Sounds reasonable.

[koofie]

Originally Posted by jrabbit

Shelley - great!

and on the chatty note ... can I gripe for a moment? not really a gripe, but it's something that i noticed yesterday, as we hosted a garage sale, my first personal garage sale in about 12 years - but i did run sales for charity for 6 years, so i have experience with the whole concept. i find them interesting - watching to see what people are interested in, and how they will buy things second-hand but wouldn't dream of recycling or consuming 'less' stuff. how **i** think that re-use goes hand in hand with most 'green' behaviors, but it's just not how most people are, i have to admit.

i don't really know where i'm going with this train of thought, but i spent most of the day contemplating my habits. another mama was there with us for awhile, and she would see something that was broken or imperfect and want to just throw it away 'for me' - but what i saw was an opportunity to pass on something to the 'right' home, where it could get fixed and have a whole new life. honestly, much of the imperfect stuff is going to end up on freecycle, but we're having one more sale next weekend - and i want to give the stuff a CHANCE at a second life.

i realized that i spend an extraordinary amount of energy rescuing things from the trash = cleaning things up and searching for a way to re-use them. i also realized that i'm unusual ... it's not the 'easy' way. but it is second nature to me now. i honestly can't see any other way to behave.

well, i could go on and on - but does anyone else see a parallel?

--janis

I agree - I've seen that a lot. It's very frustrating to see others that just throw things away instead of reusing. DH got frustrated with me that I wanted to freecycle our 10 year old water heater. It still worked, but the lifespan of a water heater is only 10-15 years, so he said we should just throw it. I convinced him to give me 2 days and then we would throw it away. To his surprise someone came and picked it up! He was also surprised that someone would pick up our old pergo - about 50 % of it was broken, but I knew someone could use it on a smaller room.

I understand the need to get it out - I keep wayyyy to many things "just in case" but I would rather see if someone could use them or if it could be recycled instead of just throwing it out!!!

[Dakota's Mom]

I had a similar discussion last night with DH. He was throwing something in the garbage that should have been recycled. When I said something about it his response was, "Have you seen those recycling bins out there. No one separates the stuff. There are cans, bottles, and papers in every bin." So I guess the faact that others don't recycle or don't sort their recycling means we shouldn't recycle either. Its frustrating to me. I think we should recycle everything we can. But he's not willing to.

People truely do not care about saving the environment or anything else. They just want to use, use, and use. Not reduce, reuse, recycle.

Kathi

[ColoradoMama]

Originally Posted by Buddhamom

So I will change the subject. The town my local WalMart is in is banning plastic bag use by all stores : However, the Wa;Mart has put up a table with a petition paper AGAINST the ban. Can you believe that? My DH and I are so furious.

Unfortunately - yes. I can totally believe that. Grrrrr. At the very least, all the Wal-Mart stores I have seen have a place to recycle the plastic bags. It would suck for me to have that ban because I only get enough plastic bags to use in my bathrooms, and then I use my cloth bags the other 90% of the time. However, I would totally support a ban - that would be awesome. I would just suck it up and buy a box of bags for my bathroom every so often.

We are also going to get our veggies/fruit/eggs from a local CSA this year. How cool is this - they have a drop off that is only about 2 miles from my house. Score! I'm excited about it. We didn't do it last year because I erroneously believe that we would get to move out of this crappy city at some point. *sigh* Oh well - have to make due with what you got, right? Since I have accepted the fact that we're stuck here, I am determined to learn how to garden in this awful climate we have, so I've been picking my friend's (the plant goddess) brain lately!

This is a great thread. I finally got through reading the whole thing! I'll come back and contribute more, but my two year old has lost patience and is demanding some book time now!

[koofie]

The CSA thing fell through for us... it was their first year and they were only taking about 300 families, and we're pretty far away.

[Buddhamom]

I love to freecycle! Even if your hotwater heater didn't work someone would have most likely taken it for the scrap metal content. People can use the most unusual things so I post everything.