Mad at Parenting Magazine

The woman that used to live in our house gets Parenting magazine, and I usually flip through it before putting them on Freecycle. I typically find it highly amusing, occasionally informational, and now-frightening. I got to the last page of the magazine and they have a top ten list of "things not to feel guilty about". 

"Feeling secretly glad when you catch your neighbor's "perfect" child in a nuclear meltdown" is number 4. Okay, I can identify. Although I probably shouldn't admit it. There are mostly harmless little tidbits such as that comprising this list. Enter number 5 "Introducing you sister's kid-little miss organic-only-to her very first Twinkie" 

Smart food choices have never been more difficult or more important than they are today. How dare this magazine suggest that it is okay to sneak toxic foods into your families diet or into someone else's diet or into anyone's diet? I will admit, I am a bit psychotic about it. But in an age of high fructose corn syrup, BPA, growth hormones, genetically modified foods, and antibiotics-how could I not be? Our children are suffering from obesity and type 2 diabetes in skyrocketing numbers-how could I not be? The FDA is worthless-how could I not be? Family farms are disappearing and be replaced by giant corporations-how could I not be?

It is a very sad thing that Parenting magazine is encouraging women to betray their friends and family in this way. No, it is not only a Twinkie. It is a life-style choice to be "little miss organic-only", and a responsible one that should be supported by everyone surrounding that child. Everything we put in our mouths is a conscience choice with so many repercussions. There are enough people influencing our children to eat the wrong thing; Hostess, Kellogs, Monsanto. We shouldn't have to worry about it being our sisters.

What can you do today?

I randomly made the mistake of driving through our neighborhood on the trash day after X-mas., typically I take the back way. Seriously, it made me want to cry. For many reasons; the amount of garbage from the new stuff, the amount of old stuff that was being thrown out,  the belief that if you just buy your kids one more toy that might be "the one" and they might start to like you, the idea that "stuff" will make you happy. Okay, okay, I will quit. 

My favorite tip for this time of year is to re-use that wrapping paper. We didn't do the whole gift thing this year, but inevitably the grandparents and such did. I could never just throw wrapping paper away. I have had a very scary private stash of used wrapping paper under my bed. Yes, scary.....I have been saving it for quite some time. I didn't know why. I can't explain it, but there it was.

Then it occurred to me how I might re-use it. And out came the shredder. This is quite possibly my favorite recycling program yet. I fed all that paper to my shredder and am using it to pack boxes, do art projects and who-knows what else. It is cute and a much better way of using it than just stashing it for that moment when I decide that wrapping a gift in used paper is acceptable. Although, I am sure that day will come too.