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Some days, I say to myself: do not open the Internet today. DON'T. DO IT. Because, seriously, it seems like every time that I flip open the computer and log on and start reading e-mail or scanning RSS feeds, I find the same thing: some new hazard has been identified! Some new toxin or poison or just generally bad thing has been discovered in the food that I feed my kids or the toys that they play with or the shampoo that I use on their hair and it's all just UGH. Is nothing safe anymore? Do I seriously need to make good on my promise to give it all up and move back-country to grow my own food and make my own soap and become one of those doom-saying crazy people moaning about the End of Days? Because I'd really prefer to not do that.
Some of the information that floats my way is, of course, the kind of common-sense, duh-I-knew-that stuff that doesn't make me want to run screaming for the hills so much as it does fill me with an overwhelming sense of fatigue. Macaroni and cheese from the box isn't healthy? Goldfish crackers should be avoided? Okay, fine. I might not like it, but I can accept it and move on to the hard work of convincing my children that brown rice is as tasty as Kraft Dinner, and that they didn't really like Goldfish crackers anyway (actually, Time magazine's recommended alternative to Goldfish crackers, graham crackers, aren't such a hard sell, except for the part where my daughter gets mad that they aren't being turned into S'mores.)
But what about information like this: some of the ingredients in common children's bath products - shampoo, soap, bubble bath - contain carcinogens. Which, again: I sort of knew that mass-produced soap products contained dodgy ingredients (Green Mom Finds was founded to put exactly this type of information in front of moms and provide them with alternatives, and I've paid attention when they've wagged their virtual fingers at Johnson's & Johnson's) but still. CANCER-causing ingredients? Have I been killing my children softly with all that No More Tears shampoo? How does information like that NOT send a mother into a panic?
Obviously, the thing to do is to just start buying the all-natural products - we already use Burt's Bees sometimes - but that stuff's expensive. Which, fine, I'm willing to pay a little more to keep my children safe, but isn't it a little bit troubling that keeping our children safe is kind of a luxury? In this economy, a lot of families can't afford to buy the safe stuff, because it is, simply, much more expensive than the regular ol' carcinogenic off-the-counter stuff. So, family health: now a luxury? Or is there some way around this problem that I'm just not getting?
In the meantime, anybody got a good make-your-own-soap recipe? You know, for when I hit the back-country?
Catherine blogs at Her Bad Mother, where, when she's not obsessively reflecting over what it means to mother in public, she's determined to make sure that everybody understands that once you become a parent, you won't give a hoot about not getting to go to Paris for the weekend. It's the naps that you'll want. Trust her.
