The Waning Days of My American Maternity Leave

The days of sweet maternity leave freedom are nearing their end and we at chez Tiny House are now faced with the not-so-pleasant conundrum of trying to figure out what we’ll be doing with the babe on a daily basis come mid-August. Ideally the plan would be I stay home with the Little Bean and we eke out a living on what James makes sewing canvas or, better yet, I stay home and we oomph up our canvas bucks with money made through farming! Or I stay at home and write books in the twenty minute spurts of baby-sleep and someone somehow pays me for that! Either of those ideals could go down (maybe not that last one) but most likely I’ll be back at the REI, slinging tents and teaching classes, for awhile yet. I’ve had such freedom since she was born that it will be quite the change to have to schedule every little thing out and coordinate with so many people in order to go through our daily lives. The millennial Catch-22, of course, is that childcare is too pricey (I might as well stay home) so it looks like Hubs and I get to have opposite schedules for awhile if we can swing it. Cue stress! I don’t wanna think about it yet BUT I HAVE TO.

How I'd rather be spending my day.

You know every other country aside from us and six teeny tiny developing nations in THE ENTIRE WORLD has some sort of mandatory maternity leave? Every other country. Even the ones run by dictators and the ones which don’t let women drive cars and the ones which are basically one giant refugee camp. It’s nuts. The United States is the richest country in the world and somehow this is such a non-issue that 1. People don’t even realize that we’re the odd man out and 2. People that hear the phrase “paid maternity leave” think it’s some undeserved handout. Why would investing in a good start for children be considered a handout? How can we wonder why there is such inequality in our country when the only people who can afford to stay home with their child after birth (fundamental in child development, states many a study) are those who can do so without fear of losing their job or not being able to pay rent? I am “lucky” my job gives me 6 weeks paid and 6 weeks unpaid leave, and I put that in mega, very exaggerated air quotes, because I had been told how “lucky” I am to have that at least three dozen times. By Americans. My European friends are like WTF, six weeks??? How are you supposed to bond with your baby? How can you miss those milestones? Are you even feeling well enough to go back to work? 

NYT don't lie

Oh yes, this is another thing I should add to the ignoramus count above: We are a country that has ZERO IDEA on a culture-wide level of what it means to be pregnant, give birth, and raise a baby. I am a brainy 33 years old and had to study up, take a six week class, and hire a doula because I was never taught about pregnancy or birth since it’s not in our culture to go through that kind of thing together. So since no one even knows how long it’s supposed to take to form a good breastfeeding relationship, to bond with your babe, or to heal after birth how are we supposed to expect the dudes making our laws to prioritize that? A flashback to my awesome birth story here—do you REMEMBER where they stuck that needle and where I had that tear?! How can someone be expected to go back to work within a couple weeks of that (and, in the case of many women, within days)? So yes, I am lucky because I had a not-too difficult birth, a few more weeks to heal, and a supportive hubby and family around to be ordered around by yours truly for two weeks after Beancake was born. But that’s not the norm.

And since my “luck” is quickly running out, we’re in go-time to figure out a way to get me back home with the babe. If we budget like crazy we could do it now—the $435 house payment doesn’t exactly break the bank each month, though my bi-weekly Central Market shopping sprees sure do, but most likely I’ll need to have some sort of home-based income. My years of farming would certainly come in handy here but naturally we need some land to get started (Seriously…Do you have an acre or two in Kitsap you want to see full of heirloom veggies and sweet little Stapletons? Let me know in the comments below and I’ll give you as much kale and tomatoes and gratitude as your little heart could desire). When my internet pleas for vacant pasture land fails, there’s always the possibility of building up the catering biz, or going to a farmers market to sell something value-added, like homemade pasta that we make with eggs from our chickens and roll out for custies right there at the booth. All this stuff I could do on my own time and still have my sassy little sidekick along for the ride.

 Future noodles?

I’ll keep you posted on our budget plans and what scheme comes out on top in the short term. For now I will be pinching the pennies, preserving food we’ve grown for when the Little Lady starts on solids in a few months, and put all dreams of traveling with her while she’s still free to fly on hold. Fingers crossed the joys outweigh the money stresses! 

Zero Waste (tiny) Home

SHHH! It's mid-morning here in the mini house and Stella's snoozing away, allowing me maybe a minute or ten to get an entry in for you. I managed to cook myself breakfast and wash the spit-up out of my hair (will she get to brush her teeth today? Crap shoot!). During our 5am breakfast sesh (hers, not mine) I realized I wanted to write about James' and my Zero Waste goals that we've been trying to implement since pre-babe. In fact, I schemed up what would probably be four or five different blog entries-- our motivations to go zero waste, my low waste shopping habits, our baby's impact on our goals, what a zero waste baby registry looks like, the impact on environmental toxins on my life, adopting a Euro attitude and efforts towards the environment and the babe, etc. etc.-- but let's be real, finishing this one in a single go is laughable so they're all going to get squashed together.

I have been an environmentalist for as long as I remember. But until the last few years most of my efforts were directly related to how easy they were to accomplish. Bring bags to the store but don't think twice to get plastic when it was a spur of the moment trip. Schlep around the Nalgene bottle but accept a bottle of water from someone's fridge to be polite. Recycle when someone is willing to come pick it up from the curb. Etc. Etc.

It was only in the last few years that I started to realize how much waste I was creating (and finally began to consider my plastic-laden "recyclables" as waste) and here I was going over and above what the majority of my peers were doing to lessen their impact on the planet. Living on the farm and getting in the habit of reusing everything possible and my time in Germany, seriously one of the world's foremost enviro-meccas, pushed me to put the effort in to go further.

Have you read the book Zero Waste Home? Turns out a lot of Bea Johnson's methods had become my new M.O. The basic philosophy is you can manage to live (in America) and make hardly any trash and this not only affects your impact on the planet but also your own well-being. With less need for consumption, you have less need for bucks and thus less need to work as much as we Americans do. Your space is tidier when you have less stuff and more aesthetic without the plastic crap cluttering every corner and that leads to a more sublime attitude towards home. And naturally you develop a pride (smugness? sometimes) at being able to live a life with less of a footprint. For Johnson, she has a waste hierarchy that I can get behind: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rot.

Now, with the babe here I have somewhat stumbled out of my laudable habits in order to ease my transition to motherhood/ I forgot the canvas bags while carrying the carseat full of crying baby, the diaper bag and my water bottle to the car, damnit! But now that I'm a month in to this new gig and obviously a pro (ha!), it's time to get back on my trash-reducing track. So here are some of the ways in which we aim to live as close to zero waste as possible pre-baby:

Refuse: Sometimes this one is easy, other times you have to really train yourself to say no, and still others refusal of stuff leads to awkward encounters, maybe even hurt feelings. What I've done in the "refuse" arena is saying no to vendor schwag that often comes my way at work, turning down papers I don't need, like cancelling my address on junk mail lists and writing down doctors’ appointments rather than having the receptionist write it out on a business card. Good to ask yourself questions: How many water bottles do I actually need? What on earth will I do with this sticker? Attempts have been made to limit the amount of stuff coming into our house from beloved others (definitely hard with a new baby, but also difficult around holidays) and for the most part this has been alright. If not, we just accept and then covertly take stuff to the thrift store! Of course, it's way easier to just refuse it outright and saves your friends and family bucks. Reassessing my own wants vs. needs means I have refused all sorts of stuff that would have just been bought because it was a good deal, or I felt like it at the spur of the moment. This saves money, space, and means the stuff I DO buy is well thought out and truly worthwhile to me.

Reduce: Well. We live in a 400 square foot house, so we've reduced quite a bit on that score! A tiny space means that if we don't want to live in a horders-esque world of piles, we better get rid of stuff. This is easier for me than my sentimental husband, but oh well :) I usually have an ongoing pile lying in wait to get dropped at the thrift store and feel no shame in tossing well-meaning gifts or old sentimental items. Last year I felt pretty heartened with the Konmari notion of surrounding yourself only with things that bring you joy and my life is much better for it. True, sometimes I wish that an item I unceremoniously sent to the thrifty was still in my life, but that feeling might hit once, maybe twice a year. For how much I get rid of, that's not too shabby! What's the other maxim? "If it's not Beautiful or Useful (to you, I would say!) then TOSS IT!

Reuse: Replacing all the single use items like plastic silverware, to-go cups, etc. is one of the easiest ways to start a move towards zero waste. A challenge for you: spend one week hyper aware of how many items you use that are single use and I’ll bet you’ll be shocked. To help us move away from that, we have a box in the car with two complete place settings (complete with cloth napkins from our wedding) to-go mugs, cups for soda, stainless steel straws, a half growler for beer, and to-go containers so we don’t have to get any from restaurants.  Simply having everything at the ready makes it so much easier to kick the plastic habit. At home we have a Soda Stream so my soda-addicted husband can get his fix and I use loose leaf tea to eliminate the (albeit compostable) tea bags. Shopping is a major exercise in "reuse" in this fam; in addition to the ubiquitous tote bags, I bring in my own jars and containers and hit up the bulk section at the grocery store. I rewrite the bin numbers on there over and over and can see how many plastic bags I've saved. So what if now I'm (affectionately, I assume) known as the "Jar Lady" at Central Market? Point of pride, peeps! Also, I'm a super bag washer when I do need plastic bags, such as when I freeze food. The mail that does make its way to our house then becomes scratch paper and old t-shirts that do have a super sweet memory attached to them (NFTY convention shirts, some college shirts, that great 'I <3 Horticulture tee') turn into cleaning rags rather than get sent away completely. There are all sorts of ways to repurpose stuff you have rather than toss it outright. See Pinterest and enjoy your trip down that crafty rabbit hole. Also, acquiring stuff from the thrift store or from a "Buy Nothing" online community is a great way to reuse while still feeling like you are getting something new.

Our "wedding china" has been transformed into part of our zero waste tool box.

Recycle: It costs us money, takes time to drive it to the dump (we don’t pay for pickup), uses a lot of energy, and isn't guaranteed. Recycling is pretty low on Johnson’s list of "R's" and I can see why. Plastic packaging is still plastic that is going to be around for the next 500+ years, even if it can go through the motions of getting carted off, cleaned, melted down, blasted with chemicals, and reformed into something else. So as much as possible, we try to reuse stuff before it winds up in the blue bin or refuse packaging all together.

Rot: Anything that can be is composted at chez lil' house. We have a nice heap that the chickens happily peck through next to the garden (disturbing when I know I put leftover chicken bits in there...) and we have a composting toilet. And you can compost SO MUCH: meat, dairy, eggshells but also non-foodstuffs like wooden popsicle sticks, cotton clothing shredded up, paper napkins… In fact, I would actually place "Rot" above "Recycle" if this was a Val-Made List, but I live on a farm where composting is easy rather than Johnson’s San Francisco.

There are other basic lifestyle things that make this stuff easier, too-- growing a lot of our own food, cooking rather than buying pre-packaged meals, having one car, having documents, books, movies, and music in a digital format, and, as mentioned, living in our small space. There are also TONS of stuff we do that can't be mentioned in one post-- but it is truly the accumulation of a lot of little efforts that make it so our trashcan barely fills up.

So Val pats herself on the back and dumps her recycling bin full of packaging for the hopefully the last time this month. The jars are in the car, even if they are buried under a BOB Stroller and the babe is dressed in the finest consignment onesie. Library book is at the ready and coffee that was happily brewed in the french press has long gone cold. True, pregnancy and parenthood lend themselves to both the need for new stuff and the convenience of plastic and packaging but OH WELL! Now that my new idea of normalcy is starting to set in, I'm determined to keep up my pre-baby zero waste habits. What do you do to limit waste in your life?