Parenting in the Plasticine
A FEW MONTHS AGO, I got a midday text from my son’s daycare. He had fallen off a rocking horse and bitten his tongue. It was a pretty run-of-the-mill injury for an 18-month-old, but they wanted to give me a heads-up ahead of pick-up that day; apparently there had been a fair amount of blood. When I went to gather him after work, he greeted me with a big grin, and a slightly bloody teether in his mouth. I was a little alarmed that his tongue was still bleeding. But I was more concerned about the teether. His teachers had lovingly given it to him to soothe his wound. But it was plastic, and the moment I saw it, I wanted to pluck it out of his mouth. In many ways, this is a silly story. My son comes into contact with plastics every day of his life, in daycare as well as in our home. A few extra minutes with a teether really wasn’t a big deal. But the moment encapsulates the kind of anxiety I often face as a mom. I worry about the chemicals in my kids’ shampoo, the contaminants in the water they drink, the exhaust fumes from cars and the particulate pollution from wildfires that their tiny lungs inhale. But it’s plastic that bothers me more than anything else. I constantly worry about all the plastic my two children come in contact with — from the Legos they dump across our floors, to the stuffed animals they cuddle, to the packaging on the foods they eat — and how I might reduce it. Of course, anxiety is a normal part of parenting. We worry endlessly over the costs of childcare, the nutritional benefits of foods, the best sleep habits, and of course choking hazards, tripping hazards — and tongue-biting hazards. To me, though, the threat plastic poses is different. The level to which plastic now infiltrates our lives and environments is unprecedented. And the health threats associated with plastic are, too. Journal Managing Editor Zoe Loftus-Farren navigates plastic exposure and eco-anxiety as a parent in this feature from our summer print issue.
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