Cool Mum in a Climate Crisis

Ex-lawyer, ordinary mum, concerned activist, embracing the awkwardness of trying to live sustainably in a world that's not quite ready for it. Looking for a new normal. Check out the Cool Mum in a Climate Crisis blog

Dirty jeans and cold cauliflower; is my family becoming weird?

So you know that fossil fuels and palm oil are bad and reusable cups and wildflowers are good. You know you should fly less, drive less, shop less, eat more plants, plant more trees, lobby for more wind farms.

Great! That’s life sorted, right?

If only! If you’re anything like me, knowing what’s good and what’s bad is just the start. Working out how to incorporate that knowledge into daily life and still carry on as a fully-functioning adult, normal member of society and sane parent is the real challenge. In the space of a few years I’ve gone from full-on, full-time lawyer operating at the heart of a ‘business as usual’ system, to full-on, full-time mum and eco campaigner-warrior trying in my tiny way to bring the system down. (Well, they do say having children turns your life around.) For me it’s been the most natural, unexpected, challenging, exhilarating transition in the world. But wanting to change the system is one thing. Living in the system you’re trying to change is quite another. For all the information out there on what’s happening to our planet and all the advice on what we should and shouldn’t be doing, balancing environmental ideals with the daily practicalities of modern life can get pretty uncomfortable at times: practically, emotionally, morally, financially, socially.

Take me and my family, on an ordinary day, getting up and out of the house to school. It’s not a particularly relaxing time in any household, but throw climate and ecological breakdown into the mix and even seemingly harmless routine decisions start to get complicated.

To wash or not to wash

We know we need to save electricity and water, so for me that means showering less and wearing clothes a bit longer before putting them through the washing machine. Personally I’m fine with that; just because you can shower every day and wash clothes whenever you like, that doesn’t mean you should, and frankly what’s wrong with a bit of dirt if it means your children have access to drinking water when they’re older? The problem is that I’m not living in a hippy commune. I live in a respectable quarter of Pinterest-pinning Instagram-happy middle-class Britain where appearances still matter. It’s one thing to be a bit grubby and have less than perfect hair in your own home. It feels totally different once you’re out in company and everyone else still seems peachy clean.

The wardrobe

Issue no.2 is an extension of issue no.1. My wardrobe is, to put it mildly, fairly limited. I haven’t bought anything new for well over a year (apart from socks - don’t judge me!) and what I do wear has been worn a lot. Yes, I could refresh things by shopping second-hand, but when I do get a chance to rummage through charity shops I usually focus on getting stuff for my children, or gifts for other people’s children that don’t look so obviously second-hand that I’m ashamed to pass them over (but also just second-hand enough to make it clear that second-hand gifts are fine…). Going to any particular trouble to buy stuff for me isn’t a priority at the moment, what with the climate emergency and all that. But once again, what feels OK behind closed doors feels less good when you’re mingling in the real world with normal people who – wait for it – still buy things. We all know about mums who ‘let themselves go’. I fear there’s a fine line between mums who are trying to save water and have stopped buying new clothes, and mums who just look like they’ve given up.

The packed lunch

One downside of trying to avoid supermarkets and relying on a weekly fruit and veg box is that invariably you run out before the end of the week and mealtimes start to get a bit strange. Steamed cauliflower and broccoli may be very nutritious and they’ll get you a couple of your 5-a-day, but does anyone really want them cold for lunch alongside a sandwich (of slightly dry, homemade bread and slightly bland, homemade hummus) and a mushy banana, especially when surrounded by the more interesting offerings in other children’s lunchboxes? What’s the priority: giving kids food that’s nutritious with long-term environmental benefits, or making them feel happy and loved for half an hour at lunchtime? Who knows, but I do know that even I feel a bit sad and sorry some days as I zip up the (second-hand) lunchbox and put it by the front door.

The kids’ gym kit

‘Business as usual’ generally requires small people to have regulation kit which they will grow out of within a few months while the man-made fibres last, like, FOREVER. So far we’ve made a stand in this household and have resisted buying it, but seeing your child as the only one in the class without the right gear is heartbreaking, and once again there’s a fine balance between the mental damage to the child of not fitting in compared to the environmental damage of just going with the system. Weird lunches, weird clothes, weird gym outfits. You have to wonder, at what point does my family actually just become weird?

The journey to school

As a family we walk, religiously, every day. It may sound nice in theory, but in practice it means battling small people, buggies and scooters up and down hills, day in day out, with all the fatigue, mood swings and behavioural issues that such an event entails. Throw in endless rain, the mucky litter we always end up collecting, SUVs, air pollution and unreliable bladders (not just the children) and it all starts to take its toll. Would I sometimes like to drive? Yes. Do we schlep through the rain and fumes for pleasure? Not exactly, though I’m not saying there aren’t ever lovely moments. The reality is that most mornings I arrive at school feeling totally harassed and dishevelled, inwardly ranting about carbon emissions and particulate matter, wanting to hide in a cave and feeling totally ill-prepared for jolly small talk with other parents, especially the clean, dry and better-groomed ones.

And so here we are, it’s 9am and I already feel weighed down by a mountain of clunky decision-making which then just continues in the same vein throughout the day. Everything these days requires a balancing of priorities, nothing just seems to happen anymore. Every choice – whether about parenting, relationships, how the children spend their time, how I spend my time, how we spend money, how I do or don’t talk to people, whether we do or don’t decorate our house, whether I do or don’t take a new job, how we spend time in the evenings – is made either because of the state of the planet (not always easy), or despite the state of the planet (also not easy). It’s relentless.

Is this a normal way to live in 2020? I have no idea. Am I a bad mum for neglecting short-term needs or a good mum for focusing on long-term interests? Probably a bit of both. Am I overthinking it all? Possibly. What I do know is that it’s all such hard work! Raising children is hard. Endlessly thinking about the world’s problems is hard. Doing them both at the same time and still trying to fit in and feel normal is doubly hard.

I realise that for many people what I’m experiencing now is nothing new. Millions of people across the world have pioneered sustainable lifestyles for decades and they’ve all had to wait for people like me to catch up just like I’m now waiting for other people to catch up. Everyone’s on different journeys and nobody changes overnight. But we keep hearing that sustainable communities will be happy communities. I’m so looking forward to the day when everyone’s caught up, when ‘business as usual’ stops being so usual. We will all be open and supportive of everyone trying their best, secure in the knowledge that everyone else has also got dirt on their jeans and cold cauliflower in their lunchbox. Happy times!

Making sense of motherhood