By nature, I’m not much of a worrier, but I knew when I signed up for this parenting gig that some degree of worry would become a part of my life. I just had no idea how much there is to worry ABOUT. I’m not even talking about the standard stuff, like is my baby eating enough or is he developing at the right pace, or are his sleeping habits normal. No, the shit that really gets your head spinning is all the things you can barely pronounce, let alone comprehend.
BPA, parabens, carcinogens, pesticides, phthalates (wtf is that?), allergens, and on and on and on you get my point. For everything you try to do right, there’s a media outlet, press release, blog or sanctimonious parent ready to let you know you might in fact be doing it very, very wrong.
Let’s start with bottles. Setting aside the whole breastfeeding/formula feeding debate (because seriously, that’s been argued to death), does your baby take a bottle? Yes? That’s great! Not a bottle containing BPA though, right? Whatever this chemical is that companies put into plastic bottles, apparently it can cause great harm to babies. Oh, and its also in the linings of formula cans. So parents who are already made to feel guilty for giving their babies formula in the first place have the added delight of worrying about whether the container holding their babies’ formula is going to somehow stunt or severely damage their development.
How about skincare? We all know that babies have delicate skin. We must protect the baby skin! Put lotion on every day! Put sunscreen on before you set foot outside! But hold on. That lotion doesn’t contain parabens, does it? Parabens are THE DEVIL! I, too, bought into the paraben craze. And then one day I paused and realized I didn’t even know what parabens were. I was just blindly following the other sheep who were running away from the paraben monster. I did some research Google searching. Parabens are a preservative that are put into cosmetics to keep them fresh. Hmm, sounds reasonable to me. I did some more researching Google searching. Studies have shown no conclusive evidence that parabens are bad. But then the conspiracy theory monster settled into the crook of my shoulder and started whispering in my ear. That’s because the cosmetics industry lobbyists have convinced the government to leave parabens alooooone. Of course they’re bad! They seep into your pores and wait until the day they decide to band against you and give you cancer! How could you even think about putting a paraben-containing product onto your baaaaay-baaaay’s preshus skin?! Next thing you know, my Johnson’s & Johnson’s products were tossed in the trash and baby was covered in all natural, botanical, free-of-everything skincare products. I am convinced he’ll be illness-free for the rest of his life. And yes, I’ll buy that bridge in Brooklyn that you have for sale.
Should we talk about household cleansers? We are supposed to be proud when we have a clean house, right? Especially with a baby underfoot. Floors are swept, furniture is dusted. No dirty surfaces for baby to touch! But wait a minute. There are chemicals lurking in your cleaning products that could KILL! Yesterday, my house was cleaned from top to bottom. On the kitchen counter sat our full arsenal of cleaning supplies: Pledge, Mr. Clean, Clorox Clean-Up, Comet, Soft Scrub. And yet. I’m being told that these products could be doing more harm than good.
Healthychild.org says: “we encourage you to try non-toxic alternative cleaning products… any alternative to the standard brands, whose manufacturers do not consider the health and environmental impacts of their products, is a good one…avoid unnecessary exposure to fragranced products that can trigger asthma and allergic reactions. Use unscented or naturally lightly-scented products for cleaning…beyond what they do to our health, chemical-based cleaners pollute whole ecosystems too proving toxic to aquatic animals and fish.”
So if you’ll excuse me, I’m now going to retreat to my basement lab and mix up a few mild cleansers using vinegar, baking soda, cornstarch and water. Because if I don’t, when the world’s ecosystems go to shit and my baby’s speech is impaired, who else will I have to blame but myself?
I know there is merit to many of the claims out there. Many of the manufactured, overly processed products out there are probably not good for us. And the recommended alternatives are less revolutionary and more a return to the way things used to be done: drink your water in a glass, from the tap; put as few products on your skin as possible; clean your house with baking soda and water. I mean, it just makes common, logical sense: less is more. But are guilt trips, taglines of doom and all-out scare tactics the right approach to get us all to change our ways? Don’t we have enough to worry about as parents? We’re all just trying to do the best we can.
Tags: motherhood, The Issues