There are dangers everywhere.
Yesterday's New York Times had an article on how ingredients in shampoo and suntan lotion and other stuff can affect the normal hormonal balance of our children, bringing on early puberty and other, even more serious, consequences such as tumors. Apparently, not just the placental crap in cosmetics but even such groovy, "healthy" ingredients such as lavender and tea tree oil can trigger a rise in estrogen production.
I admit the article is worrying. Problem is, there's something worrying every time I swing my head around. Water has lead. Shampoo has lavender. Food has growth hormones or has been genetically modified. Our vegetables are sprayed. Our playgrounds have glass in the grass and needles on the swings. Our cars are spewing out carcinogens, as are our factories and air conditioners. Our crackers have preservatives and polyunsaturated grease. Fish is riddled with mercury. George Bush is president. Perverts lurk on the internet and reality television is weird. North Korea has nuclear bombs and the Gulf Stream is slowing. Oil is over sixty dollars a barrel and clothing is sweat-shopped. Children are dying in mines and orphanages and pressure treated wood has arsenic. New paint and carpets off-gas and old carpets have dust mites and old paint has lead. People still think that Paris Hilton is pretty and the authorities (ha!) can't decide whether 10,000 or 600,000 Iraqis have died since we charged into Iraq.
There are dangers everywhere and a thousand more I do not know or that have not yet been discovered. I cannot be a one woman shield against all that is poisoning, threatening, lurking and destroying my children. I want to be -- but I can't. So where is the line? I fight the impulse to stick my fingers in my ears and sing "LA LA LA" very loudly because I can't bear to know all the lurking dangers around me that I cannot guard against. But then, that's just denial and that's not responsible, is it? Is it? I can hardly cope with getting a steamed vegetable on the table once a day and not howling when asked to read If I Ran the Circus one more freakin' time. Bugger lavender.
What is a person to do?
I admit the article is worrying. Problem is, there's something worrying every time I swing my head around. Water has lead. Shampoo has lavender. Food has growth hormones or has been genetically modified. Our vegetables are sprayed. Our playgrounds have glass in the grass and needles on the swings. Our cars are spewing out carcinogens, as are our factories and air conditioners. Our crackers have preservatives and polyunsaturated grease. Fish is riddled with mercury. George Bush is president. Perverts lurk on the internet and reality television is weird. North Korea has nuclear bombs and the Gulf Stream is slowing. Oil is over sixty dollars a barrel and clothing is sweat-shopped. Children are dying in mines and orphanages and pressure treated wood has arsenic. New paint and carpets off-gas and old carpets have dust mites and old paint has lead. People still think that Paris Hilton is pretty and the authorities (ha!) can't decide whether 10,000 or 600,000 Iraqis have died since we charged into Iraq.
There are dangers everywhere and a thousand more I do not know or that have not yet been discovered. I cannot be a one woman shield against all that is poisoning, threatening, lurking and destroying my children. I want to be -- but I can't. So where is the line? I fight the impulse to stick my fingers in my ears and sing "LA LA LA" very loudly because I can't bear to know all the lurking dangers around me that I cannot guard against. But then, that's just denial and that's not responsible, is it? Is it? I can hardly cope with getting a steamed vegetable on the table once a day and not howling when asked to read If I Ran the Circus one more freakin' time. Bugger lavender.
What is a person to do?
posted by Francesca Amendolia at 11:26
9 Comments:
See, Stunts, I get so close to reconciling myself to having a kid someday and then you go and post this.
I'm with you: forget about lavender or lavender essence or polyglyculwhosywhatsits. Just getting the kid in the bathtub is momentous enough.
I think that must be the point, though...we all have to plug our ears at some point or else we'd all be captives of a consumerist, fear-based society.
I'm on a rant because of all the invasive information the pharmacy wanted to log yesterday when I was desperate for Sudafed. Maybe I should feel grateful that the governement is protecting me from those Evil Meth pushers, but I'm more concerned with privacy. But then privacy is a myth in our current governmental system, isn't it.
And my 11 year old commented that it's really a misnomer to refer to our country as the "Land of the Free"
Oh, you forgot bacon, red meat, and carbs on your list of dangers. As well as common, household bacterias (that we really need to keep our anti-bodies in shape-- but that's another rant)
You always have good, eloquent thoughts, even if I don't comment.
I couldn't agree with you more. I struggle in the grocery store trying to decide if organic is worth it. I try to buy local, I try to avoid the really bad stuff, but everywhere you turn there is more.
I think we have to pick our battles and stick to it.
My God, I could have written this.
Thank you for making me feel less alone.
I've come to the conclusion that we each have to decide what's most important to us (or what we think is the scariest :P) and stick with it. But, then you get questioned as to why you do X but not Y - only organic cow products but conventional produce for example. It's all scary - the drinking water, the air, the soil, even our breastmilk. So, we do what we can, and pick our battles.
But you made me question the lavender I put in my boys bath water!
YOU have just singled handedly summed up everything going on in my brain the last few months. Thank you. If I may, can I reference your blog on mine?
K.
When pregnant with Kid #1, I was bemoaning to my mom the ever-shrinking lunch options for the preggers. Tuna? Too much mercury. Turkey sandwiches? Listeria. Sushi? Are you kidding? Never mind I had eaten all of these things during the course of the pregnancy, not knowing the dangers that lurk in the lunchbox.
My mom calmly reassured me, "Well, Liz, the good news is that you have already screwed your kid up irrevocably, so you can let go of ever being a perfect mother. Now you can relax and have some fun."
I agree that is frightening to hear of all these lurking dangers. I too would love to plug my ears, but instead I try to put it all into a "big picture" perspective. I look at my mom. She smoked through her pregnancy, fed us foods now considered toxic and a million other things which in hindsight now seem detrimental to our growth, development, etc. My sister and I are fine (for the most part). It's good to know the dangers, but it's not like we can just stop living. Like you said, it IS everywhere, yet we have to be somewhere all time, right? So some dangers we just need to learn to live with, I suppose. It's not easy. You summed it up very well!
Isn't it the truth? Sometimes I feel like congratulating myself for the healthy way we live compared to mainstream society--and then, well, it becomes so abundantly clear that we are going to hell in a handbasket anyway and that my efforts toward clean living (ie, vegetables, whole grains, no television) are a total joke and that my self-congratulation is hubris....
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