Lately I've been thinking about you. Yes, that's right. YOU. All of you cloth-diapering moms who who have "liked" Thirsties on
Facebook and have often commented on my blogs. Ok, ok, I know I am not being PC and I really should be asking "Are you are crunchy cloth-diapering parent?" I don't want to leave dads out, but since I am pretty sure most of you are indeed moms, I'll take the risk. Now, when I ask if you are a crunchy mom, I don't mean "Do you wear long skirts, layered-tanks tops, have unshaven legs and wear Birkenstocks?" (But if you do, that's cool!) What I am really wondering is this: Are cloth-diapering families more likely to recycle, to garden, to eat organic and local, to walk or ride bikes instead of driving? Are they more likely to compost and garden, to make home-made baby food, to co-sleep, to breastfeed, to wear their babies? Or are cloth-diapering moms just as diverse as disposable-diapering families? So what I'd like is this--I'd love to hear how you compare to the stereo-typical Crunchy Cloth-Diapering Mom and if you are the polar opposite, I want to hear that too! There is no judgement here--we all have parent and diapering in common--but it's fun to hear our differences once in a while too. I'll go first.
- Well, first of all, I do shave my legs--though many a time, I've gotten out of the shower and discovered that I shaved the same leg twice because I was interrupted by a child. No one ever interrupts my husband while he is shaving. Hmmmmm.....strange.
- I don't own Birkenstocks but I used to in college...now I wear flip flops all summer and my Dansko clogs all winter (I think those are kind of crunchy).
- I rarely wear make-up because I never go anywhere very exciting and I certainly don't have an extra five minutes in the morning to put any on--but honestly, I probably should. These days I am lucky if I leave the house with a bra on.
- I am an avid recycler. I cringe when I see plastic or glass in the trash. It weighs too heavily on my conscience. In fact, we were recently out of state and went to a game a huge sports arena. I was horrified by the fact that every single bottle, can and cup was thrown in the trash. Boulder is big on recycling and it's become a bit of an obsession with me.
- We do have a small garden, we do NOT compost (I am not crunchy enough to tolerate the sugar ants it attracted even though I had in a sealed container!).
- I have co-slept with all three of my children for varying amounts of time. Cooper is finally in his own room which is wonderful because I couldn't stand the crooked neck from nursing all night any longer!
- My husband does ride his bike to work when he can, but I have to admit, I am all about the car these days. I just can't get anywhere with all three any other way.
- I do NOT make my own baby food. Again, it's the time thing--or at least that's my excuse--but I have nursed all three for a minimum of 16 months.
- We eat organic and local when we can--but it is pricey and I have to take that into account.
Sorta crunchy here! I am co-sleeping with my youngest, and did with my oldest, but not my middle child. I breast fed with the same two, but my middle child was “anti-booby.” I made baby-food with my middle and plan to with my youngest somehow between raising all three of them (oldest is only 3!) and going to school. We have a small garden, but no composting yet. I barely drive, if I do it’s only to the grocery store which is all of 5 minutes away. I obviously cloth diaper, but we do not recycle, which haunts me (our town is not very recycle friendly). There is no way I could not shave tho! And I worked all through high school and the first few years of college at a shoe store, so I can’t bear to wear anything but proper, well-made running shoes such as Saucony, or Mizuno, never Nike! We tried eating organic, but having a family of five living off of one salary without any assistance makes it tough to splurge on the more expensive food no matter how much better it may be. And I don’t wear makeup, mainly because I have very sensitive skin, and I don’t feel that I need it.
I would consider myself “selectively crunchy”. I gave birth to my son at home (which is NOT NORMAL in Memphis – most people looked at me like I was nuts when I told them of my plans!
My clothing choices are usually casual or sporty.
I can’t grow anything so I do not garden. It’s a joke in my family that people will give me “hardy” plants and yet I always find a way to kill them.
I co-slept with my son for the first month but then it became too uncomfortable. I wanted to be a “babywearer” but my particular baby gets cranky when I wear him!
Recycling is important to me. I DO judge you if you can’t bother to keep a simple city-provided recycle bin at your house. :)
I think I am getting crunchier with each baby I have (I now have four as of January). With my oldest, (who is almost 6) I did things very traditionally I guess most would think. Disposables, formula, jarred baby food, etc. I have evolved a little with each one, and with number 4 I now cloth diaper, babywear, make my own baby food, and breastfeed. I also buy local as much as I can and we primarily eat “real food”. I bake my own bread, make my own yogurt, and do as much from scratch as I can. I also was not a SAHM in the beginning, and now that I am, I have much more time to do all these wonderful things!
I also consider myself sort of crunchy! I CD, BF (at least am attempting this second time around), cosleeping for the first couple weeks but my neck and back couldn’t handle it anymore, I eat local and organic when it is available, we try to recycle, i have my own garden, and I did make my son’s food as much as I could and I plan to do the same for my daughter when she starts solids! I don’t leave the home much and if I do we walk or ride bikes!
However, I don’t wear dresses, I definitely have to wear a bra because I need the support! :), and I don’t wear much makeup just cause I don’t care! :) And I definitely prefer tennis shoes! :)
Great question!!
I don’t really consider myself to be crunchy. I was to afraid to CD with my daughter so I used disposables and hated them but didn’t see where I had much of a choice since I had my parents watching my daughter for me a lot and they were grossed out by CD. I do like to recycle and I just moved from CT to HI and there is a HUGE difference. No one in hawaii cares about recycling, I live in military housing and they gave us the smallest can they could that gets picked up every two weeks so all the papers and cans and boxes and everything I recycle I don’t have room for in our small can. Its sad really. I don’t compost but only because I live in military housing, growing up I had a compost and every summer we grew as many vegetables as we could. I do not have a green thumb though so for me this might be hard when I finally buy a house. I like to save money and a lot of what I do is geared towards saving money. I am in shorts a tank top and flip flops all the time and am really bad at doing my own hair so I wear it in a ponytail all the time. The only time I wear makeup is when I am going someplace important. Being pregnant with my second means that saving money, time, and energy are extremely important to me!
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