The term “crunchy mama” has never bothered me. My younger sister thinks I’m a helplessly new-age crazed hippie when I suggest an essential oil for something, but I don’t shy away from modern medicine. I gleefully take my children in for their vaccines, because I don’t want to see them get polio or measles. I adore my Norwex cloths, but I also religiously buy Pledge and Windex All-Surface Cleaner.
Like in so many things, parenting is often marketed as being black and white. Either you are a crunchy mom or a thoroughly modern mom. You’re either raising your children off-grid and on a farm with organic food and tooth powder, or you live in a high-rise with a Jetsons-esque Rosie robot maid and eat McDonald’s three square meals a day. Breastfeed or formula. Cloth or disposable. Screen time or screen-less.
Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m all over the place. My youngest loves McNuggets and also takes bites straight out of our garden-grown tomatoes. {I do think she thought it was an apple.} My older children love playing on PBSkids.org and they also love jumping in puddles and ruining the knees of their jeans. We watch a lot of Netflix, but then we put on our rain boots and go feed the chickens. I was absolutely, 100% against the idea of Pull-ups until I changed the sheets for the 10th night in a row; then, magically, we were a Pull-ups family.
Life is all about balance.
Being inside is great; being outside is great. Eat fast food sometimes, and eat farmer’s market asparagus sometimes. Let the kids play the Wii, but throw them outside when the sun is shining.
Last spring we were watching my two oldest walk in a little league opening day parade, and I lost track of how many times my 2.5-year-old dropped her chocolate iced donut on the ground. I cringed as I watched my husband brush dirt off of it and hand it back to her. “It will boost her immune system,” I muttered to myself through clenched teeth. But I’m the same mom who militantly instructs her to put her hands on her head in public restrooms because I throw up a little in my mouth at the thought of how filthy they are.
I guess the point is that you don’t have to be 100% in one camp or 100% in the other, on any topic. Life is about compromise. Don’t be too careful to put yourself into one column, because the odds are that as soon as you’re comfortable one way, your child will throw you a curveball.
