Move over Tupperware Parties - Hello Eco-Mom parties!

In My Humble Opinion
1

In my neverending quest to be green and enjoy a healthful lifestyle I found this great article on the new generation of moms out there calling themselves Eco-Moms. At their website called Eco-Chick dot com they outline the various ways moms are helping children learn how to be eco-friendly and to live a healthier more green lifestyle.

I gotta tell ya, those moms know how to do it! My wife and I do not have children yet, but when we do I know Mrs.P will be an eco-mom. She read the article and sent it on to several friends who are starting fun green programs where they live. What a fun enterprise - and it’s green to boot!

So moms and dads, what do you think?

2

It kinda makes me say “ick.” Environmentalism has been taking on the qualities of a fad for some time now, and I’m afraid that nothing substantive is actually going to get done before the fad is over and the eco-parties are repleced by whatever the next new sort of party is.

3

Personally, I think ANY green initiative would be a step in the right direction for moms and dads in today’s world. Starting children young learning about green thinking can only have a good effect - I would think.

4

It’s just consumerism dressed up in green. We need to stop buying all this crap.

5

I can never read a New York Times’ parenting article without thinking, “Who the hell are these people?” Ecotherapists? Hosting “eco-mom” meetings with an SUV in your driveway? Give me a break. Sounds like rich women who can afford to navel-gaze.

Most new parents that I know are going green out of thriftiness rather than guilt. It’s cheaper to grow your own vegetables, buy baby clothes from Salvation Army, and breastfeed rather than buy formula. You’d never see a NYT article about mothers in North Carolina doing this out of financial necessity, though.

6

Wow, I didn’t get that from this article at all. I’d sure hope non of them had a huge Tahoe or Suburban in the driveway…

I have no idea how they got in NYT but who cares, their website it quite nice, and I don’t see how they are doing anything wrong or somehow outside the middleclass with that website.

7

I don’t think they’re doing anything wrong. I think it’s great that people are trying to become more ecologically aware. If a different author had written the article or it had appeared in a different publication, I might have a more positive reaction. It’s just that NYT articles about family or lifestyle issues somehow always manage to reflect a life that seems utterly foreign from my own. (To be fair, this article was a hell of a lot less irritating than this one about parents who are just shocked and heartbroken about having to childproof their expensive furniture.)

One of the last paragraph’s mentions the SUV:

8

I read the article, too. It is one of those things bored middle class women with small children do. This keeps boredom and insanity from taking over. I know, I used to do things like this.

Even though I will be charitable and give them the benefit of the doubt about their motives, (I do believe their heart is in the right place,) this reeks of privilege and oneupmanship.

Carbon offsets for vacation travel? Marin County? Virdis Luxe?

And God knows, there are some women in there who are just complete bitches, and this will be their way of driving themselves and everyone around them crazy. Instead of comparing grades, athleticism, money, or status, now they can brag about how green they are.

You want to be green? Buy less, use less, walk more, recycle. And the biggest one is buy less. I’m not sure they want to hear that.

Oh, and the second to last paragraph,

“At the EcoMom party recently, some guests took the hostess, Liz Held, to task for her wall-to-wall carpeting (potential off-gassing), her painted walls (unhealthful volatile organic compounds) and the freshly cut flowers that she had set out for the occasion (not organic). Their problems with the S.U.V. in the driveway were self-explanatory.”

How rude. You come over to my house, and bitch? The door will hit you in the ass.

Women like that drive me crazy.

9

LOL!! That’s too funny because I know a woman right now who fits this cookie-cutter sort of life. She’s always into everything and yet entrenches herself in nothing.

10

I agree 100%. I think it hit home for me when I noticed a whole bunch of TV advertisments were promoting “green” products. Buying a bunch of shit is 9/10 ths of the problem. I don’t think the fad will last.