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I live in an old-school bungalow house on a street that dead-ends smack-dab on the sands of the Atlantic Ocean. That view of blank sky at the end of my street never ceases to make me smile.

Growing up in a Navy family, I generally lived NEAR beaches. But all my life I knew I wanted to live within walking distance of the ocean someday. Now I do, in my ideal walkable historic neighborhood in Daytona Beach, Florida, USA, with small lot sizes, neighbors who know each other and look out for each other, and lots of foot traffic. The Halifax River, five minutes’ walk in the other direction, is the icing on the cake. I never get tired of the moonrise over the ocean and moonset over the river. And sunset skies here are epic.

Even a plain old walk to the drugstore, or Natural Concepts Revisited LLC organic food store, or Sweet Marlays’ Coffee, or Cinematique Theater, or City Island Farmers Market & the public library, is epically beautiful.

Of all the many places I’ve ever lived, this place above all has shown me that the environment, the economy, and the wellbeing of everyday people are intertwined.

Earth Day cheer for Cinematique, for being an indie theater that shows lots of films related to the environment and social equity.

Just an Earth Day tribute to my home #WhyILoveMyPlace

The usual in-person Earth Day events are cancelled this year because of the pandemic. But I am very much looking forward to the online Earth Day 2020, at www.earthday.org

The theme for Earth Day 2020 is “Climate Action.” The first Earth Day was in 1970, so this year is the fiftieth anniversary.

The organizers have all sorts of offerings on tap, from teach-ins to suggested actions. Enjoy! And wherever you are, I hope you get a chance to enjoy the natural environment of your place, be it by taking a walk, going out on your balcony or roof, or even just looking out your window at a favorite view.

We can all be Stay-At-Home Moms for Mother Earth! No matter how distracted we get in the frenzy of modern life, we can at any time plug back in to our sense of wonder just by tuning our attention to any bit of nature that’s around us. Earlier I zeroed in on the breathtakingly intricate beauty of a tiny flower growing in a crack in the sidewalk; right now I’m experiencing renewed wonder at the mix of bird-songs that floats through my open windows. By reconnecting with my sense of wonder many times a day, I remind myself of what really matters, what’s at stake, and why I work to protect it for present and future generations.

More: Always wanted to partake of the treasure trove of New York City’s museums and other repositories of knowledge, but haven’t gotten around to making the trip? Today you can enjoy a multitude of Earth Day offerings from several of the Big Apple’s greatest institutions. (Thanks New York Times for this article).

And finally, I made some Earth Day Facebook Live vids for you. Hello/Intro, Part 1, and Part 2.

With the power vested in me as a micro-famous green lifestyle leader, I hereby grant one bajillion green karma points to anyone who refrains from doing any of the following:

• Tying a bale (of hay, pine-straw mulch, etc.) so tight that it becomes necessary to use scissors to cut the twine, thereby having to sacrifice some of the twine rather than being able to reuse the whole length of it. Arggghhhhhhh!!! is there a special tiny place in hell for this or what? Learn a tight-yet-slippable knot, fellow humans! Obviously the people who tie these diabolical knots did not have a grandfather who lived through the Depression and had an entire section of his workbench devoted to meticulously salvaged lengths of twine, some dating to pre-Roman times. Revere the twine!

• And in the same vein, tying super-tight knots in those big thick “yard waste” bags so they can’t be reused, once I’ve emptied them of the oak leaves, grass clippings, and other organic material you left by the curb as trash, but are actually prize booty for my urban permaculture micro-homestead.

Refrain from committing these two extremely trivial yet disproportionately aggravating eco-peccadilloes, and all else is forgiven. You have my blessing to use your bajillion karma points to neutralize any and all of your sins against Mother Earth. Start a fracking business next to a wildlife sanctuary; jet off to Dubai for the weekend; drive your military-grade SUV to the end of your driveway to pick up your mail from Semi-Automatic Weapons Discount Warehouse; throw your half-empty bottles of bottled water into the trash or onto the beach rather than the recycling bin … Have at it!

(Just kidding; I can’t go that far. I draw the line at those half-empty water bottles. Uggghhhh! If I could talk to the people doing this I would say: What, do you have too much money, is that it? Are you the liquid version of Marie Antoinette?! Lording it over the masses with your conspicuous consumption, or in this case non-consumption? Is your motto “Let them drink urine!”? Jeez! Drink the rest of your overpriced plastic water, or water a plant with it, and then throw that darn bottle in the recycling bin!)

So no, I can’t allow you to use those bajillion green karma points to neutralize just anything. But I hereby empower you to run around bragging about the big fat “Eco Get Out of Jail Free Card” you have earned from the micro-famous Deep Green Blogger. Be sure and tell them how you earned it, so we can promote civilized knotting behavior. I’m hoarding baling-twine (AKA “Orange Gold” and “Blue Gold”) for the Zombie Apocalypse and can’t afford to sacrifice even a centimeter of the stuff.

And if you have any other extremely trivial yet disproportionately aggravating eco-peccadilloes to add to the above list, please drop me a line! It takes a village to raise our standards.

#ComicRelief

A permaculture friend Facebook-posted the question: How many of you are willing to sacrifice your lives, your kids’ lives, grandkids’ lives, for the economy?

I would add to that question, And how many of you are willing to continue to sacrifice the Earth’s ecosystems, and the wellbeing of indigenous communities and marginalized populations, for “the economy”?

And here’s the answer I gave:

Absolutely NO. And in fact, it is not necessary to sacrifice the economy to safeguard our health. Contrary to popular belief, “the economy” is not Wall Street or big corporations. The economy is everyday people trading goods and services to meet each other’s needs.

Might it require sacrifice? Might those of us who can afford to do so, want to cut unnecessary expenses and instead channel our money & energy to helping out neighbors and family members who are less well off? And do extra legwork to support local farmers, local businesses? Yes, and it’s a sacrifice I’m happy to make, because that is the REAL economy.

And rather than being at odds with public health and wellness (as the “big economy” has often been shown to be), the REAL economy is 100% aligned with public health and wellness. We can use our innate human creativity to help one another develop new, more localized livelihoods; ones that are less dependent on government and big corporations. And we will all be better off.

As a kid, I mainly dreamed of becoming a writer, an artist, a psychologist, and a fashion designer when I grew up. I never dreamed I would take on what I would come to consider as the ultimate marketing job. But in fact, that is what being a self-appointed sustainability educator is to me: Persuading people that it’s in their best interest to take care of the planet.

In college, I took marketing classes with a vague notion of “taking something practical” (i.e. to balance out my “impractical” major in English literature). I never imagined I would come to consider marketing an essential skill for persuading people to care for the environment.

Marketing is telling someone a story in order to motivate them to change their behavior in some direction you consider positive. Sometimes the story includes factual information, but just as often it is a purely subjective or emotional appeal. In social movements, the “positive direction” is presumably some beneficial shift on the planet. People stop using insecticides, stop buying snacks that contain palm oil, that kind of thing. In a corporation, “positive” might just mean “Consumers start buying our product so we can get paid.” 

Where the environmental movement has gone wrong in the past, in my opinion, is by bombarding people (developers, city commissioners, presidents, everyday citizens) with scientific information, and expecting that information to make a shift in people’s behavior, and being utterly baffled when it did not. Rather than take a page from scientists’ books (or in addition to doing that), we might do better to take a page from marketing textbooks!

Growing up in the 1960s and 70s, I observed how odors of cooking in a house came to be considered as a sign of a slovenly hostess. “Fried fish again for dinner last night, Ruthie?” squawked the bitchy neighbor in an air-freshener commercial. Or how about those “Ring Around the Collar” commercials. Ugh!

The multi-billion-dollar lawn-maintenance industry was sparked by landscaping companies that applied chemicals to grass to make it super green. The people in the neighboring house felt ashamed that their grass didn’t look as green (or as perfectly clipped) as that other guy’s, and so the demand for chemically based lawn services skyrocketed. An artificially green, rigidly manicured lawn has become a signifier of good neighborliness, prosperity, and overall decent citizenry.

One of the most startling and (to me) offensive marketing feats I can think of, is the “personal hygiene” industry’s success in conveying to women that their vagina “smells”, and/or is “dirty,” and needs to be disinfected with pine-scented or floral-scented chemicals in order to make her desirable sexually or even a halfway decent human being. I mean, who would buy this?? But lots of people do. Shame is a powerful driver. Just tap into someone’s shame, combined with their desire to be sexually attractive, and watch what happens. This has been going on for decades at least. I’ve seen magazine ads from the 1920s, warning women not to get complacent about holding onto their husbands’ affection, and offering some scented chemical liquid as insurance. 

Not long ago I read an article about a woman who developed a product that creates a film over the water in your toilet, so the smell of your poo is covered up. This product has made millions of dollars so far. Millions! Poo-Pourri, a spray made from essential oils that traps unpleasant odors below the surface of the toilet water, has sold 60 million bottles since it came out in 2007 (See “Suzy Batiz’s Empire of Odor” in The New Yorker.) How much easier and less expensive could life be if we humans couldn’t be so readily shamed about the fact that our poop, like everyone else’s, stinks!?

But how about if we were to use marketing for the good? So, instead of harnessing people’s shame and fear to hawk unnecessary and sometimes damaging products, how might we leverage human emotion to motivate people to take better care of Mother Earth?

Here are some things I’ve typically seen used as marketing points for products. Buy our product, and you’ll get this desirable attribute:

Cuteness

Sex appeal

Hipness, being up on things, not being behind the times

Being in the know

Freedom 

Convenience

Comfort

Relaxation

Prospect of being famous, a hero

Pondering this list, I thought of a couple of eco ads:

1) Two young beautiful surfers, one male and one female, are walking along the beach together, carrying their boards. Surfer Dude is trying to impress the girl, and she looks interested, until he offers her a bottle of bottled water. She stops dead in her tracks, and says, “Wait. You’re a surfer, but you drink bottled water?” Camera pans across the sand, showing it littered with plastic bottles. Her expression turns cold, and Surfer Dude stands there looking foolish.

2) Two women are standing next to each other in the kitchen of one of the women. The guest sniffs the air and looks at the hostess, says “Ewww, what’s that smell?” The hostess opens the cabinet, sees that the trash is the source of the odor, looks embarrassed. The friend says, with shocked look, “Um … Do you not compost your food scraps? Do you just throw them in the trash? No wonder your trash stinks! Hold on honey, I can fix that for you in a jiffy!”

Now, an obvious weakness of both these ads is that they don’t sell any product; they just shame someone for a non-eco-friendly practice. But the bottled water shaming commercial could be used to sell reusable steel water bottles, or filters. Or a water dispenser where you can fill up your reusable bottle. And the composting commercial could be used to sell a vermicompost bin, or composting classes! I envision both ads having a sort of retro flavor like those hygiene-shaming commercials of yore. 

What other eco commercials can you think of? Put on your marketing hat! It might be fun to have a YouTube channel dedicated to mock eco commercials. 

The return to “normalcy” (lifting of the Coronavirus shutdowns) is coming sooner or later. And while I don’t want to be a spoilsport, I do think we need to be heads-up about a potential danger of that return to normalcy. That danger is: forgetting the good that has come out of the shutdown, and letting the good slip through our fingers as we get back on the brutal high-speed treadmill that our modern industrialized society defines as normal.

This article, titled “Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting,” by Julio Vincent Gambuto on medium.com, sums up my feelings to a T. (The following is just an excerpt; I urge you to go read the entire article — it is so important, in my opinion, that I’m not loading you up with any other links in this post):

Pretty soon, as the country begins to figure out how we “open back up” and move forward, very powerful forces will try to convince us all to get back to normal. (That never happened. What are you talking about?) Billions of dollars will be spent in advertising, messaging, and television and media content to make you feel comfortable again. It will come in the traditional forms — a billboard here, a hundred commercials there — and in new-media forms; a 2020–2021 generation of memes to remind you that what you want again is normalcy. In truth, you want the feeling of normalcy, and we all want it. We want desperately to feel good again, to get back to the routines of life, to not lie in bed at night wondering how we’re going to afford our rent and bills, to not wake to an endless scroll of human tragedy on our phones, to have a cup of perfectly brewed coffee, and simply leave the house for work. The need for comfort will be real, and it will be strong. And every brand in America will come to your rescue, dear consumer, to help take away that darkness and get life back to the way it was before the crisis. I urge you to be well aware of what is coming. …

…From one citizen to another, I beg of you: Take a deep breath, ignore the deafening noise, and think deeply about what you want to put back into your life. This is our chance to define a new version of normal, a rare and truly sacred (yes, sacred) opportunity to get rid of the bullshit and to only bring back what works for us, what makes our lives richer, what makes our kids happier, what makes us truly proud.

On this blog, I’ve been writing a lot lately about “silver linings” of the slowdown, and how it’s in our interest to consciously decide what we want to keep even after things go back to “normal.” Clearer rivers; a return of wildlife; a resurgence of food-gardening; hearing more birdsong; and getting to meet more of our neighbors (from a social distance while out walking the dog or exercising); devising creative ways to make a living are examples of the kind of thing I’m referring to.

After seeing the above-linked article about the Ganga River getting clear (and supposedly clean enough to drink), one friend commented that she hopes the powers-that-be take this kind of thing to heart. That we CAN do it, we CAN fix the environment, but we need to start now.

To which I replied: So true! And — to a great extent, the powers-that-be is US, millions of everyday people. Do we have the self-discipline to limit unnecessary car trips, flights, and other forms of excess consumption even after the lockdown is lifted? Will we decide that certain aspects of the “new normal,” such as getting to stay home more and not rush around so much, are worth making an effort to keep? I like to think so!

As another Facebook friend put it, “We are the ‘powers that be’… don’t buy it, don’t support it, don’t need it… those three things will make all the difference.”

In my book, I point out that low-footprint living, in addition to helping the planet, can also allow households to boost their disaster-resilience. As if to underscore my idea, numerous hurricanes and other natural disasters have hit the world since I published my book in 2017. All of them have had devastating effects on the livelihoods and living circumstances of people in different parts of the world. And our latest natural disaster, the Coronavirus, is affecting literally just about everyone, everywhere in the world. The less dependent we are on sources outside our local communities to meet our basic needs, the better off we are. Does this mean we have to forego imported goods, electricity, long-distance travel, and other convenient aspects of modern society? Not necessarily (though there’s certainly a lot of room for us in the privileged parts of the world to scale back while still living comfortably), but the less dependent we are on these things, the less vulnerable we are to disaster; the more socially and economically resilient we’ll be.

In that spirit I propose a fun household activity for the Coronavirus “Stay At Home” time: Conservation Games! Depending on the culture of your family (and the ages of your kids and others living with you), you might opt to do these as a friendly competition between household members, or approach it as a team working together to get your numbers lower and lower.

My preferred framework for household-scale conservation efforts is the Riot for Austerity. It’s a worldwide grassroots movement of citizens aiming to reduce their footprint to 10% of the average U.S. resident’s. The people who started the Riot movement (Sharon Astyk and Miranda Edel) set forth numeric targets which I’ll outline below.

Now, at this point you might be thinking, “Are you nuts? We’re in the middle of a crisis! Why would I want to voluntarily heap more challenges on myself and my family?” To which I would say 1) You might be surprised at how self-challenges can take one’s mind off an ongoing crisis, and help maintain a sense of perspective; 2) As I mentioned, low-footprint living is great for boosting one’s disaster-resilience; and 3) The current crisis makes it easier in various ways to reduce one’s footprint. So now is actually a great time to start!

My friend Cedar Stevens was talking about plastics consumption when she made the following comment (and the hige volume of plastic trash is a major problem in itself), but she could just as easily have been speaking about any other aspect of reducing one’s eco footprint: “Perhaps you don’t want to think about reducing your plastic consumption. Life is so interrupted though, maybe this is the time to make new choices that are better for the Earth, create new habits. Be humbled in the face of the Wild.” (By the way, Cedar is a virtuosa gardener, herbalist, community organizer, and all-around wise woman. She is the proprietress of Natural Magick Shop, which offers “Magick potions, ritually crafted for the modern practitioner.” Visit her shop, and enjoy!

Note, any amount by which you can reduce your footprint is great! Whether you are able to reduce your footprint by 90% or 20% or even just 10%, you’re chipping away at the beast of excess consumption, resource mining, deforestation, violent landscaping, overdevelopment, etc., that is straining the planet’s resources. You might find it helpful to set moderate targets at first so you’ll be eager to build on your successes and keep going. Most people find some areas easier than others. For example, a person who lives in the city and doesn’t own a car might find it easy to have a low transportation footprint. A person who’s good at gardening, or has a farmer’s market nearby, might find it easier to lower their food footprint than one who has a black thumb, or has no farmer’s market to shop at. Following is a capsule summary of the Riot for Austerity targets. (For the full set of Riot for Austerity guidelines, see my post Riot for Austerity Rules.) Notice that some targets (such as trash) are per-person, while others (such as electricity use) are per-household.

GASOLINE: U.S. average 500 gallons per person per year; RIOT target 50 gallons per person per year. (The Coronavirus shutdown, with its moratorium on most commuting and on non-essential shopping, could make it easier than ever for many households to cut their gasoline consumption to a low percentage of the U.S. average. Under the RIOT target, you get slightly over 4 gallons a month, so if your car gets 30-40 miles a gallon and you are no longer commuting, 10% of the U.S. average is actually within reach! With outdoor exercise one of the only options for getting out of the house, you might find yourself enjoying family walks or bicycle rides. I know I’m seeing a lot more of that in my neighborhood!)

ELECTRICITY: U.S. average 900 kWh/month per household; RIOT target 90 kWh/month per household. (With household members being at home all the time, some families might be seeing a jump in electricity use. This could be a great opportunity to start an in-house conservation challenge! If your power company has a way for you to check your daily consumption online (many do nowadays), you can have a lot of fun with this. Basic notes: The biggest culprits of household electricity use are heating or A/C, clothes-dryer, and water heater – if your house uses electricity for these.)

HOME OIL/GAS: U.S. average 1,000 therms/household/year; RIOT target 100 therms/household/year.

GARBAGE: U.S. average 4.5 pounds per person per day; RIOT target 0.45 pounds per person per day. A fun thing to do could be give each person in the household their own trash can, and have daily or weekly weigh-ins. The best way by far to immediately reduce your trash weight by a wide margin is to compost your kitchen scraps. If you’re not doing this already, now’s a great time to start! Do a search on “compost” in this blog to find my favorite resources. Or just plunge into the vast university of YouTube wisdom.

WATER: U.S. average 100 gallons per person per day; RIOT target 10 gallons per person per day. (Outdoor water use accounts for 40% to 60% of this total. Now is an opportune time to look into waterwise native landscaping. Note: a food garden uses relatively little water for the amount of space it takes. The big water-hogs are exotic vegetation and manicured lawns.) A fun way to do a water challenge: Catch running water into a basin that’s a certain number of gallons, and count the number of basins you fill during a day. Got energetic young kids? Teach them to carry the water outside and water the trees and shrubs with it. Also get the kids to help with the math of calculating the total number of gallons used each day by toilet flushes, showers, etc.

CONSUMER GOODS: U.S. average $10,000 per household per year; RIOT target $1,000 per household per year. (This is another category where it could be easier to make cuts right now because of the shutdown. Golden opportunity to form new habits that are easier not only on the planet, but also on your wallet!)

FOOD: RIOT targets call for local & organic food to make up 70% of your diet; bulk/dry food 25% of your diet; and processed/industrial food 5% of your diet. Right now, this last category makes up 50% of the average U.S. resident’s diet. (The pandemic makes it a bit of a challenge to make major changes in one’s food purchasing. But one thing you can do is start shopping at your local farmer’s market, or get more of your groceries from there if you are already shopping there. You can also aim to eat fewer processed snacks. The food category is one of my big personal challenges. Although I truly love local organic veggies, I also heartily enjoy processed snacks! Lately I’m learning to make spiced crispy vegetable chips, which believe it or not it turns out I enjoy as much as store-bought potato chips!)

Reducing your eco footprint is not only the easiest and most immediate way for you as an individual to address environmental issues; it also has immediate benefits for your wallet and your well-being. Not only that, it makes you and your family and your community better able to weather whatever may come–be it a natural disaster or an economic recession or any other kind of crisis–and come out stronger. I hope you enjoy your low-footprint competitions and experiments as much as I’ve been enjoying mine! Always feel free to drop me a line if you have questions. And if you like, get yourself a copy of my book DEEP GREEN! It’s a concise manual to crafting your own version of an ultra-low-footprint life, and I’ve packed it chock-full with links to the absolute best resources I know of in each category.

During this time of pandemic sequestration, I’ve heard many parents say they’re loving the opportunity to stay home and spend time with their kids. Even some parents who are now unable to earn any income are savoring the slowdown, aside from the financial worry. The other day, a couple with several kids passed by our porch, amid a gaggle of big dogs on leashes. “We’re having so much fun!” they shouted when I asked how they were faring with school at home. “There are so many cool free educational resources online!”

But I’m also hearing from plenty of parents who are going stir-crazy with the additional responsibility of having to keep their kids schooled and entertained all day, every day, on top of all their usual parental responsibilities (and in some cases on top of their professional jobs, if they are working from home). Their kids miss their playmates; the parents miss the company of other adults. And adding insult to injury, a lot of parents right now are getting chastised for having these perfectly natural human feelings. I’ve seen Moms getting shamed online for saying they could use a glass of wine. Please!

My take on the “kids at home” struggle is the same as my take on other challenges that the pandemic has brought. My take is that the pandemic, besides being a crisis in itself, has exposed cracks in society that have been there for many years or decades.

Now, before I go any further, let me say I’m well aware that some parents feel that if a person is not a parent, that person has no business commenting on child-rearing issues. And I am not unsympathetic to that viewpoint, especially when the commenters are trying to shame people or tell them how to raise their kids. But my take is 1) Parents are emotionally enmeshed in the high-stakes, stressful task of raising kids, and it could be helpful to get support from someone who’s not as emotionally involved. And 2) It is impossible to solve, or even fully grasp, any major problem in society without looking into how that society is bringing up its children.

So, in that spirit, here are some of my observations based on a combination of things I’ve observed myself, or heard from older relatives, or read in books and magazines. I realize I’m speaking in generalities here, but generalities have their place, as they can help us see more clearly and get to the heart of things.

There’s a wealth of articles out there offering tips on how to keep kids happy and engaged at home. If I find some particularly outstanding ones, I’ll post them in the Further Reading section. But there are lots online that you can find easily. For now, I’m giving you two main takeaways:

1. Community, Community, Community. By now, pretty much everyone is familiar with the saying, “It takes a village to raise a child.” Isolation is one of the two biggest culprits of parental overwhelm. The nuclear family, detached from the old hometown and extended family, is a modern experiment that just hasn’t worked out well. The other day in a “Coronavirus overwhelm” discussion thread online, I was happy to see a couple of Moms, whose kids are playmates, talking about the possibility of living under the same roof. What a great idea! I hope it catches on. The truth is that living alone or in nuclear families is expensive, and raising kids is way too much work for one set of parents alone. Part of the original motivation for the emergence of the nuclear family–a trend that accelerated after World War II–was surely the lure of independence from “the old hometown” and its bossy elders. But nowadays, with so many people learning how to set healthy emotional boundaries and tolerate differences, it seems feasible to have the best of both worlds: the ability to be true to oneself, without having to disengage from extended family. In general, over the past few years, it’s been good to see more people living in multigenerational households again, even if a lot of the motivation is economic constraints (young adults not able to afford their own places because of school debt, etc.) This is one case where all the arrows (economic, social, division-of-labor, and ecological) seem to be pointing in the same direction: Live with other people if at all possible! (If you are living alone and it’s working out great for you, disregard this bit of advice.) This is true whether or not you have kids, but if you have kids, it could save your sanity and make life a lot more enjoyable for you and the kids.

2. Instead of being overwhelmed by kids’ energy … harness it! In permaculture design, we have a saying, “Turn problems into solutions.” Most of us have had the experience of being overwhelmed by a kid’s energy. For a long time now (for my whole life, really, which is almost 60 years) I’ve observed parents feeling overwhelmed by dealing with kids, especially young kids. And recently, my observation has led me to ask, “Is there anything we can learn from people in other times and places? How did people in the old days cope with an exhausting toddler? How do people in indigenous cultures manage to look after their kids on top of foraging for food, gathering firewood and all that?” In a nutshell, very young kids want to help with household tasks, and want to be near their parents. When we try to get kids to stay out of the way, “go play,” etc., we create stress because not only do we create a situation where kids get bored and come back looking to the adults for ideas on what to do, but also, we push away a whole bunch of really robust energy that wants to help! The ideal is to start engaging kids while they are still toddler age. But I think there’s hope at any age if the parents make it clear that they really need their kids’ help; that the kids are indispensable to the household economy. As kids get older, their creativity starts to shine, and if you ask kids for ideas on how to solve household problems, they think of amazing solutions that you or I might never have thought of.

From everything I’ve read and observed, kids are happiest and least overwhelming when they know that their labor and creativity are needed for real stuff that the household depends on. Cooking, shopping, running the cash register, designing a logo for the family business, greeting store customers or hotel guests, feeding farm animals, collecting eggs, watering plants, even laundry and dishes and what have you. (By the way, as a kid I hated yardwork. But if we’d been growing food, as opposed to toiling in the service of suburban standards of neatness and conformity, I might have felt differently.) And, when they know their parents really want them around (which is more likely to be the case if the parents aren’t constantly getting interrupted for entertainment while the parents are trying to get work done)!

Of course there is more to life than chores. Creativity is another way for families to spend time together, while also making the world a better place. I’ve heard/read of many families doing creative and compassionate activities during the stay-at-home order. One neighborhood has started a “teddy bear hunt” to entertain little kids who are out walking with their families. People put teddy bears in their windows so as to be visible from the street, and kids see how many bears they can find on their walks. I also read about a 17-year-old girl who did a ballet performance at her grandparents’ nursing home; residents could watch from their balconies. And a friend of mine, a Dad, dressed up in drag (a powder-blue ballerina costume complete with tiara, to be exact!) and went walking through his neighborhood with his young daughter, who was also in some sort of costume (the Facebook photo was too small to see clearly). This kind of playful spirit is all too absent from most people’s everyday lives, and the enforced slowdown seems to be really bringing it out. Here’s hoping it’ll continue even after “normal” life resumes!

Besides those two main points, a few other things.

One, It’s OK to want wine (or whatever you enjoy: eating chocolate; reading a novel; painting). Assuming you’re not harming yourself or neglecting your family, it’s actually healthier for all of you if Mom and Dad get to have their fun too. I grew up in the 60s and 70s, when it was still OK for parents to go out to movies or cocktail parties and leave the kids with a babysitter (or let the oldest child be the babysitter for their younger siblings). Nowadays it’s more popular for parents to hang out together while their kids play. Either way, you’re not a bad parent for wanting a treat.

Also, get to know your neighborhood and neighbors; a neighborhood with a web of social connections is more resilient in any possible circumstances than one where neighbors don’t know each other. Many of us find that our best friends (and/or our kids’ best friends) are widely scattered, requiring a car trip. But it’s not sustainable for parents to constantly have to drive their kids to a playdate. The stay-at-home orders affecting most of the population are highlighting the unworkability of that setup. Walk around your immediate neighborhood with your kids, meet your neighbors. And keep in mind that your kids, even young ones, are their own people; the friends they choose for themselves won’t necessarily have parents that you’d choose as your friends. And that’s fine!

Finally: A major factor in parental overwhelm is economic anxiety. See if there are some household expenses you can cut, so you can slow the treadmill down. Ditto for household tasks; see if there are any you can ease up on a bit. Do you really need to have perfectly square shrubs? Does the laundry need doing right this minute? It might be worth trading some niceties for just plain ol’ free time for each other. There’s no point in having a family (and no point living on planet earth, really) if we can’t all take a deep breath and enjoy each other, listen to the song of a bird, watch the sunset, learn the names of the wildflowers growing right around us.

On a personal note, today when I got home from the farmer’s market with my groceries, it felt like it was taking a long time for me to get things put away and stow the reusable bags. I found myself wishing there were a toddler in the vicinity! I would have enlisted the little one’s assistance stashing the bags in the milk crate where I keep them. I had the same thought later, when I needed to wash some clothes. I always hand-wash my stuff in a tub, then pour the water on whatever area of the yard needs a bit of water. What a perfect job for a little kid to help with!

If you’re a parent (or grandparent or other relative in close proximity with kids), I’d love to hear your ideas on this topic. What, if any, aspects of working with kids do you find overwhelming? What’s worked for you? What hasn’t? Or if you’re from another country, whether or not you’re a parent — How are things different in your country? What tasks are kids expected/allowed to do at each age? Same question for people of older generations, wherever you’re from. What household tasks were you required/expected to do as a kid?

Further Reading:

• Maybe the single most illuminating resource I’ve found on the “kid energy problem” so far is this short article from npr.org, on how to get kids to do chores. It gives impressive examples of how people in other cultures harness the “power of toddlers.” In a nutshell, toddlers naturally want to help (in one study, 20-month-old children stopped playing and crawled across the floor to help adults pick up dropped objects), and by being willing to spend extra time even though the toddler’s involvement slowed things down or makes a mess, parents invest and end up with kids who continue to love to help even as they get older. Typical parents in modern Western culture rebuff a toddler’s offer to help, and send them off to play. But mothers from indigenous cultures will invite the child to stay and watch, and participate. The article also cites a book that sounds like a must-read: Anthropology Perspectives on Children as Helpers, Workers, Artisans, and Laborers, by David Lancy.

• Childlike Innovation: Parents Find Creative and Fun Ways To Keep Kids Busy and Happy. (Daytona Beach News-Journal). Even very young kids can start learning a valuable skill like gardening or cooking, and can collaborate on a wall painting or other house project. “We just involved her in everything we do,” one couple said of their 2-1/2-year-old daughter. She’s interested in practical life skills, so instead of trying to keep her out of the way while they get stuff done, they involve her in cooking, seed-sprouting and other tasks. It sounds like it’s a lot more fun and less exhausting than the other approach!