One of "those people"

Many times in my life I have been labeled as one of "those people", especially now that I Homeschool. My children have allergies, so I am "that mom" who has to read every label of every food anywhere near my kids. I have to explain to people why we Homeschool (a whole different post). And at least once a week, I have to explain "about the food". The other day I was waiting for the doctor and passed the time reading a book. When the doctor came in, she asked me if I was reading anything good. I showed her the cover of the book (Food, Inc. How Industrial Food is Making us Sicker, Fatter, and Poorer-And What You Can Do About It. Edited by Karl Weber) so she could judge for herself. She then looked at me with a raised eyebrow and what I call the “so you are one of those people” looks. 

Friends, I am proud to say, I am one of those people. I care about what I eat. It matters to me the true cost of what I put in my body. I am an informed consumer. I am one of “those people” who will not feed my children fast food. I am one of “those people” who buys produce at the farmer’s market and quizzes the farmer about pesticide, migrant labor, and fertilizer. I am one of “those people” who picks and chooses which vaccinations to give my children. I am guilty as charged.

Now, please don’t get the wrong idea. I am not touting myself as a pillar of health. I admit I do not run several miles each day or that I abstain from mac and cheese. I do try and make the best choice possible. I buy organic, whole wheat mac and cheese (or make it myself) and use organic milk and butter (local if it’s not loaded with pesticide) and it tastes fine. Was this an easy change over? Sometimes yes. I found a few brands of organic mac and cheese that I like and stick with it. Conversely, I had to try at least 50 different kinds of wheat bread and force myself to eat it for a year before I would willingly make a sandwich with it. That one was more painful. I do miss squishy white bread. But when I think of the true cost of cheap bread, it’s easier to make the choice. Not only am I making a positive choice for my health but for the planet and the people.

When my husband and I began this quest for better food and informed buying, we thought that just buying organic was enough. After a few visits to the “Whole Paycheck” we decided we had to find other options. It has been a journey filled with wonderful surprises and some disappointments. When I talk to people about becoming and informed consumer, most often I get the following comments:

·        It’s too expensive

·        I don’t want to know what’s in my food

·        They are animals, who cares

·        What are you, some kind of conspiracy nut?

I admit, getting to this place took time and effort. I read many books and asked many questions. I spent a lot of time reading labels in the stores. Now, I have it streamlined, but it’s still not a quick trip to the grocery store. I’m ok with that. When I look at my children and know that their immune system hasn’t been compromised by pesticide, I can live with a little more time at the store. According to the FDA, half of the produce tested in grocery stores contains measurable amounts of pesticide. Lab tests of baby food show the presence of sixteen pesticides including carcinogens. Looking at blood samples from children aged two to four, concentrations of pesticides are six times higher in children eating conventional foods vs. organic foods. Pesticides are found in blood samples of ninety five percent of Americans tested. These levels are twice as high in children. Exposure to pesticides can lead to hyperactivity, learning disorders, and cancer. Have we seen an alarming rise in these areas? You bet. The EPA reports that children receive fifty percent of their lifetime cancer risks in the first two years of life. That’s a figure that should keep us up at night. I don’t care if it costs more initially, what will it cost my children in the long run, much less myself?

That’s the real question we should be asking ourselves when we shop. What is the real cost? Like everyone else, I live on a budget. I go where the bargains are for organic produce (all within short distances) and buy meat from a local farmer I have interrogated. If it’s out of season and comes from another country, I don’t buy it. I also try and buy the majority of my food from local sources and/or Michigan owned businesses. The good news is that many more stores are adding to their organic lines. The bad news is, you still have to be vigilant. After all, greed is greed. A little research will tell you that the USDA is more focused on good PR than stringent organic standards. If it says “USDA Certified Organic” I look for a second certifying agency on the back or I pick something else. 

Same goes for vaccinations for my children. Do they need five vaccinations at a time? Do they need all of them? I am not going to be bullied or cowed into doing what “they” say I should. How many times have we seen medications touted on TV and then recalled because they are unsafe? I research everything before making a decision. I am an informed consumer. Again, what is the real cost? Brand A milk might be cheaper now, but what will the pesticide and hormones do to me or my family in the long run?  It’s not conspiracy, it’s common sense. Which brings me to the point: be an informed consumer and use common sense. Most people know that when a woman is pregnant or nursing she cannot drink alcohol because it passes through her bloodstream to her child. Yet the majority of Americans willingly drink milk from cows that have been shot up with hormones, fed antibiotics, and given feed loaded with pesticide. Can you honestly say that those residues don’t end up in the milk? How about the meat? (Yes, you eat dairy cows. Not one to waste anything, commercial dairies sell used up cows for cheap hamburger. Yummy) If you aren’t willing to drink it from the bottle (i.e. pesticide) why will you drink it in milk? Same for your pasta or your veggies. Do you really think that the pesticide just sits on top of the plant? Better yet how much of it is washed off before it is sold? Pesticide is not supposed to wash off in the rain, so my bet is not a lot of it is removed during the rinse cycle. And don’t get me started on genetically modified foods. That’s a whole ‘nother blog.

The next time you are in the fast food line, consider the following:

Beef: that cheap hamburger came from a commercial feedlot where your friendly cow was packed into pens and fed a diet of corn, antibiotics, and other good stuff like chicken manure, feathers, concrete dust, and garbage. Why corn and not grass as cows have been designed for? Corn packs on the fat and after all, “marbling” is key. This leads us to antibiotics. Cows weren’t made to eat corn, so they get ulcers and stomach infections. The antibiotics keep the cow from dying but it is still in massive pain all while crammed in the feedlot. The antibiotics are passed on to the consumer. Cows aren’t allowed to be fed certain cow parts like spinal cords, because this can lead to mad cow. But, chickens can be fed these parts, and then the chicken manure is scraped up and fed to cows. Finally, this cow was forced to stand in their own waste, (which gets on their hide and in the meat during slaughter) and runs off into waterways and poisons local animals. The slaughterhouse is no picnic either, but you get the idea.

Chicken: that nugget has approximately thirty six ingredients, one of which is butane. Yes, like what’s in your Zippo. Chicken life is much like the cow, except they get so heavy their legs break under their weight.  And the grind up The. Whole. Chicken. The nugget sauces? See High Fructose Corn Syrup below.

Salads and veggies: not to be left out, those veggies (especially lettuce) need to be harvested by hand. This requires a huge labor force of…illegal immigrants. The migrant workers are paid slave wages and forced to work without shade, water, or breaks to harvest by hand. They are exposed to massive amounts of pesticide (again, going on your food) that leads them to high rates of cancer. They don’t have insurance or legal status, so they don’t get medical treatment when they collapse out of heat stroke or pesticide related illness. Ask yourself: do I not care about the human cost because I didn’t know or do I not care because people who aren’t citizens don’t count.

Ice Cream/Shakes: dairy cows have to mature in order to be able to be pregnant and thus give milk. Not wanting to wait, the dairy industry loads them up with hormones and keeps them pregnant. Putting aside that these cows are never able to nurse their young, these hormones make the cows mature faster and gain weight. Then you and your children drink the milk. Wonder why our girls are developing earlier and our nation is getting fatter? The cheeseburgers don’t help, nor does our lack of exercise. I’m sure we don’t need any more help from the hormones. Finally, sugar is expensive and high fructose corn syrup is not. HFCS spikes your insulin levels much more than sugar and is just bad for you. Also, HFCS is in existence because we had way too many farmers growing corn (see beef above) so we had to find something to do with the excess.

After you have considered the true cost of that value meal, what are you going to do? What choice will you make? As an informed consumer, only you can decide. My role is not to judge, but to get you to think about what you buy and it’s true cost. For me, the cost is too great and I pull out of line.  Am I perfect? No. Am I sometimes in the position to eat commercial food? Yes. But I make as many “true cost” decisions as I can. I am “One of those people.”

The Homeschool Home Part 1

Part of the homeschool life is running your home. I am a SAHM and my husband can work anywhere from 10 - 12 hours in a shift. His schedule can change from week to week, so we have to be flexible. I need to be able to maximize the time the kids can spend with Dad and also get everything done. Thankfully, my teaching experience and OCD are a big help here. Right now I don't have a set "homeschool" time, though I can see this evolving once everyone stops taking naps. We fit in homeschool lessons at small intervals throughout the day. That way we can be flexible around appointments and routines. Both my children have food/environment allergies so we have several doctor's appointments. My son also has a skin condition that requires wet therapy and wraps twice a day. We live a fairly chemical free lifestyle, so we make/grow a lot of our own food as well. To work around this, and other activities, I just block out 30 minutes of time, multiple times a day, to work on "lessons". I also try and work lessons in while we are grocery shopping or traveling.
So, to begin, I have found that putting the kids in the shower/bath right when they get up is a great way to keep us on schedule. Otherwise we end up in pjs at 11am. I keep breakfast pretty routine as well, so we can stay on track. Breakfast usually consists of a whole grain, a protein, and a fruit. Usually a cereal bar, some raw milk cheese, and a banana. I have noticed that since I have been feeding everyone the same breakfast (minus the occasional pancake) there is less arguing, less time I have to spend polling everyone on what they want, and less time spent playing at the table. This also helps offset the time needed to get everyone dressed, since we have to do wet therapy first. I don't have a dishwasher, so I decided that we will use paper plates for breakfast and lunch. This was a hard decision since I hate to add to the landfill, but I also weighed in my time and the water needed to wash all the dishes. I multi-task during breakfast as well so I can move on to other things when the kids are finished. I eat while they are in the shower and then finish up any leftover dishes from the night before (I have limited counter space so sometime it takes a few cycles to get them all done) and quick clean the counters and bathroom. If I'm making good time, I'll start a load of laundry too. And we are off and running.
If we don't have appointments in the morning, we can do a 30 minute block (sometimes 2) of homeschool and then go outside for playtime before lunch. I am pretty fastidious about the kids getting outside/strenuous play at least once if not twice a day for 45 minutes. This is our PE time. Dad usually goes out with the kids while I make lunch. During the winter we do yoga tapes I get from the library or kid's music and movement activities if we can't go out. There is a park at the end of my street so we will walk there to keep everyone interested. Finally, we have memberships at several area museums, zoos, etc. so that we can get out and walk or have an indoor place to run around during the winter. We are a one car family, so we walk in town whenever we can.
Lunch is usually leftovers that follow the protein, whole grain, fruit and vegetable formula. Naptime is next. Everyone naps/rests because this is my time to either rest, or catch up on planning, laundry, or making food. My husband goes to work during nap, and so this is a nice bit of time to myself. When the kids get up we have a quick snack and then move into another 30 minute block or we go outside, depending on what we accomplished in the a.m. Once or twice a week we have "specials" at our community center or in the form of lessons in the afternoon (art, soccer, piano, etc.) I will be so happy when we finish the basement in the next month so we can put all the toys downstairs and have room for a piano. While I am putting together dinner I usually let the kids watch an educational video (we don't have TV) such as Magic School bus or a Veggie Tales DVD. After dinner (on plates!) that again follow the protein, whole grain, veggie and fruit formula, we will either talk a walk as a family (kids like to razor scooter as well) or we will go sit on the front porch while the kids play in the front yard. During the summer, we let the kids play in the sprinklers if it has been super hot that day and we didn't go out much. The kids will shower, deal with wet therapy, get pjs on, review behavior sheets, etc. and we will read the Bible and a story. My oldest child used to stay up a bit later so that we could work on handwriting and some extra practice items, but now everyone goes to bed at the same time. I am trying to find another time period for this one-on-one time, maybe when the nap is gone. Once everyone is in bed I use this time to read scripture, mend clothes, or work on the internet.
So this is the basic schedule, and I foresee that it will evolve as everyone gets older, but we also have to contend with my husband's schedule so I like the flexibility. Another reason we chose to homeschool is that with one car and my husband's sometimes erratic schedule, working outside the home was a major scheduling nightmare. Part 2 will deal with the behind the scenes organization and food prep that makes it all easier!

Homeschool Curriculum, yes or no?

I have already written about why we chose to homeschool in a previous blog, but the next question I am inevitably asked is "what curriculum do you use??". It is always asked in a rushed and almost illicit fashion, as if it is a trade secret. For me, since my husband and I are former teachers, I don't use a specific curriculum. One of my beefs with our current education system is that we are married to "the curriculum". I go to our state's education website and look at the state standards for the grade levels I am teaching. I transfer these standards into an empty document so I can cut and paste them as I need to for the year. I begin with the science and social studies standards and work backwards. For example, if the social studies standard is "can differentiate between city and rural areas, identify what belongs in a city vs. what belongs in the country, lifestyles, etc." I would then devise a unit around that topic. Even better, try and fold in a few science ones while I'm at it. I teach smarter not harder.
Formal curriculums are too much work. You end up teaching so many lessons for too few standards. I want more bang for my buck. So, using the above example I devised a unit about New York. I picked New York because it has well known and defined city and rural areas. We learned about New York city, tall buildings, taxi and subway rides, high rises and central park. We ate NY style pizza, gelato and most importantly, wrote travel journals about it all. When you start with science and social studies, writing and language soon follow. We read books by NY authors and looked up statistics on the Internet. We met with friends who used to live in upstate NY on a horse farm, and wrote letters back and forth to "city" and "country" cousins describing what we found there. Using subway maps we calculated trip routes and made budgets for excursions. Covered a whole lotta standards there. There were history lessons, science lessons and more. We got the whole picture, instead of just a few facts. And most of all...it was fun. For everyone.
We homeschool year round, because our adult lives are lived working year round. We take time off here and there like you would for vacation as an adult. I love that I can take the extra time to indulge my children's passions and use them to educate. My son loved the movie CARS and collected all the characters. I used these cars and his obsession to teach colors, sorting, counting, addition, subtraction, reading...all while we played. What a blessing for everyone. No math worksheets, no need to circle the group with the most teddy bears. For now, we enjoy a less formal curriculum model. One thing I learned as a teacher: be flexible. Students change from year to year so maybe in a few years we will have to revisit the model. But it works for us and thankfully I don't have to get it by the school board!

Homeschool 101

I am often asked why I homeschool (followed promptly by "what curriculum do you use??") and I have to say it was for a variety of reasons. My husband and I were both formerly teachers and we both left education because it became a political monster that lost it's purpose long ago. I have taught in public schools and private ones, urban settings and affluent. I have been a teacher and an administrator. My last year as a classroom teacher I taught 1st grade with 35 children. Now folks, I am an excellent teacher. And even I can't give 35 students the one on one time they need each day to be successful. I can't meet their emotional needs, nor can I hope to impart creative and exciting lessons with 35 students in my class. My job was no longer to teach but to referee. Crowd control was king. Students who needed a little more time on a concept or needed extra challenges got lost in the machine that is high stakes testing and reading readiness. No longer allowed to explore topics the students found interesting, we must stick to the textbook. Sad. Add to that the exposure these young minds were getting to x-rated movies, obscene music, and materialism gone crazy at home. My co-workers and I worked early mornings and late nights to make it all work, and our reward was too often being screamed at by a parent who didn't want to come to the parent conferences and doesn't understand why their child is failing. Or, we were given "committee work" by the administration to do at home, on weekends, over the summer. This work was what used to be done by the staff that was cut due to budget constraints. The final nail in the coffin as it were was learning my children have severe food allergies. In every school/district I have taught in, Epi pens had to be kept by the school nurse (or secretary as is often the case) as they are considered "medication". In an emergency, someone would have to track this person down, get the key, get the pen, get it back in under 15 seconds. Not realistic. So my husband and I made some drastic changes and I stay home with them now. Wouldn't have it any other way. The sacrifice is completely worth it.It is such a blessing to be able to do this for my children.I am so grateful to God every day. It isn't always easy, but it's always worth it.

Why Blog??

I figure everyone else is doing it, so why shouldn't I, right? I have something to say, to share, to add..probably. I have many "labels"..retired teacher, mother of two, christian, urban farmer, just to name a few. I moved to the midwest from the south seven years ago, and thus began my journey. I am a stay at home mom (SAHM) that homeschools my two children who have severe food allergies. After being in education for 15 years, I couldn't in good conscience send my kids to school. I know too much. My husband and I currently live in an urban neighborhood close to his work. I like the people, and the fact that I can walk to most everything. We plan on moving to a farm someday. Meanwhile, we'll just make our backyard look like a small Green Acres. I homeschool year-round, as life is year-round, and I don't use a set curriculum. That's about it in a nutshell. So, I plan to write about what I know and want to know: homeschool, urban farming, food allergies, and the quest for good BBQ.