Monthly Archives: April 2009

4 Places to Connect Online with Other Green Moms

It’s a lot of fun meeting other moms who want to be green while raising their families. But it’s not always easy. Life can keep you pretty busy.

That’s where I love finding other green moms online. It’s a way for me to interact with other moms and get ideas on my own schedule. Here are some tips on finding other green moms:

1. Search for green mom blogs on Google.

There are tons of green mom blogs out there, such as Green and Natural Mom Blog, Organic Mania, and Green and Clean Mom. Oh, and Green Stay at Home Mom of course, but you’re here already.

2. Join Twitter and look for other green moms.

If you know they’re members and know their name, you can search that way. Once you are following some people, you can follow Mr. Tweet and get suggestions from him or join Twitter Moms and find people who are in the environmental groups.

3. Green mom forums.

Various green sites also have forums where you can discuss the environment. Some are mom focused, while others are more generally environmentally focused. Try the Hippymom forum or the TreeHugger forum for more general environmental discussions.

4. Green mom Facebook groups.

Search Facebook with the term “green moms” and you’ll come up with a variety of groups to choose from. Most are pretty small, but that’s not always a bad thing. Just be careful if you don’t want to always have people selling to you. Many people take the opportunity to talk about their products.

Green Birth Control

My husband and I are done having kids. Very done. It being a second C-section, we picked the tubal ligation as the most definite form of birth control we could manage. It helps that it’s also nicely green.

I’ve used a few types of birth control in the past. Hormonal birth control was quite frankly my least favorite. It impacted my moods quite a bit, and of course there’s the release of hormones into the water supply when you use hormonal methods. It’s green in that it’s highly effective, so that fewer children are born, but the hormones really are not good for other creatures.

We also used a charting method successfully for a few years. We didn’t do the popular one of checking my temperature each morning. We used a microscope instead. I licked a slide each morning, and when it dried we checked for a fern pattern. This pattern appeared a few days before ovulation. Worked well for both sides of family planning, actually.

Done right, charting methods are very effective. Not perfect, or I wouldn’t have Selene, although I also know exactly when it was we goofed. Stress can unfortunately make people a little less careful about these things, which is the hazard of charting methods. I recommend a microscope with a 100x setting. 20x was really not good enough for us to see the ferning. But you shouldn’t need any more powerful than that either. You can get a fertility microscope if you like, but I like having one that we can use for other things too. Just the geek in me.

Condoms and other barriers can be good, but you have to keep buying them, and possibly spermicide, depending on the kind of barrier you use.

Perhaps one of the most interesting is the IUD. It’s not exactly clear how they work, but they do. Some include hormones while others don’t.

Which to Choose?

Our current method of sterilization isn’t for anyone who wants kids in the future, of course. We were absolutely positive as soon as we found out about my last pregnancy that it would indeed BE the last one. Who got sterilized was easily decided when the need for a C-section came up, although we did have to plan for that eventuality in advance in order for it to happen. You have to sign papers at least 3 days in advance.

Honestly, the charting method was my favorite. Great for communication and being in touch with my body. It takes a pretty serious commitment, however, and that’s not something everyone wants.

My suggestion for others is to really think about the overall environmental impact of your choices and which you will use reliably. If you can be reliable about charting, do it! It really is amazing how well it works IF you do it right. A woman’s body can show exactly what point of her cycle she is at.

An IUD, condoms or other barrier would probably be my next recommendations. Many doctors won’t give an IUD to a woman who hasn’t had any children yet, as I understand it, due to added difficulties with inserting it.

Hormonal birth control, while the current classic method and a highly effective one, I would recommend thinking carefully on before using. More and more evidence is coming forward on how medications of all types are impacting our water supply, and that impacts us and our environment in ways we are still discovering.

Is the Cost of Going Green Worth It?

A lot of green purchases cost more upfront than their non-green counterparts. Organic food, compact fluorescent bulbs, cloth diapers… it can be hard to see why you would bother paying extra. All these steps seem like such small things.

However, each of these has the potential to save you some significant money.

The hardest to track is probably the organic food. How do you know if a health issue is caused by the buildup from the food you’ve been eating or if you would have had it no matter your diet? You can’t.

But other differences may be noted. You might find that you are more satisfied when you eat healthier foods. Some people find that their urge to snack goes down when they cut the junk food. Combine that with going organic and you might not be spending as much extra as you think.

Compact fluorescent bulb savings are also hard to track. You don’t know what fixture adds a particular amount to your electricity bill. Their estimated average savings per bulb for the life of the bulb is about $30… not a bad deal.

The need to recycle them can be a bit of a challenge, but you can learn how to handle that in your area at http://www.epa.gov/bulbrecycling

Cloth diapering is something I’ve recently gotten into, as readers of this blog already know. The upfront cost is significant, a few hundred dollars, but through the time my daughter is in diapers I will have saved a lot of money. I would have saved a lot more if I had used cloth diapers starting with my oldest child.

Depending on the brand of diapers you buy, payback can be a few months under a year to a few months over a year. That’s not a bad deal. It’s some extra work, but with modern cloth diapers it really is not all that complex. No pins required.

Not every green purchase has such obvious financial advantages. Organic and fair trade clothing for example, cost more, but you aren’t going to get that money back. They’re about making a choice based on your conscience.

The big changes such as solar power have extremely long payback times and can be unattainable for people who rent. It’s a great choice for those who can afford to wait to earn their money back and have a living situation that allows it, but it’s not a green choice that everyone can do right now.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember is that not every green choice comes with a price tag.

Choosing to buy less, for example. Making do with less is a green choice and doesn’t cost you anything. It is perhaps one of the most neglected green options out there, as people love to shop. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter, just that it’s one of the least glamorous choices you can make.

But it can feel really good. It’s an adjustment, but not so uncomfortable as some might think. And the impact on your pocketbook is a positive one.