The Edinburgh Evening News is looking for mums who agree/disagree with the French philosopher Elisabeth Badinter’s take on motherhood and feminism.
In her new book The Conflict, The Woman and The Mother, she suggests that “earth mothers” and the Green movement are setting women back with their desire to have mothers breastfeed for years, use “real” nappies and puree their own baby food. She argues that disposables, baby powder milk and jars of baby food help women retain their identities outside of motherhood by giving them more time to be themselves, not just a mother. All very controversial.
We are looking for mums who agree with her view – and are/have been mums who use such products to make life easier – and those who don’t. This would involve a chat with a feature writer and a photographer visiting your home to get a lovely pic of you and your child/children.
If you could call Gina Davidson on 0131 620 8683 we would be most grateful.
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March 28, 2010
Over 70% of parents believe kids tend to get more infections when hygiene in the nursery is poor, but only 7% claim hygiene in their child’s nursery is outstanding. These are some of the results revealed in a recent parents’ survey, run by GreenKiddie.co.uk. The survey is part of GreenKiddie’s national campaign “Close2Nature” for better children’s health and well-being in nurseries. Close2Nature campaign aims to provide easy-to-use tips and advice for daycare providers and help them adopt our eco-friendly strategy for their premises in order to help with improving children’s health.
For this campaign GreenKiddie is partnering with Change4Life initiative run by the Department of Health, and focuses on 5 main areas:
- Provide better food and nutrition at nurseries
- Reduce toxics in the daycare premises
- Help children stay active
- Improve hygiene in daycare premises
- Help nurseries become more eco-friendly
There are over 850,000 children under 5 years of age in the UK attending either part-time or full-time daycare (DCSN, 2009). This means that nurseries’ environment plays crucial role for children’s health. Making nurseries more eco-friendly and encouraging them to reduce chemicals and toxics at their premises will promote better baby and children’s health and well-being, reducing the infections and straightening their immunity.”
The survey, based on the 514 parents’ replies, reveals that 18% of kids in nurseries are not having their 5 a day portions of fruits and vegetables, based on food being served at the nursery. Fish, helping children’s brain development, is being served on a weekly basis in only half of the nurseries, and 17% of kids are not being served the extremely important for kids’ growth high in protein food like meat and eggs. Some 15% of nurseries provide kids with very unsatisfactory amount of milk and diary products during their 10-hour stay at the premises, so kids are not able to get the calcium they need for this age. As little as 2 out of 100 nurseries serve organic food in every meal, where 15% of nurseries have never sourced organic produce for the kids. Home-made food has never been served to every tenth nursery, and in these cases processed food is what kids eat on a regular basis. Every third nursery adds sugar and/or salt in kids’ food, and only 4% follow the guidelines for avoiding salt in cooking for kids under 3-years old.
The eco-friendly efforts are outstanding in only 3 out of 100 nurseries, and are qualified as poor and unsatisfactory in 15% of cases. It looks like great percentage of nurseries are doing great when it comes to recycling, reusing and using eco-friendly craft-materials (42%), although improvement others is needed. When it comes to soaps, washing powders and cleaning materials about 20% will not even try to be eco-friendly. Most of the above soaps, cleaning sprays and washing powders contain harsh chemicals which not only reflect the environment, but are also toxic and irritating for the sensitive kids’ skin. Around the same percent of nurseries (20-25%) are not making any efforts to use BPA-Free baby/kids food equipment, biodegradable or cloth nappies (although in most of them parents are advised to provide nappies in their choice). About the same percent of nursery staff are willing to “go green”, but don’t seem to have enough information and knowledge on how to do that, according to parents.
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February 3, 2010
