I had 12 weeks of parental leave for each of my children. (Six of those were paid by my company, and 6 by Washington State. In the US, this might come across as bragging but functional countries will be shocked at how little it is.) My partner fed them, because we had the privilege of being able to breast feed, so I took care of diapers, tummy time, and what other things I could.
I learned about elimination communication (EC). We used cloth diapers, for ecological reasons but also because they can help with potty training later. With EC, it was relatively easy. I actually only had to change dirty diapers a few times. I was available, so I could pay attention to our babies. I could learn their body language. Both of them rarely cried because we knew what they needed before they had to cry about it.
When I was forced back to work, the EC thing fell off. We continued to use cloth diapers for a while with our oldest, but it became too hard with our youngest. We had to switch to disposable diapers because of the overhead.
There have been so many wasteful things we've done because we don't have space to do the right thing. Having kids is both isolating and overwhelming. To maintain sanity, you just have to take short cuts when you don't have time or help.
Before kids, we used to really enjoy cooking together. We would start from basic ingredients and work our way up. We made pad thai, squishing tamarind paste from pods by hand. Even after having kids, my oldest and I would collect acorns from the tree down the street and crack them together. The other day we all cracked acorns we had collected for the first time since moving over here (and I made some Dotori-muk. We've also started making bread together again.
Kids really love making and processing food. There's a sensory element to it, which, if you don't have kids, is actually a really big thing kids need. But there's also a social element to making food together. They just behave better when we do things like that. It's almost like there's some kind of evolutionary incentive for kids to *want* to help. Go figure.
I've really been wanting to make seitan as we try to reduce how much meat we eat in our house. Even that meat consumption is partially about convenience. It's relatively cheap and easy to throw a bag of chicken wings in air fryer, or some ground beef in with pearl couscous in the instant pot, and just have low effort food home made food. My partner is vegan. I used to eat mostly vegan at home and only eat meat on occasion, usually eating out. But it just takes more mental energy to cook without meat. It's an easy protein, and our kids are picky.
These threads, and a few others, all connect back to a single thing. When we can slow down, we can be more careful and thoughtful. We can be mindful. We can make decisions that are better for the environment, that account for climate change. When we are under pressure, when we are tired and overworked, it's just harder or impossible to be careful and mindful... and that's exactly the point.
At a time when the survival of our species depends on our ability to slow down and be mindful, we are more stressed and overwhelmed than ever. Because, if we had a chance to slow down and think, if we could make good choices, we would make choices that would destroy the industries at the core of the global order. To slow down, as we did at the beginning of COVID, is catastrophic for "the economy." Of course it is.
When an industry runs out of room to expand by driving efficiency, it must increase demand. If demand is already fulfilled, it must create waste. The more pressure there is on the population, the worse decisions people make, the more they waste. Waste is the point. We are in an existential conflict. If we do not destroy this system, if we cannot simply slow down and think, we will be destroyed by it.
I think about the microplastics from those diapers, the methane from them rotting (not captured in the municipal biogas digester, but released directly into the environment), the little plastic containers of everything, all the opportunity costs of the carelessness inflicted on us to survive, and I wonder, "is any of this really worth my time in the office? Did I really produce so much more value doing my work than when destroyed in order to allow me to work?" Of course not, because the invisible hand, in it's infinite wisdom, has shuffled away that cost. The cost of our family thrashing is borne by society, we are a burden on everyone, while the value of my labor is internalized to the company.
How much of your "carbon footprint" should belong to your employer? There can be no capitalist solution to the climate crisis because capitalism is the crisis.
#ClimateCrisis
@markhburton@mstdn.social
