Book Review: Eco-Friendly Families by Helen Coronato

The rapid rise in popularity of eco-chic trends has resulted in an algal bloom of handbooks for consumers on how to "go green."

Couple this with the hip mothering set that seeks to baby-wear, breast-feed and otherwise develop an optimum beginning for their kids, and naturally, you wouldn't be surprised to see Helen Coronato's Eco-Friendly Families, (Penguin 2008), available for publication August 5th.

I admit I feared the book might have nothing more to offer than the basic green prescriptions found in banal women's magazines ("Ride your beach cruisers together to the farmer's market!"  "Pack lunches in tupperwear!")

But this book is packed with good ideas, many of which I found myself jotting down to do for myself. 

For example:  How can I remember to bring reuseable bags to the grocery store?

Assign a kid to carry them, Coronato suggests, creating a habit that a 6-year-old can handle, a simple task that a child can remember when a frazzled parent might not.  Or simply start every grocery list with the reminder "Remember bags!"

Yeah, yeah, the cynical mom might think.  My kid doesn't care about anything unless it's a plastic-wrapped Happy Meal toy.  How am I supposed to interest my 10 year old in taking care of the planet?

Take away toys or belongings that don't get played with, Coronato suggests.  Put them away in a clear-plastic storage tote, where they can see what they are missing.  Teach them a basic environmental premise:  "When you don't take care of your things, you lose them."

There's also a great discussion on packaging, and ways families can reduce their consumption of one-use packaging, as well as a primer on recycling - a practice that gets a lot of lip service, but not a lot of follow-through.  As I am constantly challenged by Micheal Pollan  and always seek  to "vote with my fork", I also appreciated the section on food choices and the rationale for eating locally and organically. 

Even if you've got the enviro-speak down, this book is a nice source for kid-friendly activities that are also planet-conscious.  Coronato has a wide array of things to do with kids to teach them about gardening or reusing materials, broken down by season and by age-group.   She also goes through an entire house, room-by-room, with suggestions for making green changes, from everything to decorating to appliance selections.  The green homeschooling set will want to have this book on hand and it would also make a nice gift for the earthy mother-to-be. 

A few quibbles, of course. 

One is the mention of Arbonne International, a direct-selling natural beauty products company, including a website for a specific vendor, leaves me cold, especially after reading Fuss Bucket editor Stacey Schultz's recent cover story in Brain, Child magazine about the sketchy practices of companies like Arbonne.  Such an intimate product pitch seemed out-of-place for a book.

Another worrisome part about the eco-trend is that it is clearly marketed toward a middle-class demographic, and Eco-Friendly Families reflects this.  While one might argue that the work of entities like Majora Carter's Sustainable South Bronx organization break the socioeconomic stereotype of what the environmental movement is, Coronato's book is definitely a resource that moms with time and money to spare will seek out.  Discussions of allowances, "greening" projects that include lawn, garden and garage, and exhortations to "live simpler" by donating excess possessions to thrift stores or charity overtly remind us what population is being targeted here.  Considering making home-made cleaners, while a great idea, does assume a luxury of time and a level of privilege that many families do not enjoy.  And while targeting the bloated suburban ideal - a model within which I currently live - is certainly the best place to start, I think that if the eco-trend hopes to flourish, it will find ways to make itself matter to all socioeconomic populations. 

The final issue I had about the book is that while packed with great activities and recipes and lists of organizations and websites and projects that are wonderful sources for families wishing to go green, the text lacked a bit of oomph.  The green movement does suffer from being preachy, and the tone of Coronato's writing feels a bit too wholesome, leaving me to fret that going green will turn us all into Ned Flanders. While I'm not averse to planting seeds and making homemade gifts, the cumulative effect of all these well-meaning projects gave me a bit of a curmudgeonly allergic reaction.  Here is where I would have appreciated a more personal touch from the author, not necessarily a warts-and-all view, but perhaps a few personal anecdotes on the struggle to go green.  For example:  How do you deal with having a kid with a Big Mac attack?  How do you explain to your toddler that throwing litter out of a car window is terrible idea?  How does it feel to try to implement these changes and have your teenaged, brand-obsessed daughter glare at you?  What do you do when your efforts back-fire? 

This last concern is quite minor, because, as I've stated before, being one of the hip, "Lazy Environmentalists" which is largely nothing more than a vapid marketing shill, is much worse.  Eco-Friendly Families has nothing of that glib, too-cool-for-school tone.  Instead, Eco-Friendly Families is a solution-packed book that seeks to roll up its sleeves and inspire the modern middle class to change their wasteful ways.  

Helen Coronato is the kind of environmentalist unafraid of the hard work that real change demands - namely, the kind our planet's predicament sorely needs.