I have a confession: I worry that deep down I can be profoundly superficial.
Take green living. I can remember back in the early '90s when my
husband and I settled in a hamlet so dense with tree huggers our
friends dubbed it "Park Oats." Virtually everyone in our neighborhood
wore Birkenstock sandals -- long before they became available in an
array of fashionable colors and metallic finishes. Most folks also
belonged to the local food coop and carted their kale and beet greens
in tattered looking, re-usable bags.
One day I paid a visit to said coop. It was the allure of decent
produce -- an endangered food group at the time in New York City -- not
the Green Movement per se, that prompted my visit. Still, it could have
been the start of something big. And they almost had me. I mean, I like
farmers in the dell and sharing and all the other wonderful things the
coop espoused. At the information desk, a cheerful woman with a ruddy
complexion and quick smile was as charming as she was informative. I
was ready to put down my John Hancock until I looked around and
realized that I wasn't ready for a regular schedule of earthy bonhomie
if it meant I would need to start wearing Birkenstocks. (That's where
the shallow part comes in. I was putting fashion ahead of intellect,
and green just wasn't my color.)
Then I became a mom and began reading labels. I started buying
organic milk, and became a fixture at farmers' markets. I passed the
coop often but it never occurred to me that my buying patterns had
become "green." I was simply buying the food that tasted best and
seemed most healthful.
I also approached laundry and house cleaning with a new attitude. I
started using natural cleaning products to perform the jobs I once
relied on chlorine bleach to do -- whiten our clothes, scrub the sinks.
Earth friendly? I didn't really think much about it.
Only recently has it dawned on me that green living is simply smart
living. In other words, it is common-sense. And it's also up to me. So
as my toddler starts gaining some independence, I would no sooner watch
him run the tap while he brushes his teeth than I would let him run out
into the street. Showing him the way to put an empty milk container in
the recycling bin is as simple as teaching him to put his blocks back
in the toy chest.
Of course, not all aspects of greening the family are easy. For
example, I simply cannot bring myself to use cloth diapers -- although
my mother actually offered to pay for a diaper service. And although I
want to create a garden in the backyard for our family of five, I'm
completely freaked by the idea of having yet more living things to care
for. We'd love to own a hybrid vehicle, but we can't imagine a large
cash outlay any time in the foreseeable future.
But my hope, like that of all parents, is that by modeling and
teaching, we can raise our kids to be better citizens of the world --
citizens who are mindful of the earth. And who park their shallowness
outside the coop door.