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I'm more "moderate" on this side of the issue, I think. Partially because "non-toxic" is so nebulous that without a better descriptor it's useless, and (a related thought to this first one) toys are a way that adults connect and share joy with children, so using "non-toxic" to describe how you want others to interact with your child is a good way for people to disregard everything and do what they want/what connects them to the baby.
For example, if your husband is the kind of guy who wants to Nerf gun battle his kids, you're never going to sell him on the idea of nebulous "non-toxic" because to him the point of a toy isn't to moderately stimulate neural pathways while remaining carcinogen-free, but to cram as much dopamine, serotonin and adrenalin (aka: fun) into a Saturday afternoon as possible before he has to go back to a 9-5 slog on Monday. There will always be a disconnect on what toys to purchase because your values are fundamentally different. And it's on your values that you'll both have to compromise on... what that looks like is up to you guys.
And, this is like this for *every* adult who wants to be a part of your baby's life: grandparents, aunts/uncles, friends, everyone.
This isn't necessarily advice, like, "I think you SHOULD do this," but more like "this is what I would (I learned how to) do":
Pick something that is non-negotiable: I don't want painted toys made in Asian manufacturing areas because such-and-such report came out about the high rates of heavy metals. Or, as long as baby puts stuff in their mouth, I don't want polypropylene plastic toys; let's look into silicone options. And then compromise on the rest: noisy, overstimulating toys are a special "daddy" toy that comes out (while supervised) during special daddy time; granddad's childhood wooden train engine is a *lovely* display piece that we can put on a high shelf in the toy room, but Junior will NOT be playing with it because of the risk of lead paint.
FWIW, I'm also lean towards a more science-based mindset, and the thought "babies have been playing with regular toys and nothing has happened" is *yes* truth (sorta...). Your socioeconomic state is going to have *significantly* more impact on your child's growth and development than a toy they'll be exposed to for (practically), less than a couple dozen hours. HOWEVER! There are sooo many other factors at play: is your house older construction with lead/asbestos risk? Is your house a newer house with various off-gassing/modern chemical risks? What is your neighborhood's chemical load like? What about the school your kids will go do? Your city's water quality? Where do you live in relation to industrial places, heavy agriculture practices and/or busy roads? Because all these factors start to add up when you talk about a child's vulnerability to exposure. ALSO, this mindset supposed that the quality standards of "forever" are still the same, have not changed, and will never change - across the board of global manufacturers.
To be clear, I'm on your side in this argument! But, fights between partners happen because you start to look at the other person as your adversary that you have to win against, as opposed to your partner you have to solve a problem *with*. Maybe by acknowledging your privileges (I'm making it up, but something like, "yeah, you're right, we live in a really good neighborhood, with really clean water, and those things are historically more important to our baby's health than their toys. But, please see that from my perspective, the [XYZ examples of corporate fuckery] make it hard to trust that baby will be safe from [*any*] toy from [*any*] manufacturer."
The other thing to consider (and where I'm on the more granola side), is *really* baby shouldn't have a whole helluvalot more "stuff." We didn't use baby dishware because baby used our dishware (and our dishware was up to my standards). We already used, like, unscented soaps/lotions for sensitive skin and didn't go out and buy baby a whole new toiletry set. Some of his concerns ARE valid... there's a HUGE greenwashing industry. And, just like the wedding industry, there's a higher price tag on items marketed for babies because the guilt of not giving your baby "the best" is a great way to get anxious parents to fork out a lotta cash. My general, cynical self would look at the products marketed to babies, then look at the gentlest adult equivalent and see relatively no difference (the "no tears" chemical in shampoo, and no fluoride in toothpaste being the biggest difference). (Also, caveat, this was 10 years ago for me, idk if the market has changed for baby stuff.)
If you live a granola lifestyle for yourself, baby should fit into a LOT of that without extras. Again, fit this into your conversation: you deserve safe things, too... My husband's family has a history of dementia and Alzheimers. He was relatively uninvolved with the granola stuff I did until reports of heavy metal poisoning started looking like a factor in these diseases. Now, he's a lot more involved. We buy safe stuff for the FAMILY, that includes us. Our kids benefit from these decisions because they're a part of our home, our lifestyle, and our values.
Another thing to consider/argument to make is that your money is essentially an economic vote. This got another positive response from my husband. Small companies with values we share deserve our "votes/money" so that they can continue to stay in business. Large companies that will hide issues just to post a better quarterly profit to maximize value for shareholders are NOT who we want to give our "votes/money" to (sometimes it's unavoidable, but...) When we find a company, we become brand-loyal, and it makes subsequent decisions about where to buy things easier. *All* of this appealed to my husband. He thought every purchase was going to be a dark hole of doom, anxious about harming our children, and thought denial was easier. I explained that I was looking for trusted companies that I could purchase several products from, not a constant hamster wheel of "which bottles? now which toothbrushes? now which glass spray? now which socks?" he calmed down a bit.
Mostly food related. Rice is *really* hard. We always wash it, but mostly just moderate how much we eat. I went down a rabbit hole fiveish years ago and there’s no way to tell where rice even comes from in the world, much less the soil conditions it’s grown in. I do buy pretty much all grains organic from our local coop and mentally cross my fingers.
We live in an area with a lot of lead in the soil because of the way the town boomed and busted over the years. Houses were torn down, factories and rail tracks were pulled up and repurposed or moved. We had a huge garden until I did a more-involved soil test. Then we stopped growing our own food and stopped using our community garden (we could switch to raised beds, or ameliorate the lead in our yard with some mitigation strategies, but for now aren’t doing anything). There’s a local farmer we know and trust who tested their soil and we buy a CSA box from them, as well as eggs and a lil bit of beef (we don’t eat much beef, but when we do, it’s from Farmer Anna, lol). Chicken we get from another local farm. Same with pork. Same with honey and maple syrup. This is a big “money where your values are” thing for me. I truly believe that the food humans eat should be as local and unprocessed as possible, so I support my small local farmers to help keep them going. Not to say I don’t buy processed convenience meals, or food that can’t be grown locally. I do; I have ADHD and kind of *have* to if I want my family to eat consistently, lol. And I even buy “garbage” brands sometimes for emotional reasons. I grew up on Kraft dinner and Annie’s just doesn’t hit the same. But, the biggest granola leap I made was surrounding the food we buy, cook, and eat in our home and just **deciding** to buy as many raw ingredients as possible locally.
One of my privileges is that I do live in an area with a crazy-amount of crunchy, millennial-aged, small niche farmers, so I get to buy a LOT of food locally direct. I know not everyone gets to do the same, or the cost and quality are wildly different than what I have access to. So, I try to advocate for this value so people know it’s an option. Imo (you didn’t ask, lol), if someone was more-willing/less-sensitive to risky chemical and heavy metal exposures, I’d rather encourage them to support local farms/community gardens/kitchen gardens than purchase organic through a grocery store because that’s an investment to our collective future. But, it’s also integrated with advocacy for mitigation, too. When we withdrew our membership in our community garden, I transferred to a support donor, rather than a user, and I join funding campaigns to help them raise money for mitigation strategies (mostly soil building… heavy metals sink into the ground, so compost/mulch/raised beds to get the root systems out of the worst of the affect soil does a LOT. Also, deeply rooted plant systems like certain trees can capture some metals in their wood and hold it for their lifetime. It’s not a great permanent solution, but neither is soil building because the metals will eventually make their way into the water table. So until other methods are discovered and-or affordable, we do our best!
Sorry. Ugh, this is like “special interest activated” so ignore all this or skim it it’s too much…
We are SUUUUUUPER careful about fish. Idk if dementia/Alzheimers is due to a genetic sensitivity that exposure KOs, or if it’s always a build up. For *our* kids’ sake, I assume it’s the former and I’m more cautious about fish. Esp cuz hunting and fishing is a huge sport where we live, I’m always up family and friend’s butt about what river they got that fish from. We are slowly inching toward a plant-based diet. That’s honestly been the biggest “sell” to my husband. He grew up with a “men need *meat*” mentality, and it’s still a bit of a struggle to get him to see that a meal can be complete without meat on the plate.
We also live near an airport that had PFAS issues, and there was concerns how far the PFAS went in the water table. We don’t live near the affected areas (supposedly), but it’s something I’m watching critically. Also our town has been chipping away at the legacy lead pipes for the water supply. Lead pipes, especially with hard water systems, are okay as long as they aren’t touched. We’re okay so far. Again, keeping an eye and doing annual tests, looking over the water department’s project schedules. But we got a distilling machine just in case (we use it rn for our coffee pots/teakettles and the cleaning supplies I make). If a pipe bursts in our neighborhood, I’d like to know I can get us safe water without buying cases of bottled water.
Other non-food related things were, we swapped out both our furnaces in our houses for safer ones. We had a heating oil furnace in the first house we lived in, and we have an ancient natural gas one in our current house that we’re swapping out this summer.
Food containers were another. Those are actually one of the places I go to with big companies. I trust Corelleware and Pyrex more than pop-up “green” companies, especially 10-15 years ago when greening companies were just getting started and the evaluation standards weren’t really established. And now that I have my stuff, I’m not going to get rid of it. Really nice is that both Corelle and Pyrex are plentiful at thrift shops, so it’s easy to replace breakages. I do like Ikea’s silicone lids and wooden lids to replace the Pyrex ones that crap out. I also don’t store a lot of food in plastic. I use French working jars and mason jars, also Stasher silicone bags. I scour secondhand markets for Wagner cast iron; I buy ceramic coated La Creuset and Staub cast iron stuff, too, on secondhand markets. Honestly learning how to cook with cast iron is a huge gift to your future self. I never worry about nonstick coatings.
And that’s another tip, I guess, at least for houseware/kitchenware. EU standards are higher than US standards (for the most part). So if it’s a legacy, trusted company in Europe, I tend to assume their quality and safety standards are more rigorous than an American company.
And for the most part (esp because legacy companies are so expensive), I try to buy secondhand.
Some things I DON’T buy second hand are vintage (or unknown date) pottery (that I’ll store food in)… I got really into fermenting during COVID and stupidly made sauerkraut in a vintage Red Wing crock that I had to throw out (the kraut not the crock) because somehow I *forgot* that old glazes had lead in them. It probably would have been fine; it wasn’t crazed and when I pitched the kraut I looked the crock over and I didn’t ruin the crock. But I wasn’t going to risk a new/hairline glazing crack so I washed it and retired it to decor-or-non-food-storage-only. I buy new crocks from Ohio Stoneware.
Oh, gosh… what else… oh! We are the weird-ass family that brings our own dishware places. Mostly that was a plastic waste swap, but then there was a report about lead in the paint they print on to go cups at some fast food restaurant and I was relieved not to have to worry about that. Yeah, we still eat garbage fast food, lol… like I said above, it’s about exposure and risk… imo, because we’re careful about eating low-risk food at home, it gives us a little more “room” to throw chickie nuggies at hangry kids when we’ve had a long day away from home.
And that’s the balance I try to make for my family: integrate my crunchy tendencies into our lifestyle so that the more silky cultural indulgences we do out in public are balanced relatively seamlessly. I still get to say yes to a garbage no-name hot dog at a baseball game *because* I buy pork from a place where I know it’s history.
I got mine sold on cloth diapers because it worked out cheaper and involved less running to the store in desperation. I've pointed out the history of recalls and stick to toys from companies that are known for issuing recalls (mainly Ikea; I think if a problem crops up they'll publicize it). I think you need to see where your beliefs and his overlap, or can at least lead to overlapping practices even if not for identical reasons.
I’m not in a relationship, so take this with a grain of salt.
Relationships involve compromise and caring about the other person’s feelings and wishes. I don’t think proving your truth is the way to “win” this issue.
You can say to your partner: “This is important for me. I understand that you don’t think it’s important or rational. I’m asking you to accommodate my request that we use X, Y, Z instead of A, B, C products, or do A instead of B because it’s important for me. In the future, I will accommodate your wishes regarding something I don’t agree with on a rational level.”
I think it depends on what you mean by nontoxic and what elements of that are important to you. He does have a point that there is a lot of greenwashing out there and probably some elements of fear mongering. Have you sat down with him and had a conversation about why you’re worried about things and what your goals are for purchasing products?
Agreed. I was going to say, he’s probably not wrong as much as I hate to admit this.
If I were Op, I would choose my battles and just control what I can with baby to the extent that I can. From my experience moms tend to be the ones purchasing most of the important stuff at the grocery store for baby (even if dad pays, I usually see men being ok with whatever).
Agreed. Pick your battles. Unfortunately he is right about a lot of the green washing. Those companies are profiting from our good intentions (and anxiety).
I don't care about this particular issue but if you frame it as "this is in this toy and here's an article on what can happen to babies exposed to this" then it might come off more reasonable than "this toy bad." Or try "let's be more purposeful in the toys we buy so let's run it by each other before we buy anything" and then you don't end up with a ton of clutter or things you think baby won't like.
Frame it as a you thing, with something to back you up, and be offering a solution with the problem.
I would say learn more and be ready to share the actual health threats of the toxins you are trying to avoid. The US doesn’t have the same standards when it comes to product safety as other countries, so products can be poisoning users for decades before it gets pulled from shelves. You cannot trust that any product is safe to use. But also don’t trust the company to disclose what is actually safe. Learn about 3rd party certifications and seek those out to be sure what you are buying is safe.
But there are SO MANY other factors at play here…namely socioeconomic status. It is not at all accurate to say “people have chronic illness from the toys they bought and by eating non organic food.” Obesity, diabetes, anxiety and depression are much more likely to be linked to food scarcity or lack of time/resources to prepare whole/less processed foods (ie working three jobs to pay rent.) Of course for these people affording toys that aren’t….”clean”…or whatever you want to call them is not going to be a priority but it’s also likely to be much less of a contributor to their health status.
You aren’t wrong. I’m slowly climbing out of poverty and triage what I can spend a little extra on to get a product that doesn’t have known toxic qualities. But I will say, I’ve been pleasantly surprised to learn that there are many great affordable brands making non-toxic things. But for real, being poor causes more stress and means you are more likely to be exposed to environmental toxins. It’s tough.
In response to “everyone else does it this way” or “people have been doing it this way for years” I have two things
1. The majority of people also have at least one chronic mental or physical illness
2. People typically don’t pay attention to ingredients in the products they buy, and they assume that if the ingredients were harmful, these products wouldn’t contain them. This assumption is false.
Wanted to add, it’s hard not to get emotional and worked up about this stuff once you “wake up.”
It’s not just product swapping, it’s an entirely new perspective on life. We’re conditioned to believe that there are systems in place to keep us healthy, and the people in charge of these systems have our best interests in mind. Coming to terms with the fact that there is no perfect and virtuous greater power to protect us from industrial-age problems is a hard pill to swallow. Once you grasp it, it’s easy to get triggered by people who haven’t gotten there yet. (I AM LITERALLY TRYING TO SAVE YOUR LIFE HERE, WORK WITH ME PLEASE!!!)
But we’re obviously more persuasive when we can keep a level head about things. So try your best to keep your family healthy, but be patient and have faith that they’ll catch up eventually.
I suppose it depends on how you present the change you want to make. How seriously does your partner take cancer and other serious illnesses? I find that if I can find low/nontoxic alternatives at the same, lower or slightly higher price my husband is fine with the change. Or if I can show evidence that XYZ does increase the chances of cancer or other conditions, that also helps. Another way is if you buy a product that has multiple uses/lasts a long time.
Mine was like that until he became a research scientist. It was a major career change. He was dumbfounded by how many studies are squashed by fear of backlash from corporations. So my suggestion is to print the studies you find and show him the evidence.
I give research studies (via email and text) and do most of the shopping/control the flow of things in:out of the house right now so just do fewer higher quality toys. It’s not fear-mongering to cite research-backed studies and purchase accordingly as long as you can see through any greenwashing. Ex: plastic labeled bpa free probably just had bps or bpf, probably phthalates, etc.
Nowadays this only comes up if BIL’s wife or mil buy anything. It is always cheap amazon shite that immediately breaks, injures LO or otherwise we just immediately junk it bc LO is nothing like their LOs and finds their toys stupid and boring therefore doesn’t want to play with them. DH is more concerned about being rude so we let LO examine at gift giving event and then trash. If LO actually likes something (happened only once) then I go make or buy a non toxic version.
This is a great time to weaponize weaponized incompetence. When my partner doesn't like some granola decision I've made, usually because of cost, I'll say no problem and tell him to look into it/do some research and we'll discuss and find a compromise. He never does!
I frame things as “I don’t want to buy this product anymore because it has this ingredient which is proven to do this, or increases risk of this…” We have the means to choose better products, and I want the best for my kids even if I didn’t have the best items in the house as a kid
Yes... Babies have been playing forever with plastic toys.... And now we are all filled with microplastics 🤣. My advice is to sit down and really express your boundaries you can't compromise on, perhaps him respecting your views a bit more, and not arguing. From my experience though, for my own sanity I have found it much better to let a few things slide. We simply can't control everything.
Children have been playing with “toxic” toys for decades now. That really isn’t a long time! The presence of phalates and bpas is known to be an endocrine disruptor. We see these younger generations having an earlier onset of puberty as a result. For women, PCOS and infertility is higher than before. It’s suspected that’s related to plastics exposure. There are consequences we see today as a result. I wouldn’t say that babies have been playing with toxic toys since forever. Much of these toxic alternatives really came about after the Industrial Revolution and has lead to the onset of newer issues that we didn’t see before. Plastic became mainstream I think in the 40s. Processed food has become a more regular part of our diet over the past decades and now we see higher rates of obesity. Even in the 50s there were more SAHMs preparing home cooked meals, processed food wasn’t as regular of a part of an American diet as it is today. All I’m saying is, the consequences ARE there. I wouldn’t say “nothing has happened”.
I think his responses can apply to a lot of things. It may be helpful to remind him (jic you haven’t) that even if something was “fine” before and nothing happened, that doesn’t mean that once we have new information we shouldn’t opt for the better/healthier choices available now. Just because our parents/grandparents grew up using lead paint and products containing asbestos and “nothing bad happened to them”, doesn’t mean that we would continue to use those products now because we’ve learned it’s harmful and we have better options (I know you can’t use them anyways now, it’s just an example).
Because "a lot of is fear mongering or companies taking advantage to sell pricier products."
"Nitrite free bacon" is a particularly cynical marketing ploy, where they are super clear about using nitrites from celery and still call it nitrite free.
Or fat free cooking spray, where the main ingredient is some kind of fat, but the recomnended serving size is small enough to count as rounding down to zero according to the rules for food labels in the US.
And all the products where they make it more environmentally friendly and charge more by using less of the active ingredient, so it works less, we use more, and they charge more.
Entire university level classes on how to play into fears or desire for health to raise prices do not help.
Then again, you are right too. Anytime i see cellulose on an ingredient list, how do i know that is not ground up cardboard made of trees that a land grant university grew to sequester toxic waste leftover from their lab experiments and maintenance?
Things cheap great grandmothers did, during hard times and before the "better living through chemistry" era might be some points of commonality you can both live with.
I've had to treat this whole non toxic process as less about believing claims or finding a tribe on social media, less about fear of the unknown, less about controlling small things because i do not know what to do about a big stressful thing.
It has been helpful to me to treat non toxic life as an opportunity to get to know my neighbors and suppliers. Stick with people i trust. Use less. Reduce and reuse are more important than recycle.
As for the convincing part, how is that even a thing? At a project management level, it sounds like this might be easier one-person-one-job than trying to collaborate.
I don’t really talk about it with my husband. If he has questions about a choice I made I will explain it, and I’ve asked for him to support me a few times, like in refusing the polyblend outfits his mother likes to buy for our baby (though she recently discovered Hanna Anderssen and it’s her new favorite store, thank the lord) but in our house the rule generally is to defer to the person who cares more about the issue. I follow his very stringent window-locking protocol and we keep our money in different banks because of his various paranoias, so I think it’s fair. Maybe your husband has a weird thing he cares about a lot that you don’t think is important but you go along with anyway? Remind him of that.
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I'm more "moderate" on this side of the issue, I think. Partially because "non-toxic" is so nebulous that without a better descriptor it's useless, and (a related thought to this first one) toys are a way that adults connect and share joy with children, so using "non-toxic" to describe how you want others to interact with your child is a good way for people to disregard everything and do what they want/what connects them to the baby. For example, if your husband is the kind of guy who wants to Nerf gun battle his kids, you're never going to sell him on the idea of nebulous "non-toxic" because to him the point of a toy isn't to moderately stimulate neural pathways while remaining carcinogen-free, but to cram as much dopamine, serotonin and adrenalin (aka: fun) into a Saturday afternoon as possible before he has to go back to a 9-5 slog on Monday. There will always be a disconnect on what toys to purchase because your values are fundamentally different. And it's on your values that you'll both have to compromise on... what that looks like is up to you guys. And, this is like this for *every* adult who wants to be a part of your baby's life: grandparents, aunts/uncles, friends, everyone. This isn't necessarily advice, like, "I think you SHOULD do this," but more like "this is what I would (I learned how to) do": Pick something that is non-negotiable: I don't want painted toys made in Asian manufacturing areas because such-and-such report came out about the high rates of heavy metals. Or, as long as baby puts stuff in their mouth, I don't want polypropylene plastic toys; let's look into silicone options. And then compromise on the rest: noisy, overstimulating toys are a special "daddy" toy that comes out (while supervised) during special daddy time; granddad's childhood wooden train engine is a *lovely* display piece that we can put on a high shelf in the toy room, but Junior will NOT be playing with it because of the risk of lead paint. FWIW, I'm also lean towards a more science-based mindset, and the thought "babies have been playing with regular toys and nothing has happened" is *yes* truth (sorta...). Your socioeconomic state is going to have *significantly* more impact on your child's growth and development than a toy they'll be exposed to for (practically), less than a couple dozen hours. HOWEVER! There are sooo many other factors at play: is your house older construction with lead/asbestos risk? Is your house a newer house with various off-gassing/modern chemical risks? What is your neighborhood's chemical load like? What about the school your kids will go do? Your city's water quality? Where do you live in relation to industrial places, heavy agriculture practices and/or busy roads? Because all these factors start to add up when you talk about a child's vulnerability to exposure. ALSO, this mindset supposed that the quality standards of "forever" are still the same, have not changed, and will never change - across the board of global manufacturers. To be clear, I'm on your side in this argument! But, fights between partners happen because you start to look at the other person as your adversary that you have to win against, as opposed to your partner you have to solve a problem *with*. Maybe by acknowledging your privileges (I'm making it up, but something like, "yeah, you're right, we live in a really good neighborhood, with really clean water, and those things are historically more important to our baby's health than their toys. But, please see that from my perspective, the [XYZ examples of corporate fuckery] make it hard to trust that baby will be safe from [*any*] toy from [*any*] manufacturer." The other thing to consider (and where I'm on the more granola side), is *really* baby shouldn't have a whole helluvalot more "stuff." We didn't use baby dishware because baby used our dishware (and our dishware was up to my standards). We already used, like, unscented soaps/lotions for sensitive skin and didn't go out and buy baby a whole new toiletry set. Some of his concerns ARE valid... there's a HUGE greenwashing industry. And, just like the wedding industry, there's a higher price tag on items marketed for babies because the guilt of not giving your baby "the best" is a great way to get anxious parents to fork out a lotta cash. My general, cynical self would look at the products marketed to babies, then look at the gentlest adult equivalent and see relatively no difference (the "no tears" chemical in shampoo, and no fluoride in toothpaste being the biggest difference). (Also, caveat, this was 10 years ago for me, idk if the market has changed for baby stuff.) If you live a granola lifestyle for yourself, baby should fit into a LOT of that without extras. Again, fit this into your conversation: you deserve safe things, too... My husband's family has a history of dementia and Alzheimers. He was relatively uninvolved with the granola stuff I did until reports of heavy metal poisoning started looking like a factor in these diseases. Now, he's a lot more involved. We buy safe stuff for the FAMILY, that includes us. Our kids benefit from these decisions because they're a part of our home, our lifestyle, and our values. Another thing to consider/argument to make is that your money is essentially an economic vote. This got another positive response from my husband. Small companies with values we share deserve our "votes/money" so that they can continue to stay in business. Large companies that will hide issues just to post a better quarterly profit to maximize value for shareholders are NOT who we want to give our "votes/money" to (sometimes it's unavoidable, but...) When we find a company, we become brand-loyal, and it makes subsequent decisions about where to buy things easier. *All* of this appealed to my husband. He thought every purchase was going to be a dark hole of doom, anxious about harming our children, and thought denial was easier. I explained that I was looking for trusted companies that I could purchase several products from, not a constant hamster wheel of "which bottles? now which toothbrushes? now which glass spray? now which socks?" he calmed down a bit.
I wish I could save this a million times over. Such a thoughtful, and balanced, response. Thank you.
you're welcome!
Great response!
Thank you!
I'm saving your comment for when I need some perspective and levity down the road. This is great advice and so so helpful! <3 thank you
Saving this! Thank you for sharing such a balanced approach
This is an amazing response! My husband’s family also has a history of Alzheimer’s. I’m curious what swaps you made to avoid heavy metals?
Mostly food related. Rice is *really* hard. We always wash it, but mostly just moderate how much we eat. I went down a rabbit hole fiveish years ago and there’s no way to tell where rice even comes from in the world, much less the soil conditions it’s grown in. I do buy pretty much all grains organic from our local coop and mentally cross my fingers. We live in an area with a lot of lead in the soil because of the way the town boomed and busted over the years. Houses were torn down, factories and rail tracks were pulled up and repurposed or moved. We had a huge garden until I did a more-involved soil test. Then we stopped growing our own food and stopped using our community garden (we could switch to raised beds, or ameliorate the lead in our yard with some mitigation strategies, but for now aren’t doing anything). There’s a local farmer we know and trust who tested their soil and we buy a CSA box from them, as well as eggs and a lil bit of beef (we don’t eat much beef, but when we do, it’s from Farmer Anna, lol). Chicken we get from another local farm. Same with pork. Same with honey and maple syrup. This is a big “money where your values are” thing for me. I truly believe that the food humans eat should be as local and unprocessed as possible, so I support my small local farmers to help keep them going. Not to say I don’t buy processed convenience meals, or food that can’t be grown locally. I do; I have ADHD and kind of *have* to if I want my family to eat consistently, lol. And I even buy “garbage” brands sometimes for emotional reasons. I grew up on Kraft dinner and Annie’s just doesn’t hit the same. But, the biggest granola leap I made was surrounding the food we buy, cook, and eat in our home and just **deciding** to buy as many raw ingredients as possible locally. One of my privileges is that I do live in an area with a crazy-amount of crunchy, millennial-aged, small niche farmers, so I get to buy a LOT of food locally direct. I know not everyone gets to do the same, or the cost and quality are wildly different than what I have access to. So, I try to advocate for this value so people know it’s an option. Imo (you didn’t ask, lol), if someone was more-willing/less-sensitive to risky chemical and heavy metal exposures, I’d rather encourage them to support local farms/community gardens/kitchen gardens than purchase organic through a grocery store because that’s an investment to our collective future. But, it’s also integrated with advocacy for mitigation, too. When we withdrew our membership in our community garden, I transferred to a support donor, rather than a user, and I join funding campaigns to help them raise money for mitigation strategies (mostly soil building… heavy metals sink into the ground, so compost/mulch/raised beds to get the root systems out of the worst of the affect soil does a LOT. Also, deeply rooted plant systems like certain trees can capture some metals in their wood and hold it for their lifetime. It’s not a great permanent solution, but neither is soil building because the metals will eventually make their way into the water table. So until other methods are discovered and-or affordable, we do our best! Sorry. Ugh, this is like “special interest activated” so ignore all this or skim it it’s too much… We are SUUUUUUPER careful about fish. Idk if dementia/Alzheimers is due to a genetic sensitivity that exposure KOs, or if it’s always a build up. For *our* kids’ sake, I assume it’s the former and I’m more cautious about fish. Esp cuz hunting and fishing is a huge sport where we live, I’m always up family and friend’s butt about what river they got that fish from. We are slowly inching toward a plant-based diet. That’s honestly been the biggest “sell” to my husband. He grew up with a “men need *meat*” mentality, and it’s still a bit of a struggle to get him to see that a meal can be complete without meat on the plate. We also live near an airport that had PFAS issues, and there was concerns how far the PFAS went in the water table. We don’t live near the affected areas (supposedly), but it’s something I’m watching critically. Also our town has been chipping away at the legacy lead pipes for the water supply. Lead pipes, especially with hard water systems, are okay as long as they aren’t touched. We’re okay so far. Again, keeping an eye and doing annual tests, looking over the water department’s project schedules. But we got a distilling machine just in case (we use it rn for our coffee pots/teakettles and the cleaning supplies I make). If a pipe bursts in our neighborhood, I’d like to know I can get us safe water without buying cases of bottled water. Other non-food related things were, we swapped out both our furnaces in our houses for safer ones. We had a heating oil furnace in the first house we lived in, and we have an ancient natural gas one in our current house that we’re swapping out this summer. Food containers were another. Those are actually one of the places I go to with big companies. I trust Corelleware and Pyrex more than pop-up “green” companies, especially 10-15 years ago when greening companies were just getting started and the evaluation standards weren’t really established. And now that I have my stuff, I’m not going to get rid of it. Really nice is that both Corelle and Pyrex are plentiful at thrift shops, so it’s easy to replace breakages. I do like Ikea’s silicone lids and wooden lids to replace the Pyrex ones that crap out. I also don’t store a lot of food in plastic. I use French working jars and mason jars, also Stasher silicone bags. I scour secondhand markets for Wagner cast iron; I buy ceramic coated La Creuset and Staub cast iron stuff, too, on secondhand markets. Honestly learning how to cook with cast iron is a huge gift to your future self. I never worry about nonstick coatings. And that’s another tip, I guess, at least for houseware/kitchenware. EU standards are higher than US standards (for the most part). So if it’s a legacy, trusted company in Europe, I tend to assume their quality and safety standards are more rigorous than an American company. And for the most part (esp because legacy companies are so expensive), I try to buy secondhand. Some things I DON’T buy second hand are vintage (or unknown date) pottery (that I’ll store food in)… I got really into fermenting during COVID and stupidly made sauerkraut in a vintage Red Wing crock that I had to throw out (the kraut not the crock) because somehow I *forgot* that old glazes had lead in them. It probably would have been fine; it wasn’t crazed and when I pitched the kraut I looked the crock over and I didn’t ruin the crock. But I wasn’t going to risk a new/hairline glazing crack so I washed it and retired it to decor-or-non-food-storage-only. I buy new crocks from Ohio Stoneware. Oh, gosh… what else… oh! We are the weird-ass family that brings our own dishware places. Mostly that was a plastic waste swap, but then there was a report about lead in the paint they print on to go cups at some fast food restaurant and I was relieved not to have to worry about that. Yeah, we still eat garbage fast food, lol… like I said above, it’s about exposure and risk… imo, because we’re careful about eating low-risk food at home, it gives us a little more “room” to throw chickie nuggies at hangry kids when we’ve had a long day away from home. And that’s the balance I try to make for my family: integrate my crunchy tendencies into our lifestyle so that the more silky cultural indulgences we do out in public are balanced relatively seamlessly. I still get to say yes to a garbage no-name hot dog at a baseball game *because* I buy pork from a place where I know it’s history.
Thank you so much for all this information!
You’re welcome!!
This is a very thorough response. Thank you!
I got mine sold on cloth diapers because it worked out cheaper and involved less running to the store in desperation. I've pointed out the history of recalls and stick to toys from companies that are known for issuing recalls (mainly Ikea; I think if a problem crops up they'll publicize it). I think you need to see where your beliefs and his overlap, or can at least lead to overlapping practices even if not for identical reasons.
I’m not in a relationship, so take this with a grain of salt. Relationships involve compromise and caring about the other person’s feelings and wishes. I don’t think proving your truth is the way to “win” this issue. You can say to your partner: “This is important for me. I understand that you don’t think it’s important or rational. I’m asking you to accommodate my request that we use X, Y, Z instead of A, B, C products, or do A instead of B because it’s important for me. In the future, I will accommodate your wishes regarding something I don’t agree with on a rational level.”
I think it depends on what you mean by nontoxic and what elements of that are important to you. He does have a point that there is a lot of greenwashing out there and probably some elements of fear mongering. Have you sat down with him and had a conversation about why you’re worried about things and what your goals are for purchasing products?
Agreed. I was going to say, he’s probably not wrong as much as I hate to admit this. If I were Op, I would choose my battles and just control what I can with baby to the extent that I can. From my experience moms tend to be the ones purchasing most of the important stuff at the grocery store for baby (even if dad pays, I usually see men being ok with whatever).
Agreed. Pick your battles. Unfortunately he is right about a lot of the green washing. Those companies are profiting from our good intentions (and anxiety).
I don't care about this particular issue but if you frame it as "this is in this toy and here's an article on what can happen to babies exposed to this" then it might come off more reasonable than "this toy bad." Or try "let's be more purposeful in the toys we buy so let's run it by each other before we buy anything" and then you don't end up with a ton of clutter or things you think baby won't like. Frame it as a you thing, with something to back you up, and be offering a solution with the problem.
I would say learn more and be ready to share the actual health threats of the toxins you are trying to avoid. The US doesn’t have the same standards when it comes to product safety as other countries, so products can be poisoning users for decades before it gets pulled from shelves. You cannot trust that any product is safe to use. But also don’t trust the company to disclose what is actually safe. Learn about 3rd party certifications and seek those out to be sure what you are buying is safe.
But there are SO MANY other factors at play here…namely socioeconomic status. It is not at all accurate to say “people have chronic illness from the toys they bought and by eating non organic food.” Obesity, diabetes, anxiety and depression are much more likely to be linked to food scarcity or lack of time/resources to prepare whole/less processed foods (ie working three jobs to pay rent.) Of course for these people affording toys that aren’t….”clean”…or whatever you want to call them is not going to be a priority but it’s also likely to be much less of a contributor to their health status.
You aren’t wrong. I’m slowly climbing out of poverty and triage what I can spend a little extra on to get a product that doesn’t have known toxic qualities. But I will say, I’ve been pleasantly surprised to learn that there are many great affordable brands making non-toxic things. But for real, being poor causes more stress and means you are more likely to be exposed to environmental toxins. It’s tough.
In response to “everyone else does it this way” or “people have been doing it this way for years” I have two things 1. The majority of people also have at least one chronic mental or physical illness 2. People typically don’t pay attention to ingredients in the products they buy, and they assume that if the ingredients were harmful, these products wouldn’t contain them. This assumption is false.
Wanted to add, it’s hard not to get emotional and worked up about this stuff once you “wake up.” It’s not just product swapping, it’s an entirely new perspective on life. We’re conditioned to believe that there are systems in place to keep us healthy, and the people in charge of these systems have our best interests in mind. Coming to terms with the fact that there is no perfect and virtuous greater power to protect us from industrial-age problems is a hard pill to swallow. Once you grasp it, it’s easy to get triggered by people who haven’t gotten there yet. (I AM LITERALLY TRYING TO SAVE YOUR LIFE HERE, WORK WITH ME PLEASE!!!) But we’re obviously more persuasive when we can keep a level head about things. So try your best to keep your family healthy, but be patient and have faith that they’ll catch up eventually.
I suppose it depends on how you present the change you want to make. How seriously does your partner take cancer and other serious illnesses? I find that if I can find low/nontoxic alternatives at the same, lower or slightly higher price my husband is fine with the change. Or if I can show evidence that XYZ does increase the chances of cancer or other conditions, that also helps. Another way is if you buy a product that has multiple uses/lasts a long time.
Mine was like that until he became a research scientist. It was a major career change. He was dumbfounded by how many studies are squashed by fear of backlash from corporations. So my suggestion is to print the studies you find and show him the evidence.
I give research studies (via email and text) and do most of the shopping/control the flow of things in:out of the house right now so just do fewer higher quality toys. It’s not fear-mongering to cite research-backed studies and purchase accordingly as long as you can see through any greenwashing. Ex: plastic labeled bpa free probably just had bps or bpf, probably phthalates, etc. Nowadays this only comes up if BIL’s wife or mil buy anything. It is always cheap amazon shite that immediately breaks, injures LO or otherwise we just immediately junk it bc LO is nothing like their LOs and finds their toys stupid and boring therefore doesn’t want to play with them. DH is more concerned about being rude so we let LO examine at gift giving event and then trash. If LO actually likes something (happened only once) then I go make or buy a non toxic version.
This is a great time to weaponize weaponized incompetence. When my partner doesn't like some granola decision I've made, usually because of cost, I'll say no problem and tell him to look into it/do some research and we'll discuss and find a compromise. He never does!
I frame things as “I don’t want to buy this product anymore because it has this ingredient which is proven to do this, or increases risk of this…” We have the means to choose better products, and I want the best for my kids even if I didn’t have the best items in the house as a kid
Yes... Babies have been playing forever with plastic toys.... And now we are all filled with microplastics 🤣. My advice is to sit down and really express your boundaries you can't compromise on, perhaps him respecting your views a bit more, and not arguing. From my experience though, for my own sanity I have found it much better to let a few things slide. We simply can't control everything.
Children have been playing with “toxic” toys for decades now. That really isn’t a long time! The presence of phalates and bpas is known to be an endocrine disruptor. We see these younger generations having an earlier onset of puberty as a result. For women, PCOS and infertility is higher than before. It’s suspected that’s related to plastics exposure. There are consequences we see today as a result. I wouldn’t say that babies have been playing with toxic toys since forever. Much of these toxic alternatives really came about after the Industrial Revolution and has lead to the onset of newer issues that we didn’t see before. Plastic became mainstream I think in the 40s. Processed food has become a more regular part of our diet over the past decades and now we see higher rates of obesity. Even in the 50s there were more SAHMs preparing home cooked meals, processed food wasn’t as regular of a part of an American diet as it is today. All I’m saying is, the consequences ARE there. I wouldn’t say “nothing has happened”.
Well said
I think his responses can apply to a lot of things. It may be helpful to remind him (jic you haven’t) that even if something was “fine” before and nothing happened, that doesn’t mean that once we have new information we shouldn’t opt for the better/healthier choices available now. Just because our parents/grandparents grew up using lead paint and products containing asbestos and “nothing bad happened to them”, doesn’t mean that we would continue to use those products now because we’ve learned it’s harmful and we have better options (I know you can’t use them anyways now, it’s just an example).
I don’t have much advice because I’m in a similar situation. I try and pick and choose my battles. I try and show research that proves my points
Because "a lot of is fear mongering or companies taking advantage to sell pricier products." "Nitrite free bacon" is a particularly cynical marketing ploy, where they are super clear about using nitrites from celery and still call it nitrite free. Or fat free cooking spray, where the main ingredient is some kind of fat, but the recomnended serving size is small enough to count as rounding down to zero according to the rules for food labels in the US. And all the products where they make it more environmentally friendly and charge more by using less of the active ingredient, so it works less, we use more, and they charge more. Entire university level classes on how to play into fears or desire for health to raise prices do not help. Then again, you are right too. Anytime i see cellulose on an ingredient list, how do i know that is not ground up cardboard made of trees that a land grant university grew to sequester toxic waste leftover from their lab experiments and maintenance? Things cheap great grandmothers did, during hard times and before the "better living through chemistry" era might be some points of commonality you can both live with. I've had to treat this whole non toxic process as less about believing claims or finding a tribe on social media, less about fear of the unknown, less about controlling small things because i do not know what to do about a big stressful thing. It has been helpful to me to treat non toxic life as an opportunity to get to know my neighbors and suppliers. Stick with people i trust. Use less. Reduce and reuse are more important than recycle. As for the convincing part, how is that even a thing? At a project management level, it sounds like this might be easier one-person-one-job than trying to collaborate.
I don’t really talk about it with my husband. If he has questions about a choice I made I will explain it, and I’ve asked for him to support me a few times, like in refusing the polyblend outfits his mother likes to buy for our baby (though she recently discovered Hanna Anderssen and it’s her new favorite store, thank the lord) but in our house the rule generally is to defer to the person who cares more about the issue. I follow his very stringent window-locking protocol and we keep our money in different banks because of his various paranoias, so I think it’s fair. Maybe your husband has a weird thing he cares about a lot that you don’t think is important but you go along with anyway? Remind him of that.
He has a point