What kind of "crunchy" are you?

[McCartney]

I'm new to this forum and I'm a new mommy just starting to find my "crunchy" side...I had a nurse midwife for my delivery and went all natural..It was the most amazing experience in my life,but next baby I want to plan for a home birth. I am obsessed with birth and hoping to become a midwife within the next 5 years. We are currently not vaxing our son,we co-sleep,I nurse on demand,love attached parenting,part time cloth diapering,and so on....

But I know that I'm not totally "crunchy" (hope that is politically correct). I'm very much into fashion,love having my hair done and wearing make-up,ect...So does that make me not so crunchy? Are there many different ways to be crunchy? I guess that I'm looking for a definition?! *shrugs* Just curious what level everyone is.....I'm a newbie but the more I read and learn,the more I LOVE this life style!

[annettemarie]

I'm going to move this to our "Pleased to Meet You" forum since it's an introduction of sorts. Tribal areas are limited to conversation that is specific to a geographical area.

[ellemnop]

I'd call myself "somewhat" crunchy. Lemmie was born at home, I exclusively pumped for her for as long as I could when breastfeeding didn't work out for us, we cloth diaper, we never CIO, we babywear, and I love to make things - especially reusing other items. I love to shop in thrift stores, and we grow some of our own food.

Take care,
El

[sunkissedmumma67]

HI,WELCOME TO MDC!:

[sunkissedmumma67]

[Live~Laugh~Love]

Hoal, and welcome to a great place..

[Arwyn]

Well, although we do advocate for things like Natural Health Care, you really don't have to be a braless hairy makeup-adverse Birkenstocks-wearing faux-hippy (like me ) to belong here.

Lots of us are fashionistas and get manicures and hair styling on a regular basis. How we look has nothing to do with our parenting or our environmentalism.

[Miss 1928]

Originally Posted by Arwyn

.......
Lots of us are fashionistas and get manicures and hair styling on a regular basis. How we look has nothing to do with our parenting or our environmentalism.

:

I know I'm far from the crunchiest of crunchies, but I feel like I'm pretty crunchy when it comes to how I raise my daughter; AP; co-sleeping; CLW; what I feed her; informed vaxing; etc... But we're always dressed really cutely.
And for Italy, I'm really crunchy. Everyone seems to be so mainstream here. (Sadly, I'm pleasantly surprised whenever I see someone actually recycling.... but I'm straying OT.)

[Shane]

I never heard of the term "crunchy" until kinda recently. I just always thought of myself as Country. All my life we've (Momma included) baby worn, coslept, grown our own food, made our own clothes from recycled old clothes, made our own baby food, composted, cloth diapered, used rain barrells and wells, reuse and recycle everything possible, & shopped at thrift stores. We bought a hybrid for the environmental factors & long term money saving factors because I drive everything until it literally falls apart. I had midwives with both pregnancies and believe in holistic type of healing/stuff. I learned the word holistic after signing up for a birthing class who's description fitted my personality to a "T". I do yoga and homeschool. We avoid Dr's unless it's a dire situation. But my RL "crunchy" "friends" (more like aquaintances) don't consider shopping at Goodwill or Salvation Army as crunchy, just poor. They shop at much higher end second hand stores, & use way more expensive cloth diapers. In fact, I just don't fit in with the crunchies that I know in RL. It's a big status symbol here in Atlanta. Like, your not "crunchy" unless you have a lot of money. Otherwise, you're just lower class.

I don't wear make up either, but that's just because when I was 15, my step-mother wouldn't allow me to apply it myself and when she would do it kids at school would call my Tammy Fay Baker. So, I just never got into the habit of wearing make up. I would love to learn how though, and figure out how to fit putting it on into my schedule each day.

Anyway, Welcome to MDC. We all fit in here!

[AlpineMama]

As for me, I live in a perpetually identity crisis. I did the no-shampoo thing this spring/summer and it worked great! Then I got tired of my hair, chopped it off, and even had it dyed red. I felt nasty putting chemicals in my hair but... then I got over when I liked the look. I also go between dressing pretty hippie sometimes, to dressing preppy, to dressing wannabe stylish, etc. I'm a minimalist at heart, so I only have a few clothes of each style, but then I cycle through phases. And then this summer I was cooking from scratch and buying in bulk and only eating organic and local. Now life has taken a turn for the busier and now we eat more processed food again. I had cloth diapers (which I loved) but they're in the closet right now because our electricity bill was going through the roof from washing them. But then again, I also had a nasty Target habit earlier this year too, and now I'm strictly buying second-hand. So... I'm kind of a "crunchy flake" if you want to put it that way. If you want to put it more nicely, you can say I'm always on the crunchy spectrum, it just depends where on it I fall at any given time.

However, the AP part of me stays the same more or less. I don't start bringing out the cribs and baby buckets and bottles... although I *did* buy a double stroller recently to make life easier... Hmm.

[lisavark]

LOL, I love this thread!

How crunchy am I?...

*Glances at baby crawling on floor in secondhand clothes and cloth diapers...reminds self that really ought to keep baby diaperless while at home to improve EC'ing...*

*Indulges in fond memory of perfect home waterbirth eight months ago*

*Glances at self in scruffy jeans, t-shirt, and barefeet, and brushes unwashed hair off face*

*Looks out window at neighbors in cohousing community*

*Glances in fridge in disgust at utter lack of local produce due to failure to sign up for CSA and laziness in growing food this year (what with having a baby and all )*

*Glances out window and reflects on failure to put out rain barrels or build any kind of solar water/electricity stuff this year*

*Thinks about cob house in cohousing community completely off the grid we want to live in someday*

*Reassures self with utter lack of bottles, cribs, or baby-confining devices in house*

*Glances at large collection of slings and carriers scattered around house*

*Makes sure heat is turned down to not waste electricity*

So, to answer your question: Not as crunch as I wanna be!

[layla2376]

I am glad to have a little explanation too as I have only recently heard the term and am also new to the forum - I obviously have a lot to learn , even just figuring out all the abbreviations !!! I would say I am half crunchy too - natural birth, breastfed, made my own babyfood , co-slept etc , there is so much I have never heard of and have certainly never had advocated to me ( it seems odd that the most natural things in the world as I see it are promoted quite often as un-natural) . I'm afraid to say I am not as eco minded as I KNOW I should be but that is something I am working on as I want to set an example for my daughter. I am also into fashion, hair and make up ( are the choices not to indulge in these environmental ?? personal ? or part of being "crunchy" - excuse my ignorance I am new to this !!).

[Arwyn]

Originally Posted by layla2376

I am also into fashion, hair and make up ( are the choices not to indulge in these environmental ?? personal ? or part of being "crunchy" - excuse my ignorance I am new to this !!).

For me, it's 95% personal, 5% environmental. I just don't really like make up, I have my own sense of fashion but it includes wearing whatever looks good on me until it falls apart, not until it goes out of style, and I don't like spending a lot of time or money on my hair. I can justify these things by saying that being a minimalist reduces the amount of pesticides, oil, energy, sweat shop labor, chemicals, etc, that I am responsible for supporting, but really, it's just my style. Plus, there are lots of ways to be "stylish" in a really environmental fashion (buying second hand, organic, fair trade, in bulk, whatever), so I don't have much of an excuse.

[morganlefay]

Around here, folks are very mainstream, so even people who are a little bit crunchy are labeled extremists . So maybe I’m not quite as crunchy as I’d like to think So far, I am

Natural birthing
Breastfeeding
Cloth diapering
Cosleeping
Babyfood making
Selective Vaxing
Garden-growing
Thrift store shopping

“Crunchy” things we dream of doing include

Homebirth for future kid
Growing most of our own produce and all of our own meat--organically
Living off the grid (or at least putting up some solar panels)

Some of the things I do just come from the way I was raised or the fact that we operate on a pretty limited budget. But overall, my semi-“crunchy” ways (if that’s what to call them ) reflect my perception of most of mainstream American culture as wasteful, unsustainable, and bereft of the values I really want to instill in my daughter. It’s funny that growing up I would complain to my parents, wanting to be more mainstream and not so weird--now it’s like I’m trying to out-hippy my mother. However, unlike her, I wear makeup

[annie_noah]

I'm very crunchy when it comes to parenting choices, but I'm also a white collar professional, enjoying shopping and team sports and that type of thing, but I try to make the greenest and most ethical choices I can.

You might enjoy my post called Flaunt Your Crunch! It also includes a link to a "test" to see how crunchy you are.

[McCartney]

Thanks for all the replies,so interesting and fun to read about all the cool crunchy ways that are new to me

[kirstenb]

Welcome!

I'm semi-crunchy. I love clothes, nice nair, pedicures, shoes, and cute purses. I love decorating my house and Target. Both DH and I are WOHPs. I also use cloth diapers, babywear, try to buy gently used clothes, practice GD, eat as naturally as we can (some days are better than others!), use natural cleaning products, and try to avoid most plastic toys. DS was born in the hospital but I dream of a homebirth or using a birth center next time. When we have our own house I want to grow a lot of my own food and can it.

I was raised pretty mainstream and didn't start ANY of my crunchy traits until after DS was born- I'm sure my family wonders where a lot of this comes from!

[3pink1blue]

nak

I would say I'm middle of the road. I don't wear makeup or get my hair done or anything like that because it toatlly does not appeal to me in any way and never has, but not because I consider myself slightly "crunchy."

I'm very pro-breastfeeding, even though I formula fed my first and third babies, and we didn't circumcise our son. We vaccinate selectively and co-sleep. I'm into babywearing, but so far only one of my four kids has been. (And, not surprisingly, she was the most high need of my babies.) I am studying to be a homeopathic physician, but gave birth to all four of my children in the hsopital with varying degrees of intervention. I use a combo of cloth and disposable diapers (but honestly, with babies 13 months apart, more sposies than cloth these days.) We are very concerned environmentally (despite using disposable diapers) and try to keep junk food out of our children. [she says as her 15 month old is chowing down on m&ms.]
i tend to fit in much better here than on boards that are more "mainstream," but I am definitely not a granola-type mom.


I don't think I would ever win a mom of the year award, but i think my kids will be okay in the end. i hope, anyway.

[earthyamber]

For me, I am kinda middle of the road (but more on the crunchy end). I do not wear makeup, or do my hair, or dress nice but most of that is because I am cheap and because I don't want to spend the time. LOL. I am a very casual and only own 2 pants and 3 shirts. The most makeup I own is powder and mascara. I breastfed for 3 years, I cosleep, I used midwifes and birth centers, I dont vaccinate or see drs, I dont own a car (so I walk and take bus), I recycle, try to live green, I live simple, I am an AP mom, I try to heal things naturally, I'm vegatarian (going vegan), I wore my babies, I was a wet nurse, I buy second hand, I eat organic whenever I can afford it, etc.

However - I would love to have a homebirth in the future, I didn't cloth diaper (no washer/dryer then and it would have been tougher then I would like), I still eat fast food sometimes, my daughter is in public school (homeschooling didnt work right with us), we watch too much tv, etc. I would love to have a garden, live sustainable and off the grid, and be more "crunchy". :-)

[Murihiku]

I'm a mix too. Until I got to these boards I had no idea AP was defined against something called "mainstream."

Re make-up: I had a boyfriend who called lipstick an "anti-kissing device" and I think that's definitely true when you have a baby. Who wants to leave lipstick on baby's face? And who can restrain from absentmindedly kissing baby's face fifty times a day? These aren't just rhetorical questions--is there a a way to wear lipstick and have a baby at the same time?