Eco Child’s Play

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I’ve always dreamed of being a surfer. I’ve tried to ride the waves, but I don’t like saltwater in my eyes. I’ve even tried dating a surfer. When I heard of the movie Surfwise about the infamous Poskowitz family, I was excited to watch it and thought it might be fun to view with my daughter, until I noticed the R-rating. I wanted her perspective on what it would be like to not go to school and live in a camper, but there’s a lot of talk about sex in the movie.

Surfwise is the story of legendary surfer Dr. Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz, his wife Juliette, and their nine children. Doc is a Stanford educated doctor who left his successful medical practice to chase the waves, towing along his 9 children (8 boys, 1 girl) in a 24 foot camper. The children slept like “puppies”, were raised on a strict natural diet of seven grain cereal, and surfed almost every day. As one of the children described, their life was like being on vacation all the time. Most children’s parents felt it was dangerous to swim with sharks and safer to go to school, but Doc felt the opposite about education. He felt that school was dangerous, and the sharks safe.

It all sounds rather idyllic, other than the crowded camper; however, Doc is a dictator jerk. He insisted on having sex every night in the camper with his children present, he beat his son for not surfing, and he demanded his wife breastfeed each child until they were two years old. I agree with long term breastfeeding, but instead of supporting his wife’s decision, Doc insisted this was how his children would be raised if that was how primates did it. There are some redeeming qualities about Doc, such as going to towns that hadn’t had a doctor in years for a job when money was needed and starting a surf school, but he left his children unprepared for the world and resentful of his domination. Read the rest of this entry »

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I suppose the average person would think me a bit odd. Or even extreme, as a parent. You see, I don’t allow T.V. during the week. On weekends, we might, just might watch a DVD if the weather is lousy, or we’ve had an exhausting weekend not spent watching T.V. the rest of the time.

I also try to choose DVDs that are old enough that the frenzy of licensed products has abated enough to be able to get through a visit to the store without a hundred repetitions of “No, we don’t need that.” Or, “Sure, it’s a character you know. But the cereal is crap. We can get a coloring book instead.” It’s enough to make you hate television. It really is.
If you haven’t paid much attention to the marketing onslaught aimed at your kids, well, The Kaiser Family Foundation report, “Food for Thought: Television Food Advertising to Children in the United States,” has some pretty frightening statistics that might change your mind. Read the rest of this entry »

In case you didn’t see it, Eco Child’s Play was featured in this weekend’s New York Times. In a piece called “Blogging Against Barbie“, Dan Mitchell wrote:

When greenwashing is aimed at adults, environmentalists generally find it annoying and sometimes — if it is sufficiently transparent — amusing. But when children are the targets, the environmentalists find it infuriating. So when Mattel recently issued a news release promoting its new line of Barbie BCause accessories for the doll — hats, handbags and the like — it was too much for the blogger on Eco Child’s Play, Jennifer Lance.

The piece that caught the NY Times’ attention is
The Ultimate Greenwashing: Barbie Goes Green.

Code Pink would like you to reclaim Mother’s day with ways to donate to suffering mothers and their children in Iraq.

Code Pink shares the mothers day inventor from 1870~Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation Arise then…women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts..

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I am a harsh critic of children’s music. I don’t like most of the crap that is out there, and I don’t understand why children should be subjected to poor musical compositions just because they are children.  Based on my strong musical opinions, it was with hesitancy that I listened to Hayes Greenfield’s Music for a Green Planet. I was pleasantly surprised by the jazzy melodies and amused by the lyrics of this cd, although I have to admit, I am a sucker for the upright bass.

Music for a Green Planet takes many traditional children’s songs, as well as other popular classics, and changes the lyrics to reflect a green message. I have probably listened to this cd a dozen times in one day, as my children absolutely adore it, and I do too.  The first track is a version of  “She’ll be Comin’ Round the Mountain” only she’s driving a hybrid and using biodiesel.

We’ll be driving biodiesel when she comes
We’ll be getting cleaner mileage when she comes
We’ll be a part of the solution
Cause we’re making less pollution
We’ll be driving biodiesel when she comes

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How do you get your kids to care more about and take action on improving the environment, when the world they’re focused on is on their iPod, their Wii, their phone, and online? If you’re SustainLane, you meet them where they are, and create a web based animation series and also show it on TV, on Earth Day Television.

Gorilla  in the Greenhouse, an episodic show premiering today, doesn’t preach at kids, but instead engages them on their terms and empowers them to take action. Animated by the people behind such web classics as The Meatrix, it features four smart kids and a wise green gorilla, facing the big green challenges of our day, with inventiveness, action, and most importantly, a rockin’ song.

Not many people could pull off making a catchy tune about a garbage island in the Pacific Ocean, but in the first episode, “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” they show otherwise. With people such as Ralph Guggenheim, one of Pixar’s founders producing, this moves beyond merely being entertainment to being a bridge to further conversation with your children about things happening in the real world, and what can be done about them.

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Well, the video is a little hokey, and the band a little odd, but this is one of my preschool students’ favorite songs.  We sing it a lot! The Banana Slug String Band’s songs are filled with messages of conservation and connectedness to nature, like “Dirt Made My Lunch”. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve done my best to keep the Disney Princess invasion at bay. We have none of the movies or, uh, “books” which are just ads for the movies, and none of the merchandise or apparel or personal care items that feature the Royal Threat. Except. We do have one Disney Princess ball. No, not the kind with music and party dresses. The kind you can kick.

It was an Easter egg hunt prize, and as hard as I try to “lose” it, it keeps getting found. Lately, my preschooler has taken to asking me what each princess is named.
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Joan Ganz Cooney was one of the founders of Sesame Street some forty years ago. Today, the center named after her, continues her important legacy by calling for a revitalization of The Children’s Television Act, which was put in place in 1990. Their findings were published in a report, “D is for Digital.”

The report strongly recommends an increase in protection of children from commercialism, and that so much has changed since the first act was put in place, it necessitates new provisions for television and online content. Read the rest of this entry »