Solo Mother

Yes, I’m brainwashing my son… why do you ask?

by christina on April 28th, 2007

I heard myself doing it again the other day. Another longwinded speech about how awful it was, how terrible and irresponsible and bad for us all it was. I pointed to a piece of trash on the street and went into a diatribe of disgustedness. I railed. I rallied. I watched the reaction of my entranced son and thought it Good.

I believe in sustainable architecture, a sustainable lifestyle, and treading lightly on the earth. I’m teaching this to my son, as well. It strikes me as simple, all this green indoctrination, just as “Give a hoot! Don’t pollute!” became indellibly etched into the brainwaves of an entire generation of children who just couldn’t bring themselves to throw something on the street after that.

I teach my son simple ways to save resources: turn off the tap while brushing our teeth, reuse shopping bags instead of buying garbage bags, use brown paper bags and reusable containers to pack lunch. Flourescent bulbs instead of traditional, incandecent bulbs. A quart jar filled with water in the toilet reservoir. We don’t own a car, we walk or take public transportation. We wear handmedowns and give our clothes to the next family when we don’t want them anymore. My son can tell you not to throw batteries away because they leak poison into the ground. I’m looking into a ground cover more natural to our climate to reduce watering, and want to get plants in the house to refresh the air. We’ve always used cloth napkins and wipes–which sends some folks searching fruitlessly for the paper towels. We have ceiling fans in every room so we don’t have to use so much air conditioning. Some day, we’ll live in a green building.

But for now, I preach the mantra of reuse, reduce, recycle. And my son gets it.

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