Metresexual? No. Urban Tribes sophisticate? Nope. Philanthropist, not yet. EcoMom? Well yes -- trying to be. I had a special blogger moment when I saw the article, 'For 'EcoMoms, ' Saving Earth Begins at Homein the NY Times on Saturday. Special because my post, hedge pledge about trying to balance the many opportunities for eco living pointed to the 'EcoMom' challenge earlier this week. This special moment was heightened by the realization that MY particular subculture is Times worthy. This sort of thing hasn't happened since my days of french cut bikini's and boyfriends that smelled like surf board wax. The only remnant of connection I have to that wildly popular subculture is my embarrassing obsession with Laguna Beach on MTV (season 1 and 2) and my disdain for The Real Wives of Orange County and the like.
For all the obsessing on buying the right eco... green... sustainable fill in the blank, I like to think that there is something much more profound at work. This excerpt from the article best articulates my meaning:
Members of the EcoMom Alliance “are fighting a values battle,” said Tim Kasser, an associate professor of psychology at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., and the author of “The High Price of Materialism.” “They are surrounded by materialism trying to figure out how to create a life more oriented toward intrinsic values.”
Despite our good intentions, a subculture by nature has elitist intrinsic values (replace sub with club). A cartoon in the New Yorker this month with the caption, "I hated how they acted so much, "green than thou" says it all. I have a few ideas for keeping EcoMom's (myself included) humble -- see the Brown Dress (365 days. one brown dress. a one-woman show against fashion) project for starters. Not as sexy as a french cut bikini but The Times They Are A-Changin.
