Pink & Green Parenting: How to REALLY Reduce the Expense and Environmental Impact of Parenting
Parenting is expensive. (Duh!)
Over the course of a lifetime, it costs about a million per kid’”four million if you do it the fancy shmancy way. And it’s wasteful: I’m not just talking about those evil plastic diapers, but the mountains of plastic toys, soccer fields of onesies, and carloads full of sundries that come with a baby. Then later there’s education, dentistry, more clothes, more toys’¦
Of course neither the cost nor the environmental impact deters us parents. The other side of ‘˜impact’ is that we are bringing new life, new joy, new possibilities into the world. Our childrens’ potential for positive impact upon the world is limitless.
Priceless, in fact.
So how do we reduce the yucky kind of impact, and enhance the good kind?
Recycling is one obvious way to reduce the economic and environmental impact of bringing a consuming bundle of joy into this world. But some things aren’t recyclable (education, for instance). And recycling still involves consumption.
I’m of the opinion (which I think is supported by a growing landfill of evidence) that we need to do something more radical than just recycling to reduce the negative economic and environmental impact of parenting, and to enhance the positive impact our kids can have on the planet.
So here’s my list of some ways to save the planet, save your pocketbook, and help your children to be frugal, environmentally conscious citizens:
1) Freecyle
Go freegan! No, this isn’t the latest low-fat diet. Freegans advocate minimizing all consumption, giving away the stuff we’ve used, and avoiding spending whenever possible. Some of the more extreme practices of committed freegans, such as dumpster diving, may be a little’¦extreme. But as with all lifestyle changes, the key is to start by doing what’s manageable, and then slowly do a little more. I’ve used my local Freecycle website both to unload and acquire stuff, all for free. I haven’t joined the dumpster diving groups yet, but who knows? Maybe my daughter will.
2) Co-op Pre-School
Everyone knows that college costs have increased astronomically in the past two decades. But in my area, even pre-school costs an exorbitant amount. And while I’m not up for full-time home-schooling (I pity the child who has to learn math from me!), it seems to me that most of what pay-to-play preschools do (socializing young children, providing play-based learning activities, going on developmentally appropriate field trips), most parents could achieve with a little bit of good old-fashioned collectivity.
A pre-school co-op involves a little bit of work and time; usually, the responsibility for location, supervision, planning, and so on rotate each week to a different parent. But between the money saved and the quality time spent, it seems worthwhile to me. And for queer parents, co-oping is one way to ensure that your kid’s earliest educational experience will be LGBTQ-friendly! Of course it’s usually only feasible if at least one parent has a flexible schedule. Full disclosure: I am the product of a ‘˜70s pre-school co-op. My main memory is of stealing another kid’s bike and being reprimanded by my own mother for it, but don’t let that dissuade you from co-oping!
So you may be wondering about the environmental impact of this one. Well, think of what you’re NOT doing when you educate co-op style: you’re not using extra electricity, heating, etc. for a school space; you’re not using gas to drive to the school; you’re not having teachers use gas to get to school; and you’re mostly using the resources you already use in your home.
3) Clothing swaps
Swaps are an awesome way to save money and resources. And, unlike going freegan or starting a co-op, they don’t involve a major lifestyle change.
Use the communities you’re already in’”LGBTQ parenting groups, religious organizations, extended family and friend networks, etc.’”and simply set a date, time, and place when you & your fellow parents can get together to swap. Some get fancy, with on-line lists, local musicians, play spaces, and so forth. But some of the most fun swaps I’ve attended are really just glorified yard sales.
4) Grow Your Own
One of the best ways to save money and the environment is to start an organic garden. Even if you live in an urban jungle, you can start a container garden in your window.
Check online to see if your city has community garden space, where you and your kids can tend to a patch of your own. If you’re a novice, check out the extension division of your local community college or state university for resources. Cornell, Michigan, the University of Maryland are just a few of the schools that have great, inexpensive Organic Gardening 101 classes. Some are even on-line! My partner is the green thumb in our family, and she has managed to create a year-round, all-organic garden wherever we’ve lived.
Gardening without pesticides is good for the earth; eating the fruits of your labor without any production and shipping costs is good for your wallet. Not only will you save money , but if you involve your kid, you will also provide lessons in botany, biology,and earth science. Hey, you could incorporate your organic garden into your co-op pre-school curriculum!
5) Barter
I’m a big fan of bartering. No matter who you are or what you do, you have something you can barter. I’ve bartered my editing services for just about everything under the sun: dental work, a painting, a pair of gorgeous earrings, and last but not least, child care. It takes a little moxie, but once you do it a few times, it gets easier to offer to barter. You can also do a partial barter’”in other words, you provide a service in exchange for a reduced price. Besides saving in overhead (and its attendant negative environmental impact), bartering gives you a sense of self-worth. You can simply barter informally with folks whose services you desire, or look online for one of the many barter networks.
Those are five starters. I’m still figuring all this out. What are your most creative, off-the wall, out-of-the-box, radical suggestions for reducing the environmental/economic impact of parenting?
I’ve gotten some great clothes at my college’s clothing swaps. I was part of the group that ran it and we actually charged a tiny bit for the clothes ($1-3 $3 being for a suit, for instance) which was then given to a group that helped girls rescued from forced prostitution.
While a free clothing swap is even more frugal, I think one advantage of ours was that it limited what people ended up getting (so the first few didn’t clear the place out) and it raised money for a good place.
Jennifer: I think your ideas are great! I’d add toy and book swaps, too, although I’ve found that they both have longer lifecycles than clothes. My son played with some of his very early toys for several years (in more advanced ways) until we were able to pass them on. (Part of this was his emotional connection to them.) Likewise with the books: His infant/toddler boardbacks are finding new life as early readers as he enters the preschool age. At some point, though, I imagine we’ll find some of them a second home. Libraries, of course, are another great way to save money on books. (And book swaps, where you trade books but then give them back, have the benefit of keeping your collection fresh while not abandoning old favorites.)
I do have to offer some additional things to think about re: preschool co-ops. In general, I like the idea–but it seems to me that the school is still paying for electricity and heating, and the teachers are still paying for gas, whether or not my child is there. There would be an environmental impact once there were so many families doing co-ops that existing schools closed or potential ones were never built.
On a more emotional level, one thing my son is learning from preschool is how to spend time away from me. Let me quickly say that different children are ready to learn this at different ages. We started him in preschool at age four, not three, because we did see the importance of his time home with me, and didn’t want to rush him away. For those children ready to transition, though, a preschool without parents may help them better deal with being sans parent in kindergarten.
Of course, it doesn’t have to be either-or. I could see doing a preschool away from home two or three days a week, and a co-op the other days, or some such.
If you do a paid preschool, however, carpooling is an easy way to reduce environmental impact. This also gets easier as the kids transition to booster seats, which are lighter and easier to move from vehicle to vehicle than car seats.
Volunteer! I plan to volunteer with our kids. A lot. If we’re spending two hours picking up trash in the Back Bay, then we can’t be spending money at the mall. Plus it teaches them to give back, appreciate nature and understand that beautiful public spaces need to be nurtured and preserved.
Those are all terrific suggestions. I like the idea of _including_ the kids in volunteer activities, and of a swap that benefits a non-profit. Great ideas! And libraries are a fantastic way to save money on books and connect kids to a whole world of reading.
You make a good point about the pre-school co-op’s limitations, Dana. One thing, though, is that the duties rotate in most, so the kids still get some experience of separation (the one I participated in as a kid was only held at our house once a month; the rest of the time, my mom wasn’t present). But I agree that some kids are ready for more socialization/independence/separation than a co-op allows. And you’re right about the literal expenditures of money and resources, but I am of the ‘be the change you want to see in the world’ school, and think it’s still worth it to try to economize as an individual, even if it doesn’t alter the larger world directly, at least not yet. But there are many ways to do so–co-ops are just one possibility.
Freecycle is the greatest! My best friend and I used it to furnish our first apartment in LA (which is a great city to use it in, by the way). But, um, the dumpster diving part…didn’t know about that…