Minimalist and Zero Footprint Parenting -- Need Some Ideas?
Thursday, July 4, 2013 More and more people of our generation grew up learning about protecting the environment and living a green lifestyle. For many people, it is a departure from the way that they were raised and, to some extent, a return to the way that their grandparents and great grandparents raised children. But there are also new and different challenges to eco-conscious parenting. I've written before about Beth Terry's book Plastic Free and her great blog My Plastic Free Life. Today I want to share two more books / blogs with you that are aimed specifically at parents who are planning for the arrival of their first baby and want to take an environmentally friendly minimalist approach to parenting.
Zero Footprint Baby - by Keya Chatterjee
Keya Chatterjee works in the field of renewable energy and ecological footprints. Her family had already made many environmentally friendly choices and were, to a great extent, walking the talk. When they decided to have a baby, they wanted to find a way to welcome a child into their lives without adding to their family's ecological footprint. That is a tall task when you're already doing so much right and when you know that there will be certain changes you'll need to make for that baby that will add to your footprint.
In her book, Zero Footprint Baby, Chatterjee shares her tactics and experience aiming for a zero footprint baby. Talking to the CBC about her book, Chatterjee shared her thoughts on the easiest things you can do:
By far the biggest actions you can take are involved with your energy and your vehicle. You hear a lot about getting the minivan and if you can do the opposite and get the Prius, that can have a huge impact. If you live in a house with a roof, you can put solar panels on, you never have to think about it again, you don't change the rest of your lifestyle. A lot of this stuff is not that sexy, but those are the big, big ticket items.
Those can be things that require an upfront investment, but if you're investing in those instead of investing in the crib, the stroller, the swing, the masses and masses of plastic toys, brand new clothing, disposable diapers, and much, much more, then perhaps it is entirely realistic.
In addition to her book, Chatterjee also has a blog where she shares her thoughts.
The Minimalist Mom's Guide to the Baby's First Year - By Rachel Jonat
I've been following Jonat's blog The Minimalist Mom for years and was thrilled to include her last year in my Parenting Blog Analytics Study. Like Beth Terry, she took the time to put all the great ideas and advice and experiences she'd been collecting and put them into a book, The Minimalist Mom's Guide to the Baby's First Year.
Writing about the book on her blog, Jonat says the ideas in the book helped her:
- have less to clean – yeah!
- get more sleep
- live peacefully in a small home
- beat toy clutter
- pay off $82,000 in debt in just under 2 years
- stay at home with my son instead of going back to work full-time
- enjoy these early years with my son
Sounds just like the things that so many parents wish for, but aren't able to achieve in the hectic, stuff-cluttered lives that their families are living.
What Minimalist or Footprint Reducing Tactics Worked for You?
We made many choices that came easily to us, like breastfeeding, cloth diapering, using reusable stainless steel water bottles, using LED light bulbs and environmentally friendly cleaning products, composting and gardening. But we could do more to reduce our impact on the environment and to get away from the crazed consumerism culture.
If you've been trying to live a minimalist life in your family or to reduce your ecological footprint, I'd love to hear about what worked for you. Was it big decisions or little ones? Were they easy decisions or difficult ones? I'm also interested in hearing about your challenges.
One of the biggest challenges for me is teaching my children to find the joy in having less stuff. They both like "things" and easily buy into consumer culture. They aren't very good at letting those things go either, making it harder to clear things out, pass things down, and keep the house clutter free. Oddly enough, I think the iPad has contributed to that goal more than anything else. It is a one-time investment and we can download free apps or buy apps for next to nothing, without adding to the clutter of our homes in the way that we would by purchasing additional toys and gadgets all the time. They can use them for learning, playing, communicating, composing, researching and much more. Combined with plenty of time outdoors and interacting with people, I think the ipad minis were one of the best "stuff" investments we've made.
Reader Comments (13)
Our biggest decision has been to live in a city with great public transport (Berlin, Germany) and not have a car. Not having a car alone probably makes up for a lot of other stuff. But living in the city also means we live in an apartment instead of a house (less heating, etc.) and all the other (especially environmental) benefits of dense housing.
The kids love toys and books, and it has been hard to get rid of anything, because they legitimately still play with most things on a rotating basis. The clutter in their room (and, let's face it, the rest of the house) probably bothers me the most. Their grandparents also give lots of stuff (to the point of bringing a toy or book *each time* they come to visit). But for me, books are fine, and we have mostly avoided anything with batteries (usually made from plastic and not very versatile).
That said, our biggest environmental sin is flying, usually several times a year. One half of our family lives in a different continent and so it cannot be avoided - but the flying alone surely guarantees that our footprint is way higher than that of a homebound family with a car and big house. Sigh.
As for the iPads, I would love to hear you elaborate on that. Our kids (almost 3 and 5.5) love the iPad and they have many really good games/activities on there. The still-two-year-old can recognize most letters (he makes their sound) because of the "Endless Alphabet" game. I've been considering getting a mini for my older daughter, since they still use mine. But my husband is really against it because he imagines that all four of us will sit in front of our separate devices and never talk to each other again. Not to hijack the thread, I would love to hear/discuss this issue in a different thread.
Breastfeeding was a big one for us, although with pumping, I felt overwhelmed by plastic and clutter. My daughter eventually refused bottles at 5 months and I was able to give that up thankfully.
We use stainless steel for her lunch and try to keep it as waste free as possible. And we are car light with just one paid off car and some bikes for transport.
Now that she's older, we do struggle with toy and book clutter but in just 900 sq feet, we do keep the toys to a minimum.
Our biggest struggle is with not having time or energy to keep up with eating well. We end up eating out a few times a week which we really don't want to be doing but our current schedule is too tight.
Thank you for the shout out for The Minimalist Mom's Guide to Baby's First Year. What a thrill to see my name on one of my favourite parenting blogs.
Happy to read that transportation choice and energy usage are two of the biggest ways to help the environment as a family. We lived without a car for almost three years (with two kids by the end of it). It was a great for our wallet, health and the environment. We recently purchased a small thirteen year-old car. Great on gas and we try not to drive it much.
Thanks for introducing me to the Zero Footprint Baby book. Looks like a great read.
I think parents of preschoolers and beyond struggle with this endless clutter, environmental footprint and the ongoing consumerism more than I ever thought possible before baby. Everything accumulates and there's less time it seems to stay on top of it. It drives me mental and I go on these big binges of purging like a mad woman only to take several steps back later.
Did I when I was pregnant consider the impact of a competitive hockey playing kid, in terms of stuff? Or crafty things? My 5yo girl can't part with a dried-out marker or an empty toilet paper roll without a meltdown...or the sheer volume of hand-me-down clothes and shoes and toys...the list goes on.
What about books? We love books, everyone loves reading, but do we have to horde them? Who dusts them? I can't afford to source that out, unfortunately...so I hear you on the technology part. Both DH and I use the e-books more often now than ever before (and I put my foot down for any type of reading material that comes into this house that is not from a library), and I hope the kids will have a similar perspective as they get older. (Frankly, picture books and early readers simply should be, in my opinion, in a traditional hard cover book, but that's where the library comes in).
The worst part is the well-meaning gift givers. Look, plastic is a dirty word but I cannot say that I would deny my children, if I had to start over again, the joys of lego. We have more lego than the local store at the mall, but they DO play with it, on and off again, and I will never say a bad word against this type of plastic toy....but there it is again. Plastic stuff.
The policing of the gift givers gets old too. And despite living in a tiny house in the middle of the city where we can do a lot without spending money or accumulating stuff, it is a very hard, uphill battle to maintain the minimalist lifestyle. I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm not denying anyone to continue their pursuit for an environmentally clean lifestyle with less stuff, I will continue to follow all of the advice I feel suits our lifestyle, but the best intentions can't be followed through without the respect and commitment of the family AND community one lives in. And that is probably the largest hurdle of all.
It's a chronic problem that just doesn't seem to be making the kind of impact I had hoped when pregnant in the midst of major renovations and surrounded by loving, gift-giving family members.
:)
Anyone have more ideas or titles for preschool+ age children?
The first eco-friendly choice many mothers make is to breastfeed. It begins with one simple choice to naturally provide breast milk for your baby and grows into other sustainable choices. I love this from La Leche League©:
"Human Milk is Green - Ecologically Speaking
Human Milk is Green
It's a natural, renewable resource and it is all the baby needs for the first 6 months of life.
It require no resources for packaging, shipping or disposal.
No precious energy is wasted producing artificial baby milk and related products.
No land needs to be deforested for pasture or crop production.
It does not create pollution from the manufacturing of human milk substitutes, bottles, teats or cans.
It helps space babies by suppressing fertility in the mother."
Over the last 7 years of homesteading on the plains of Hungary we have noticed one thing about ourselves - we slowly became minimalists (with others noticing it more than us!). This act of eco-minimalism took full force with the conception and birth of our daughter, who is quickly approaching her third anniversary. She doesn't have any store bought clothes, we sew, knit and felt them ourselves from organic materials and handspun yarns. As she gets older we would like to encourage her to have a say in her minimalist wardrobe as well. I grew up in a consumer culture and my family still lives with that frame of mind, so it is extremely hard not to receive gifts from those who can simply not understand. We may not have much, but we have each other as a tiny family - to go on long walks, cook meals at home, to entertain others. Life is good with less.
Anyone have ideas on how to tactfully refuse plastic crap from well-meaning, shopaholic grandparents? I have no problem not buying crap for our baby but we get inundated. And then we just drop it off at the thrift store. Sigh.
Some great points made by everyone, we've got to lead by example.
Imbibing 'green' or Eco-friendly technologies as an everyday habit is something that must be well-thought of by both parents (and lived by them, if possible), be it in the realm of breast-feeding, soft toys, organic foods, or radiation-free technology.
Also, new habits take a fair bit of time to develop because it is oftentimes difficult to suddenly deviate from long-drawn patterns that have remained a part of your personality for so long.
You've got to be willing to make conscious choice every single day to do something eco-friendly, even if that means stepping out of your comfort zone. Do that consistently over a longer period of time and 'that' would be your new habit before you'd know.
Interesting post. Makes me think of what I can downsize in my daily life.
Like Tanja, we purposely chose to live in a dense area, near parks so we don't "need" a big yard. We walk a lot and take public transit. We use reusable things wherever possible, like cloth wipes for many purposes. I have been line-drying almost all laundry since 1990, including the cloth diapers; with indoor clotheslines (ours are in the basement) it's quite doable when employed outside the home. We turn off lights when not in use. We buy used items when we can. We use scrap paper a whole lot and reuse many other things, like ziptop plastic bags and glass jars.
I understand what you're saying about the versatility of an iPad compared to toys. However, I'm disturbed at how often lately I hear people talking as if doing things on a computer is automatically better for the environment than doing them the old-fashioned way. Never forget that computers use electricity and the Internet is powered by many computers beyond your own.
Great article and interesting comments, we could learn a lot from looking at how previous generations used to do things, when items were far less 'consumable' and had to last, such as nappies and clothes. Ironically, the same generation that is nowadays most likely to buy the endless cheap plastic toys!
hey buddy,
so awesome sounds good thanks a lot ! keep updating information i will be glad to see them
Download Facetime for pc