Is anyone here “crunchy”? I hate that term because most of what applies to me, I consider traditional parenting like baby wearing, feeding your child organic, etc.
[name_m]How[/name_m] do you define a crunchy parent?
There were years where we didn’t have/watch TV. Does that count? I do like to babywear.
One of my kids had [name_m]McDonald[/name_m]'s for lunch today and I only buy organic apples occasionally, so I’m not super crunchy, but I am from Southeast MI ([name_m]Detroit[/name_m] area) originally. Met my husband at MSU on the swim team. Nice to see a fellow Michigander here.
[name_m]How[/name_m] is the weather so far this season? Have you had much snow?
I’m in the lower mainland in BC so being ‘granola’ is totally the Thing to Do.
Me, I like my life to have a little balance and I find I tired of the Crunchy Stuff pretty quickly.
I limit my kids processed food intake to a point but I dont ban freezer aisle stuff or whatever… if daddy makes perogies for dinner then whatever. We eat a lot of fresh produce, often from farm markets but I don’t bother buying specifically organic most of the time. If they are being good and we’re out and about we’ll often get a treat of some kind - sometimes it’s something relatively healthy like sushi, other times it’s ice cream cones. I liked baby wearing when my girls were small but wasn’t ever obsessive about it, I let the kids watch TV when I need a break (they watch a show or two most days but not always), we get lots of hand-me-downs from friends but when we need to shop I buy mostly thrift store clothes and try to avoid overconsuming but if they need tights because they put holes in the toes of every single pair I’m perfectly fine with going to Old Navy or something. We dont worry about whether the fabric is organic cotton or natural wool or whatever, just buy what fits the bill and looks decent. We go play outside regularly. We go to community drop-in programs and to the library semi-frequently. I dont buy toys for them (books, yes, and art/craft stuff, and sometimes music makers or building stuff like Legos) but if their grandparents or whoever give them Elsa dolls and plastic junk I don’t really mind. I extend-breastfed both kids (Azula til she turned 2 or so, and Indira is pretty much weaned now except for if she is feeling sick and needs some mama time) but I also give them bottles/sippy cups. Indira takes dairy formula every night & at naptime, Azula takes almond milk. My kids are vaccinated but some of their shots are delayed. We cloth daipered Azula for a bit but once she grew out of them we switched back to disposables and didn’t even bother trying cloth with Indira. As if I needed more laundry, amirite? I try to use natural remedies when they get sick (honey instead of cough syrup, coconut oil for daiper rash, essential oil mixes for respiratory stuff) but if they get a fever we break out the Advil.
I went through a phase when we only had one child when I would make my own baby food from scratch and pumped and saved breastmilk, and babywore and cloth daipered and was vehemently against formula and made sure Azula never watched TV or ate sugar… I was also preserving my own jams and jellies and making pickles and bread from scratch and growing my own produce - I probably would define that period in time as ‘crunchy’ - and then we had our second daughter and I was working opposite shifts from the hubby and things were busy most of all that just wasn’t worth the extra effort.
I don’t know if I’d consider myself Crunchy, but I try to do some unconventional things if I think they are what’s best for my kids. I have friends that are WAAY bigger hippy parents than I am… that dont have TVs and only buy organic baby clothes and feed their kids unprocessed raw vegan stuff and who don’t dicipline their kids or say ‘no’ because some book they read said that’s bad for their psyche (which is totally fine I guess, if that works for their kids but there’s no way it’d ever work for mine)… and I have other friends that are absolutely not like that at all (like all their picky kid eats is white bread and chicken nuggets and freeze dried variations fruits and veggies, and they watch TV and have a zillion blinking light sound making name brand plastic toys and every possible baby gadget) and I think regardless of what parenting style they choose everyone is pretty much doing the best parent they can.
I think we all make sacrifices trying to balance the pressures of being a good parent while managing financial/time restrictions and we also need to prioritize and sometimes cut corners in order to maintain some sense of sanity as individuals as well.
Yeah, that’s how I am. I guess some of the stuff I do is considered crunchy but I just consider it doing whats best for my child. I baby wear but she’s adopted so it makes the most sense to me because has helped us bond. I am going to try and stick with the whole making my own baby food but that comes from my desire to make all of my meals from scratch, too.
I don’t think anyone who is “crunchy” has to fit into one box because not everything suits everybody. 
I don’t think “crunchy” parents have to fit in this perfect box, even if that means you let your child watch TV. To some people, I am probably considered crunchy but I don’t think I am. I just do what I think is best for my child, whether that’s babywearing and cloth diapering or not.
My cousin is a freshman at MSU. The weather has been pretty nice. We had snow one weekend but it hasn’t snowed since. I think it’s about 50-60 there right now… I don’t know but that’s what people tell me. I’m in Eastern Europe right now adopting my daughter.
Congratulations on adopting your daughter!
I think it’s all relative- I know my sister thinks we are very “crunchy.” But we pale in comparison to a lot of our friends. We formula fed our first son (also adopted) but did cloth diapers, lots of baby wearing and also baby led weaning (where you just give the baby whatever you are eating, no purees) we didn’t let our son watch TV till after age 2 and we are still minimal with it, but we didn’t cosleep, don’t buy organic, we do eat lots of fruits and vegetables, but we also let him eat candy and sugar, we do say No and do time-outs and stuff. I am breastfeeding the new baby, so I guess my crunchy score goes up this time around?
Oh- and we do vaccinate our kids on the regular schedule, including flu shots. I have never found a homeopathic remedy that worked. I don’t do things with essential oils, that seems to be big here right now. We do use honey instead of cough syrup (can’t give cough syrup to little kids anyhow). I did deliver with midwives, but ended up with a fairly complicated hospital birth.