Many of us are blessed with environmentally conscious parents (I’m looking at you both, mom and dad). And then, some of us have parents who toss cans in the garbage and refuse to buy reusable bags.

So, what’s a caring family member to do? Sneak environmentalism into your fam’s daily lives is what. You’d be surprised how simple it is to help your family become more conscious of the environment. (And why is summer the perfect season to do this? Because this time of year is filled with teaching opportunities. And let’s face it, whether you’re a college student, graduate, or full-fledged adult, everyone goes home during the summer.)

First off, you can start a conversation about how conservation is simple. The smallest of acts can make a difference. For example, if your dad doesn’t cut his sixer’s plastic rings, start grabbing them from the trash and cutting them in front of him whilst explaining how this simple act helps animals in the wild. Next, when your mom is baking a cake from a box, ask her if you can help next time and suggest a recipe that’s from scratch. Later, while you’re baking away, you can explain that baking from scratch is hella cheaper, and it also cuts down on packaging waste. This type of conversation starter also can work with air-conditioning issues (people changing the temperature all day), and wasteful watering habits (watering at the wrong time and watering too much). Remember: It’s all about the tone of the conversation. Talk to your family like you would your friends. Don’t preach, just converse.

Next, start sneaking things into your family’s space that promote environmentalism. At the store, suggest buying a water filter instead of buying bottled waters. And make sure you toss a handful of reusable bags into the cart, too. Other things to consider sneaking into the grocery cart are LED lightbulbs (money and energy saving), seed starts (for a small garden), and eco-friendly cleaning supplies.

And finally, help your family start something. Tell your mom you want to help her set up a compost bin. She’ll be amazed by how small the trash is, and how not stinky it gets, too. Tell your dad you’d love to help him build some raised beds for the garden. Offer to take the dogs for a walk and sneak some biodegradable poop bag holders on their leashes.

For more awesome, non-confrontational ideas about getting your family to become more conscious of the environment, check out Rookie‘s post on the subject.

While all the above stuff is totally simple and easy, every change listed really can influence previously un-environmental people to become conscious of the environment.

Have you ever tried to change your family’s wasteful habits? Have any of your changes actually helped your family become more conscious of the environment?

Related on EcoSalon

The Last Time Carbon Dioxide Levels Were This High, Humans Hadn’t Evolved

8 Simple Steps to Spring Cleaning Your Diet and Your Life

7 Simple DIY Projects to Celebrate Earth Day

 Image of woman gardening from Shutterstock

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ColumnMaria Bello’s recent Modern Love column shows that people still don’t understand non-traditional definitions of love, sexuality and family.

Many headlines about actress and activist Maria Bello’s Modern Love column in The New York Times say things like: “Maria Bello Comes Out as Gay” and “Maria Bello Is a Lesbian.” In our collective quest to classify people, those headlines miss the point of her column and prove that bisexuality, or as she wishes to define her own sexuality, “whatever,” is still largely misunderstood.

But this isn’t really a coming out story about sexuality, anyway. It’s a story about family and soulmates.

Her point that a family can include ex-lovers, parents, friends and fake aunts isn’t really radical (see: “It takes a village” for the Hillary Clinton via hippie commune history of the idea), but it is one that still confuses people because of an outdated concept: the soulmate.

We’re taught from a young age that we should seek out a soulmate, a person with whom we’ll construct a family. Many people have embraced that idea that the soulmate might be a same-sex partner. Some people have even gotten okay with the idea that soulmates may not want children. But most people have yet to grasp the idea of family that Bello has built and so beautifully shares in her column.

Most Americans have yet to let go of the one and only soulmate as one of life’s biggest goals.

Maria Bello has more than one person she thinks of as a partner but only one romantic partner? She used to be straight but she’s gay now? She’s bisexual? She and her girlfriend hang out with her ex? They have dinner with her son’s father, like all of the time on purpose? She has multiple soulmates? Minds are blown because her life shatters our social constructs about family and the idea that families are built around two soulmates choosing to live in a bubble of joy.

Personally, I have never bought the whole soulmate thing. The idea that my husband can be everything to me at every moment seems ludicrous. The idea that the two of us chose to marry and have a traditional monogamous relationship would have sounded impossible to me 10 years ago because I identified as gay. But the reality of how my life evolved, because I was open to possibility and didn’t try to fit into someone else’s ideas about love, is perfect.

Embracing my own bisexuality and happily choosing to marry a man that I love meant redefining my ideas about what having a person—which is often how I describe my relationship with my husband Erik—truly means.

It could be because I grew up with a slew of fake relatives that were just as real as my blood relatives. It could be because my parents are an awesome team—but always had their own lives going on. Or it could be that as someone who spent 10 years in relationships with women, and an entire lifetime surrounded by female and gay male best friends, I am 100 percent fine with the fact that there’s no way I can expect Erik to be my go-to for everything.

Which means that while he’s my person and I’m his, we both need other people to round out our lives and our family. In the real world, “You complete me” is not merely cheesy—it sets an impossible standard for both partners.

For example, when I want to talk about TV, I hit an email chain filled with friends who are interested in dissecting what Rayna’s nail polish choice says about her real interest in Deacon on the most recent episode of Nashville. Erik could not give a shit. And when he wants to talk about the players he benched in this week’s fantasy football game, he doesn’t seek me out. Thank god.

Those are traditionally sexually stereotypical examples for a reason. The way I engage with my friends over seemingly fluffy topics leads us to deeper conversations (usually). In those conversations we connect and draw examples from our own lives. We process life in ways that are necessary to me on a regular basis. Erik, I assume, finds connections that he needs while talking to his friends.

We’re not all half-people wandering the world for our missing puzzle piece. We’re whole and complex. Some days we’re damaged, and some days we’re perfect. We have a lot of needs, and a lot to give. We all require more than one person to build our families.

Headlines that focus on Maria Bello coming out as a … whatever … miss the point. Bello isn’t writing about sexuality, she’s writing about family.

Related on EcoSalon

Gratitude and Feminism: That Happened
Gender Redefined: Intersex Babies ‘Third Sex’ in Germany
Love and War: How to Fight Without Ruining Your Relationship

Image: Maria Bello via Facebook and MariaBello.org

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ColumnChildfree by choice: Society still doesn’t accept that some women don’t want to be moms.

On the heels of an August cover story in Time called “The Childfree Life,” this week, HuffPo Women brought us, 23 Things You Should Never Say To A Childfree Woman. Despite the fact that, as Time reports, today, 1 in 5 American women don’t give birth to children, compared with 1 in 10 in the ’70s, apparently there’s still a need for articles like the HuffPo piece for how to talk to emotionally frigid mutants like us.

As far as I know, I am technically able to get pregnant. To be fair, I am 36 and haven’t checked so, the “welcomeness of the womb,” as they say, is unknown. My husband and I made the choice years ago not to have children. As we’ve gotten older, we’ve checked in to make sure we’re on the same page, and I feel lucky that we have been.

As a childfree woman by choice, I have my own list of things I never want to hear. And, as a quick aside, if I’m annoyed by all of the know-it-all assumptions about childless women, I can only imagine how people who actually want kids but haven’t yet, or can’t, have them must feel when they have to endure these comments. I applaud those of you in that camp for not kicking people in the face on a regular basis.

1. You must hate kids.
I don’t hate children. I do believe that as little humans, kids don’t get an automatic pass to be assholes. Crying on planes: I get ya kid; I do it too, sometimes. A bad day and a random tantrum? Sure. I feel worse for the parents in those situations. But, kids who act like snotty, entitled brats and think the word should revolve around them? No thanks.

For proof that I do like kids, see the above photo of me with my fake nephew, Zach. We are reading about planes and discussing whether an apple-coptor would really work. He said “apple” when I pointed at the drawing, so I am fairly sure that he is super smart (definitely smarter than most kids his age) and knows that one cannot fly in produce.

2. You must be selfish.
Some people assume that those of us uninterested in parenting are selfish. My assumption, as long as we’re making them, is that those people are jealous that I have time to read a book with words. That I can say “fuck” whenever I want to, and that I don’t have to save money for someone’s college tuition. My other assumption is that they feel sorry for me because I “don’t get it.” Bringing me to…

3. You just don’t get it.
“It” being: I’m missing out on a depth of love I will never understand. In some ways, I agree that I might be. But I have thought a lot about this, and I’m okay with trading the life I don’t get for the life I have and love. Also, I will make your children love me. Watch out for aunt Libby! I will tell your children embarrassing stories about you and buy them expensive crap that you can’t afford because you have to buy them boring things like food.  

4. Who will take care of you when you’re old?
Your kids will! Ha ha. Kidding (mostly, see previous comment re: me buying your kids’ love). This is a big issue so, I will start with the assumption built into the question: That kids will care for parents as they age. Fact: Some kids can’t or won’t take care of their parents. How I will navigate old age is something I think about a lot. This has led to a two-part plan relying on smarts and karma.

First, build a life filled with friends of all ages (at the moment, the youngest person I would call to grab dinner is in her late 20s and the oldest is in her mid-60s). Fake-aunt the shit out of the kids I like. Help older friends navigate their DVRs or whatever new technology is baffling them. This helps you cover your karmic bases and keeps you connected with people who are older and wiser, and with people who know who those girls on the cover of US Weekly are.

Second, save money and get okay with the idea of assisted living (AKA: The Old People Dorm Plan) once you are too old for the—highly preferable for obvious reasons—Golden Girls Plan. To remain independent as long as possible, take care of yourself. I’m not looking forward to dealing with my care during my own demise, but I am pretty confident that my plan will work just as well as having kids.

5. You’ll change your mind.
No, I won’t change my mind, and if you wish that on me, we are no longer friends. I’m hardly an old hag, but we all know that as women age it’s not quite as easy to get pregnant. Telling a 36-year-old woman that she will change her mind is not only not your place, it’s not nice. I have seen numerous friends struggle to get pregnant. It’s not as easy for everyone as they tell you it is in sex ed, so bite your tongue.

6. You owe your totally amazing parents a grandchild.
The fact that my parents would be the best grandparents on the planet (and they would) doesn’t mean I should have a baby. This gem from the HuffPo, “Your mom had you!” seems to get at the idea that it’s my turn to reciprocate.

Well, why yes, my mom did have me. And for that I am grateful. I am even more grateful that she had me because she wanted to, and that she and my dad made a conscious decision to add on to their family. I would also like to applaud my parents for never pressuring me to have a baby. To reward them, I turn the other way when they give my dog people food.

7. Don’t you want a family?
Yes, I want a family—in fact, I have one. My husband and dog, my parents, his parents, some siblings, some stepparents, some grandparents, friends I have known for 33 years, friends I have known for what feels like 33 years, fake aunts, fake uncles, cousins, blood nieces and nephews, fake nieces and nephews, a work husband. All of these people are my family.

8. Do you think I’m lame for having kids?
No, that’s just dumb. I think it’s great that you want to have kids. I respect my friends for being honest about how hard it is to be a parent, for talking openly about what they have given up in addition to celebrating the joy they have gained—and for respecting my choice to be a kick-ass aunt and a supportive friend rather than a mom myself. I genuinely like seeing their kids’ pictures on Facebook.

In the constant conversations about how women create balance, where are the partners? The language used in articles about family and decision-making mirror how our society views children—as a woman’s decision (unless we’re talking about abortion, of course). For a single person (male or female, gay or straight), yes, deciding to have a baby might be a choice made alone. For a woman or a man with a partner, ideally this is a team decision. If it’s not, you may want to rethink your team.

Most conversations about childfree women seek to divide us in yet one more way. As women, rather than undermine each other for our personal choices with back-handed compliments and outright insults, we need to agree that all reproductive choices should be personal and applaud each other for whatever path we choose.

Related on EcoSalon:

The One and Only: Is Having One Child Better for the Planet

Udonis Haslem’s Wedding Announcement: That Happened

Having Sex This Week? You Might be Pregnant

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ColumnNatalie Chanin’s bi-weekly column, Material Witness, offers a seasoned designer’s perspective on the fashion industry, textile history and what happens when love for community trumps all.

Last year, Alabama Chanin was included in the Starbucks campaign: Stories are Gifts – Share. See the video below. We met some lovely new friends – Jamie, David, and Luke – who traveled to Alabama to tell our story and celebrate with us.

A year later, it is nice to be reminded that home is a special place; your home and the people around you help create who you are. A home can be anywhere and your family can be made up of so many people, regardless of their biological relationship to you. Alabama Chanin was born out of my own “coming home,” of the distinct sense of place that is my community.

We often say that we at Alabama Chanin are a family. In fact, we say it so often that I fear it is beginning to sound a bit trite. But, please know that there is no underlying falseness in this sentiment. This family that we have created is the heart and soul of our company. We hope that you can feel it in everything that we do.

Embrace your family, whether they are yours by blood or by choice. Reach out to those who mean the most to you. To paraphrase my grandfather, a truly wise man: alone we can be weak and subject to the harshness of the world, to those who wish to hurt us or circumstances that may fracture our spirits; as a family, we can stand strong against those things that might wish to injure us. We are protected and supported, celebrated and loved.

Happy Holidays.

The Heart and Soul:

Natalie Chanin is owner and designer of the American couture line Alabama Chanin and author of three books including Alabama Stitch Book  (2008), Alabama Studio Style (2010) and the upcoming Alabama Studio Sewing + Design which comes out spring 2012. Look for her bi-weekly column, Material Witness here and follow her on Facebook and her own blog at Alabama Chanin.

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He calls you “Cherie” as you channel the attitude of your mom, deriding the kids for not picking up their mess and complaining how canned salmon doesn’t taste as good as it used to. You hate him for it, but wonder if you are, indeed, morphing into the woman who raised you. This, despite the years of strident teenage rebellion, breastfeeding to one up her, and steadfastly maintaining the position you do not need to put on a frigging coat.

Lovable mom, angry mom, giddy and forgetful mom, resourceful, nagging, in need of a muzzle mom. The signs she is in there are surfacing daily. Here are ten I’ve been witnessing lately:

1. You embarrass your children with your exuberance.

This takes a variety of forms: Busting out in a song from a favorite musical while shopping at the mall; dancing in front of their friends at a Bat Mitzvah (i.e slapping your butt and twisting down to the ground during Shawty got Low) or Facebooking a personal anecdote about the great lengths they took to get spruced up for a dance. “Shoshanna got her hairy, ethnic lip waxed for the first time and didn’t even scream! That’s my daughter!”

2. Repeating yourself as a manipulation tactic to get your point across.
Your own mother told you no fewer than 20 times that Kathy Lee Gifford’s doctor ordered her to eat cereal with bananas when she was pregnant because she wasn’t gaining enough weight. You repeat the pattern, and pretend you don’t remember telling your kids 20 times that Zoe Goldberg got incurable lice from sharing brushes and scrunchies at camp.

3. Losing your car keys. Losing your house keys. Losing your luggage keys. Finding your keys in the trash.

4. Visible Links in the DNA Chain: Sore feet with corns, bunions and Plantar Fasciitis, Varicose Veins, impatience with tardiness, intolerance for loud music (it’s all too loud), flab around your middle, shrinking height, poor eyesight, bladder incontinence, laughing at silly greeting cards until you cry and wet your pants.

5. Becoming very friendly with the grocery store box boy, hair wax lady, or any strangers in line with you at the movies.

6. Sharing with your man, kids and friends fascinating details about the lives of the grocery store box boy, hair wax lady or strangers you met in line at the movies.

7. Wearing age-appropriate clothing, including labels you were convinced were only reserved for your mom and her old friends. (i.e. St. John, Chico, Ann Taylor, Coldwater Creek, Eileen Fisher, Jones New York, any support hose and shape wear.)

8. Adopting expressions you didn’t know were wired into your arguing mode: Put first things first; Wait until college to try that; Not while you are under my roof; That happened because god is punishing you for how you talked to me; That’s the only sister you will ever have, so stop trying to murder her; eliminate salt; things will look brighter in the morning; It’s Monday – brush your teeth! Bart takes his kids to Europe every summer and we have to go back to the Finger Lakes?

9. Talking about health problems with your friends. Talking about insurance plans with your friends.Talking about what you saved using coupons with your friends. Complaining about traffic, the president, gas prices and bad retail service with your friends.

10. Telling kids to wear a coat so they won’t get sick, even during sweltering summers in the Valley.

Images: Brett lider; Scraps to the Future; Crazyneighborlady; James Jordan; Podmapetit; Womanobsessed;Foxyvoxy;

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You better not shout. You better not cry. You better not snake someone’s parking space at the mall cause they might be high. Santa Claus is coming to town! Yay!

At the cost of looting yet another candy coated jingle, it’s the most wonderful time of the year, but also the most stressful. And arguments can ensue over mundane nonsense because we are under pressure to buy what we cannot afford, entertain even though our nests are distressed and lacking luster, and are downing sugar by the barrel at every turn. Here are some of the common tussles we encounter during the holidays:

1. Sacrificial Office Workers

Scrooge is alive and well in America. Just ask many an employee who is being told by the boss to cut their needed vacation, work long hours and forgo the annual holiday party and bonus this year due to hard times. Bah Humbug. If only every boss could be Michael Scott of The Office fame!

2. Shopping Scuffles

They happen wherever there are hordes in a hurry – in a busy street bustling with humans toting many bags, a packed mall parking lot, the line at The Cheesecake Factory, on the road to get to the mall or vacation destination, or with your family over the right thing to buy Nana or teachers. “You got Miss D. a Starbuck’s card last year! It’s so stupid. Get her something better!”

3. Family Break Time Battles

You want to hang around the house and finally get things organized. He wants to drive up the coast and hike, and the kids want to spend all of your money on a “real vacation” that involves sun, water, mediocre food at high prices and cute members of the opposite sex. It’s hard to agree on the best way to spend time away from work at school because everyone has a different idea of how to savor events like New Year’s eve and down time.

4. Disappointment Over Gifts

Taking back lousy gifts is not as simple as it used to be with the exception of department stores like Nordstrom and Macy’s which aren’t as desperate for a sale as the smaller boutiques. You might have been expecting jewelry and he bought you rainboots – believing you would go mad over the way they resemble classic and edgy Frye Durango harness boots. Your kid wanted just about anything from the Apple store yet being the smart parent you are, you opted for flannel pajamas and slippers. Life isn’t fair, but it can be warm and fuzzy.

5. Coming “Home” for Christmas and Feeling 13 Again

Mom has done so much for you and the family, schlepping that 10-foot tree through the door on her back, slaving over the crockpot, shopping like a fiend to get those Uggs in just the right shade of metallic silver. But pleasing her can be a mixed bag. She doesn’t want you to see your old friends if it takes time away from seeing her. Dad doesn’t understand why you don’t pick up your shit at your age, or why you are loafing and watching television instead of helping him repaint the house. Your sister is jealous because you got a designer watch and she got a toaster and your brother’s wife can’t do wrong in your parents’ eyes while you are never on time for dinner and live with a guy who doesn’t make enough money. They all get huffy when you tell them to f— off. Ahh, yes. It’s good to be home.

Images: 8136496@NO5;  NBC; Evergreenkamal; Websterkate; Consumerist; Seanosh

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When the last school bell rings to signify the start of summer, kids go running wildly into the season full of hope for adventures and freedom. But parents know all too well that once the novelty of downtime wears off, that famous phrase, “Mom, I’m bored!” is all too quickly uttered. Put these 25 good, old fashioned summer activities on your child’s radar, and they’re sure to find entertainment lurking around every corner of your home and neighborhood.

1. Take your kids on a nature walk/scavenger hunt at a nearby park or around your neighborhood. Give them a list of things to find: a squirrel, a yellow flower, a dandelion, etc., and have them take a picture of each object on the list. When you return home, have them paint a picture of the most beautiful thing they saw on their excursion.

2. Set up an obstacle course in your backyard and declare it Olympic day! Toss water balloons, hop to the finish line in potato sacks, and do egg on spoon relay races.

3. Find a patch of sidewalk and let kids spruce it up with their very own chalk drawings.

4. Teach your child how to cook her favorite meal or baked treat.

5. Make homemade fruit popsicles or ice cream sundaes.

6. Get crafty with collected seashells and make these seashell Koalas and other keepsake creatures.

7. Attend story time at your local library.

8. Fly a kite.

9. Teach your kids how to play a card game or a board game.

10. Volunteer at an animal shelter or visit senior citizens in an elderly home.

11. Build a fairy house.

12. Build an indoor fort by draping sheets over strategically placed furniture. Read library books under the canopy.

13. Teach your child how to sew or knit.

14. Learn the art of tying as many different knots as you can.

15. Walk your dog and then give him a bubble bath.

16. Enroll your child in an eco-friendly summer camp.

17. Build a treehouse or playhouse together.

18. Go on a family bike riding excursion.

19. Plant a garden, tend it and watch it grow. Plan to make a delicious recipe with the fruits of your labor.

20. Blow bubbles. Teach your child how to blow a bubble with gum.

21. Hit the beach, lake, stream, or creek in your neck of the woods and make a splash.

22. Start a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle together and work on it every day for 15 minutes as a family.

23. Make a sensory or water table station in your backyard.

24. Learn how to juggle, hula hoop and do a cartwheel.

25. Go “camping” in your backyard or living room.

Images: Beth Shea, Mavis, jumpyjodes, fwooper, LaLa50, adria.richards, Axel Buhrmann, gaab22

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Whether you’re hopping on a bike to pedal for a good cause, or hoping to unwind with some fresh air and boost your mental health, bicycling is an all around great activity that the whole family can enjoy together. Below I’ve included some handy resources which highlight bike trails and family friendly cycling trips that will send you down happy trails while creating many a picturesque memory. So hop on your bikes and strap on your helmets, and go forth into the great wide open as a family!

Bike Riders Tours offers family biking excursions in worldwide locales from New England to Ireland, Italy, South Africa, Croatia, and many more destinations. Bikes, gear, snacks and juices are provided, and tour guides accompany each group to ensure safety and fun along the way.

We previously reported that Google maps now provides cycling directions in 150 American cities via their online mapping service. Turn everyday outings to the store or park into an entirely new experience for your kids. Perched on a bike, they’ll see their city in an entirely different light than they would from the backseat of a car.

Trails.com features a list of the best road bike trips across the United States, ranking the trails with regard to level of difficulty and offering a five-star rating system in which online members may rank paths and provide firsthand insight regarding their experience with a trail.

If you live in or are traveling to the Wild West this summer, Tucson, AZ boasts an array of biking day trips with the serene desert as a backdrop. These excursions will only apply to early risers, because Tucson temperatures rise to over 100 degrees by mid-day during the summer months – so you may want to wait until fall or winter to pedal these paths!

Bicycling Magazine is a great resource for the best bike rides in America and a selection of America’s top 50 bike-friendly cities. Thorough descriptions of bike trails enable cyclists to plan an accurate, successful excursion.

Santa Barbara is arguably one of the most breathtakingly beautiful cities in the world. The Santa Barbara Bicycle Coalition suggests a list of bike rides throughout the dreamy beach town and surrounding areas that are sure to leave the entire family awestruck and inspired.

Image: eyeliam

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My husband used to station a video camera near our gurgling baby, capturing an hour or so of what I considered excessive b-roll of her discovering her hand, exploring the texture of newspapers on a shelf with her tongue and fingers, or looking around with a glazed- over grimace from the over taxation of her developing brain and then whimpering for some attention.

These weren’t pastel-coated Kodak moments like taking those first steps, blowing out a Disney princess cake, or the splashy footage of a swim lesson. Nonetheless, my deeper half was fascinated with the mundane because it conveyed the anthropological human experience. This is where is all starts. And we are usually too busy to notice.

Apparently, this fascination and a desire for universal connection also drove French filmmaker, Thomas Balmes, whose documentary Babies offers a simultaneous bird’s eye (and sometimes fly’s eye) view of early child birthing and rearing among four cultures. Two of the women featured live close to nature in a tribal village in Namibia and a grassy plain in Mongolia and have experienced motherhood, while two from industrialized countries of Japan and the U.S. welcome their first children into the world.

The latter are hands-on mommies supported by their spouses, while we rarely see glimpses of the fathers in the third world settings – either because they refused to be filmed or because they are mostly out hunting and doing other manly things (i.e. napping and yapping) – while the matriarchy gathers, milks and nurtures the young. All of the families except for the African one have pet cats that seem to fill in for any nanny or grandparent, by lounging with or on the baby while the mother is otherwise occupied. Got to love cats.

In following these babies from birth to their first steps, the documentary attempts to redefine the nonfiction art form while linking humanity in the stages of life that are universal to all of us, namely the earliest yearnings stemming from innate survival instincts: food, shelter, warmth and love. There are no words spoken (à la Winged Migration) but the language is wholly familiar. Often, it speaks volumes about boredom.

Ponijao, who lives with her family near Opuwo, Namibia, spends a great deal of time sitting around with other babies, flies swarming her face, nothing to play with but a found bone or a playmate’s body parts. In one scene on a walk with other women and kids, her mother soothes her discontentment by simply bending down and extending an exposed boob for the baby to suck. Hey, it worked great for me, and it works great for her. Breast milk: the new mother’s helper!

Bayar lives with  his family in Mongolia and is closer to nature than most, as cows graze and meander around him as he crawls around the plain, often left to his own devices when he isn’t being tormented by a jealous and also bored older brother. We root for the helpless, tightly swaddled infant who will never visit a Gymboree class or pull plastic treasures from a toy bin, but is somehow contented with what he knows. Like the other babies, he seems relatively well off with enough to eat and a warm place to sleep. His working mom is tough, his brother is mean, and his dad drove him home after birth strapped to his mom on the back of a crude motorcycle. No baby seat available, officers. But somehow you just know he will persevere and join his clan, working the herds in no time. Like many of us, if Bayar can survive a sadistic older brother, he can survive anything.

Mari, who lives with her family in Tokyo, Japan, is the epitome of the yuppie Beverly Hills baby, dressed to the nines in designer rompers and leg warmers and adored by her gentle parents who live in a typical Toyko high rise tower. Nothing here is lost in translation. She is escorted to Mommy and Me classes and caressed by her cat, and only appears distressed in one scene when frustrated by her inability to fit a peg block through a whole. That sort of challenge would excite my husband to no end, providing reels and reels of tape.

Hattie from San Francisco holds up a mirror to modern parents. While her mother seems the stereotypical Marin County hippie to a comical degree (naked hot tub soaking and Indian tribal songs at baby group bonding), this setting – like the Toyko apartment – makes us modern mommies wonder if we offered too much stimulus, creating humans that want and need endlessly to be happy. While the documentary makes no judgments about less is best, we come away understanding why our parents have a bone to pick with the “things” we have bought to entertain our children, and the schedules we have managed to fill their time. It all leaves little room for self discovery.

Perhaps that is why so many industrialized children need shrinks later on. “I never asked for all of that; I just wanted my parents to love me.” In some parts of our world, love is the only option. In all parts of the world, there is no substitute. Man cannot survive on Disney alone.

Images: Courtesy of Focus Features

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Dog gone it, not again! My gluttonous pug – not satisfied with a veggie burger chew toy – has gone bin diving in my compost bucket and recycling bags. These receptacles for reusable waste are placed securely under the sink and not so securely beside the other trash cans in the kitchen. What a mess it makes on the kitchen floor as I catch him in the dirty deed, flattened face buried in the bag, chewing hardened flakes off a cereal box or licking up the yolk residue and eggshells now pasted to my hardwood floor.

I can visualize the sequel now: Smokey and Me. Now that Marley has been put to sleep, we focus on the next heartwarming saga of a well meaning conservationist and her beloved, mischievous family pet.

No matter how much I try pug-proofing my compost containers, the wrinkly chunk always finds the loopholes and manages to get his flat snout in the waste whenever we ease up on our security – a naughty act that begs answers to the following queries:

1. Is the pug an eating machine akin to the great white shark, propelling robotically through his milieu, jaws opening wide and devouring anything and everything in site – from Bounce sheets to cardboard to whatever foul things are carelessly discarded on the street or Polo Fields at Golden Gate Park?

2. Does the dog think of me as terribly wasteful and shameful for getting rid of perfectly good gristle, chicken skin, pork fat, egg shells, coffee grounds, biodegradable clam shell containers and rotting fruit? Does he eat it to teach me a valuable lesson about sustainability?

3. Am I simply dysfunctional in the temporary storage of  disposables?

“Be compassionate with yourself,” my therapist reminds me when I get frustrated about someone removing the rubber bands we connect to the cabinet knobs to proof them. Who would do such a thing? Was it the kids, neighbors, the cleaning lady?

Fine, I’ll ease up on myself and seek counseling for the dog, who might be undergoing some sort of eco-stress from all the talk about eliminating waste around the house. “I’ll eliminate it for you, you guys, if only you will stop trying to lock me out of the goods.”

I wonder what other green dog owners do that we aren’t doing. I would happily take pointers. Do you keep all your household recycle and compost containers outside of the house in a hidden spot, so they can be dumped in the bins collected on trash days? Do you maintain counter buckets that tenacious animals cannot reach? Do time outs? Take away treats. Tell me. I want to know!

Maybe I should resort to threatening no dessert or taking away the privilege of peeing in the doctor’s carport across the street. In the meantime, I’m trying to talk some sense into Smokey, hoping that those scoldings make an impression.

How does it make you feel when your family is doing its part to reduce and reuse, and you go and tip over the containers and cause a lot of angst? Look at the cat. She doesn’t behave like that. She also poops neatly in a box and never begged for food at the table until you came along and corrupted her.

He seems to think I’m speaking in a foreign language, like how some disbelievers glare at us when we talk about climate change and plastic poisons. He cocks his little head and seems to be saying, “When you can get the girls to pick up their wet towels off the floor and un-glue their Power Bars from the car seats, I will resist burrowing in your trash. Otherwise, talk to the paw!”

Guess I’ll have to rely on the blessings of the skinned knee. One day he will suffer a bad case of  diarrhea and projectile vomiting from consuming something nasty and disturbing my waste. He will learn from the pain of his mistakes and only eat kibble at meal time and be a more obedient pug-child. And if he won’t, there is always college.

Images:Mavis, Wickenden, Luanne Bradley

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