Welcome

This is not an aspirational blog.

By the time I became pregnant with my second child I had essentially forgotten how to be pregnant or care for a baby. In just over five years a lot had changed.

The first thing I learned was that the prenatal vitamins I took with my first baby had a heavy metals (lead) related lawsuit. I barely knew what heavy metals were. A few hours of googling about lead and I was a puddle of regret and fear. I wondered what else I didn’t know, so like a true idiot I joined a few Facebook groups and started browsing Reddit. This path is not for the faint of heart.

Fueled by hormones, pandemic isolation, and utter panic I found myself completely paralyzed by the information I found. How did I not know this stuff? I should have known! How could I be such a shit mom?

In the past when people would bring up non-toxic living I would think, “Whatever, we’re all being poisoned all the time.” I was happier then. Now, everyday items seemed dangerous. I couldn’t believe all the sneaky places heavy metals and dangerous chemicals were hiding. I’d go into these Facebook groups looking for safe product suggestions, and come away confused, frustrated, or empty handed because the solutions offered in the group just didn’t fit for me and my family. I’m lookin at you buckwheat pillows.

Months and months of research followed. I couldn’t choose a baby product to save my life. Taking my prenatal vitamins gave me anxiety. I worried my family and friends. I annoyed them. I was grateful we couldn’t leave the house. Things got pretty weird.

I tried to tackle the big stuff, the little stuff, and the medium stuff. I got overwhelmed. I threw out a ton of our stuff, tried to clean up our personal care products, had our water tested and still barely made a dent. I tried to find “safe” toys for my kid, and found it a herculean, expensive task. I spent a lot of time trying to convince my family that my concerns were valid. That part sucked especially hard. I felt very alone sometimes.

The good news is now I’m mostly just angry! I want to go to Target and not wonder if the toy I buy my kid is going to be recalled in a few months, or worse hurt or poison said kid. I want transparency from companies so I can make decisions for my family. And not vague Prop65 warnings. I want to see safety reports and ingredients lists. My husband likened it to nutrition labels on food. Some people read the labels, and some don’t. I want the labels because I will read them. If you don’t want to read them, you don’t have to! But I want to know if there’s lead, and how much, in my kid’s toys. And whether there’s cadmium in my baby’s silicone teether. And whether the baby bottle I bought has swapped out BPA with a “regrettable substitute”.

I’ve collected a ton of resources, research, and random knowledge that I want to share. The months of self-inflicted misery can’t be for nothing. I hope to cover children’s environmental health, product safety, public health, decision making, activism, mental health and whatever else I find in my extensive collection of Google chrome bookmarks. There will be yelling, mostly into the void, and calls to action.

What I don’t plan to cover is product recommendations. You won’t find me reviewing labels and determining if a product is safe. There’s an army of moms out there doing that research and they are very, very good at it. I’m not there yet.

Make no mistake, I admire these non-toxic moms, with their wooden toys, no shoe rules, and non-toxic cleaning products. They make their own yogurt! They only use glass! Their floors are finished in beeswax! And many of them don’t vaccinate, or use fluoride, and they seem to mostly see naturopaths and functional medicine providers. My kids are vaccinated, we use fluoride, and we see mainstream doctors. I also eat Burger King. I don’t fit in these communities in a lot of ways, but I am grateful for their tireless, extensive research and commitment to their children’s safety and health, and that of the planet. I owe much of what I have learned to the Internet’s Non-Toxic Moms.

I’m just a regular mom, learning about this stuff and trying not to freak out.

I won’t talk much about my family. You won’t see pictures of my kids. I will not write recipes and do “how to” videos. I will swear. I will not do Tik Tok dances. I will try to be funny, but sometimes I will be sad because…the world.

Mostly I hope to provide good information to what I assume will be my immediate family, because who else is going to read this.

Thanks for reading, Dad!