Word To The Ys

Hello, readers.  Guess what?  Maxwell has officially completed 1st grade.  Which is mind-boggling and daunting all at once. 

The daunting bit is because now he’s home for a month, and I have to keep this smarty pants from getting insanely bored.  On day one of summer vacation, we went to the dentist for sealants (gee, aren’t I a poster girl of a mother?), shopped at Target (hey, at least they got popcorn), and went to the library (when all else fails, send him to a couch with a book!)  This afternoon we’re going to make a daily schedule for the rest of the vacation…just for the afternoon hours.  The hours when Oliver is home from his school and Seth is napping.  Because those are the hours that are ripe for disaster.  Maxwell talks loudly; Oliver screeches; they wrestle and yell and become injured; Seth wakes up screaming.  This is what happens in an unstructured afternoon.

Totally unrelated, I’ve had something on my mind a lot lately…and the shopping trip today didn’t help any.  I’ve been thinking about wastefulness.  We had a garbage disposal salesman out in our neighborhood last night and he kept talking about the great price he could get us on the largest barrel.  Now in all fairness, we currently have the largest barrel because it’s the best value.  But we very rarely fill it.  In fact, I would say it is commonly only half-full on our weekly pick-up day.  So I’ve often thought of downsizing but the savings are really insignificant, so there isn’t much incentive.  But how weird is it, that this culture of ours encourages consume-and-dispose mindsets by offering such great prices on huge garbage bins?

As previously stated, we went to Target this morning.  While the boys munched on popcorn I got them shampoo and soap, and new toothbrushes.  Wouldn’t you know it, but the nifty recycled plastic toothbrushes we’ve enjoyed for a year or two are no longer available.  They were attractive to me because they fit in our 1950′s toothbrush holder slots, came in wonderful colors, were made of recycled yogurt containers, and could be sent back to the manufacturer to be recycled again when we were done with them.  But obviously mass-market consumerism and multi-party recycling do not go hand-in-hand.  I guess I will have to look for them elsewhere. 

When I got home and got everyone settled, I hopped onto Facebook and saw a friend had posted questions with regard to back-to-school: how much do you spend on your kids?  Do they get a new backpack each year?  I initially sort of giggled at the question, because we spend maybe $100, including expensive wide-width shoes, for the boys for school.  Part of this is because we thankfully go to a uniform school, and because we use the shirts and pants for 2 years.  5 polos, 5 pairs of pants, some shoes to slowly disintegrate over the course of a year (those are an annual necessity, obviously.)  I was surprised, though, to read the responses.  Many people spend many hundreds of dollars on clothes each year.  Everything is new.  Their kids get a new backpack each year, because they either get destroyed over the school year or they need to be in keeping with the latest trends.  Wow…I can’t believe how monumentally uncool our kids will be if that’s the path to awesomeness.  Maxwell has had the same Lands End backpack for 3 years.  Obviously it is a high-quality backpack to have withstood daily use for 3 years.  He asked me today at Target, as we passed the “Back 2 School!” section (don’t even get me started!) if he could have a new backpack.  And my answer was: no.  The one you have is still in great condition, and will continue to serve you well for several more years.

And then I came home and saw that thread.  Besides the mind-boggling cost factor, I have so much trouble with the idea of disposing of “old” things in favor of “new” ones all the time.  I literally get ill sometimes thinking about my waste being taken to the dump, deposited there to sit and sit far beyond my life span.  I don’t mean this to be a lecturing thing at all, but I’m trying to describe my actual physical reaction to waste.  Today I had to throw out silicone spatulas way past their prime (a directive from the big Y, who is seriously squicked out by silicone to begin with, but especially when it starts chipping away) and the sight of them on top of my trash bag made me nauseous.  So just imagining all these backpacks, discarded because they weren’t awesome enough anymore or because they were in disrepair…ugh.  I know it’s such a small thing but gosh.

Joe and I have often talked about the disposable culture and how it has shaped us.   I’m thrifty (see: my refusal to buy new backpacks for my children) but I gladly spend more for products of good quality that will last.  In recent years it has occurred to me that often I can fix things if they break down instead of running out for a replacement.  I can sew things back together.  I can take an electronic device apart and troubleshoot.  I can bring in the heavy guns (Joe) when I can’t figure it out myself.  But we also work against a manufacturing sector that is pressured to make things inexpensive, and therefore the products are cheap.  They are not able to be fixed because they have completely broken down.  Replacement parts are not available to make repairs as a consumer.  Recycling is made inconvenient and sometimes costly (as in the case of electronics).   Just to clarify: we are not hoarders by any means.  If something has gone all the way ’round the bend, it leaves our house in the appropriate manner; we keep only what is currently useful.  But when you have something you use and it breaks, shouldn’t you be able to do something with it besides tossing it in your economy-sized trash bin?

Joe and I both used to make fun of our parents for holding on to things forever, well past their prime.  As children of parents raised during the Depression, it was ingrained in them to waste not, want not.  And I just want to say that I’m sorry for laughing about that.  Because the older I get, the more I see that throwing out the old in favor of the shiny new thing is naive.

Posted in Max, Ollie, Over My Head | 8 Comments »

I heard a program on Joe’s station last week about the Gulf oil spill’s legacy.   The radio program was a really interesting insight into two completely different ideologies about our dependence on oil.  One viewpoint was offered by the chief economist to the American Petroleum Institute.  The other was provided by the Director of the International Oceans Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.  One of these parties spent the better part of an hour talking about how America uses so much oil for energy, and there’s just no chance we will reduce our dependency by any significant amount anytime soon.  Bet you’ll never guess who took that position.  The other commentator was like: try us.  Just try.  It’s gotten bad enough now that we’ve just got to do something.  The time to start is now.

In spite of the naysayer, who just kept repeating that it’s impossible and we will always need a bunch of oil, the callers to the show seemed to align more with the optimistic call-to-action.  One caller made a point that a friend of mine made several years ago, following 9/11: our generation could be the next “greatest generation”.  We have been waiting for years for our leaders to rally us around the cause: use less.  Spend less.  Sacrifice.  So far we’ve thrown our 18-year-olds to the wolves, but our day-to-day lives remain largely unchanged.  The economy has done a bit more to necessitate changes in the way we consume, but even that does not seem to be motivation enough.  I keep hoping that the President will come on TV and radio and ask us to turn our lights off at 9 PM and stop using our AC at night and put our bright shining minds to work on new and necessary technologies and ration our food and gas spending.  You know…like actual changes to our cushy lifestyles.  But GWB didn’t make that plea post-9/11 and neither has Obama.  What a disappointment.

More disappointing to me, though, has been watching the reactions of Americans to this oil spill.  They say, “Oh, how terrible!” while looking at the heartbreaking images of wildlife covered in brown slime.  “What an epic disaster,” they sigh as they see the otherworldly plumes gushing from the busted pipes.  “BP should be ashamed,” they admonish as they listen to the press conferences and inquiries on Capitol Hill.  But what are people doing about it?  As in real, actual actions taken?  I mean, is signing a Move.On petition enough?  Not that we shouldn’t be demanding change from our government, but…what about changing US?  If Mr. We’re-Too-Dependent-It’s-Impossible makes us feel overwhelmed by the slow pace of governmental change, let’s think locally for a moment.  Really, really locally.  Think about your own household, and how you move around in the world.

Joe and I are far from being true crunchy-granola types, but we have made some changes in the last few years that have made a difference in terms of our consumption.  Joe got a job downtown, and we live in the city, so we got rid of a car.  Yes, that’s right…one car.  For a family of five.  I remember when we did it that some friends and acquaintances warned that we would find it difficult as our kids got older but honestly, we’ve had one time conflict in 3 years, and that was last week.  And the conflict lasted as long as it took for Joe to find out what bus he could take from work to class and then home at the end of the night, with the supplementary aid of his bike.  Joe rides the bus or his bike to and from work every day.  I have the car so I can transport Ollie to school and back, since no transport is provided.  Maxwell rides the bus both to and from school, even though it means an hour ride each way, because I couldn’t in good conscience drive one kid to and from school each day when there was a mass transit alternative.  When Ollie is also at that school it will change some, but it’s likely they will still use the bus to some degree.  When I do go out in the car, I run several geographically-compatible errands in a single trip.  I *never* go to one place.  We just don’t do a lot of running around, period.  The friends who said one vehicle would be difficult cited the inevitability of our kids being in different activities, and needing to be in different places at different times.  We’ve solved this potential situation before it even started by not being in schedule-conflicting activities in the first place.  It means we sometimes have to say “no” to things, but in my opinion the sacrifices are really minimal.

It’s just one area; there are others, and we’re not anywhere near perfect but continue to think of other things we can change to benefit the world.  Anyway, the point of this post was not to talk about how awesome we are because we are a one-not-used-much car family…the point is to make you think about the ways you can change your life for the benefit of our world.   Is the way we transport ourselves the most convenient way for us?  Not by a long shot.  But it isn’t such a big stretch, either.  Do you live in an area with mass transit?  Do you live close enough to your workplace or school that you might sometimes ride your bike or walk?  You might not be an engineer on the cusp of some energy source revolution, but you can get up a half-hour earlier and ride the bus.  If you don’t live near your workplace, you could carpool or move.  I kid.  Sort of.  Next time you feel a sense of futility about the slow-turning wheels of government and big business (comfortable bed partners that they are), think about what you can do today to make that local change.  It may seem small, but it’s something.  And a lot of little somethings could just add up to something big.  Like an oil-free future.  What can I say…I dream big.

Posted in Over My Head | 4 Comments »