Who out there read What to Expect When You’re Expecting? Yep, looks like most everybody. Who threw it against the wall in frustration and disgust? Yep, that’s a sizable crowd, too.
Here’s the thing: Pregnant women and their partners want to do right by their fetuses. They really do. They will forego their favorite vices. They will cook their cold cuts and just say no to raw-milk cheeses. They will change their exercise and sleep patterns and take a pass on beauty treatments. They will be happy to.
And then someone – and I’m looking at you, What to Expect-ers! – will suggest that they carry a bag of wheat germ in their purses to sprinkle on meals and that half a bagel “makes a nice treat,” (No. Half a bagel makes half of breakfast. Hagen Dazs chocolate sorbet, now that’s a nice treat.) And then these pregnant women will rise up and say a collective, “Enough!”
Except that it’s never enough: The kid arrives and there’s more to worry about – more diet-watching if you’re breastfeeding, more angst if you’re not. There are hormones in milk and trans fats in cookies. Absolute purity of consumption and exposure, which is not an achievable goal, becomes an exhausting quest. I don’t know a single parent who needs one more thing to worry about.
Why, then, are we piling on a new worry in this month’s article on harmful chemicals in plastics and fragrances (page 12)? Because I truly believe that this issue, born of a better-living-through-chemistry-and-Tupperware attitude, has not gotten the attention it deserves.
Is every kid who has ever drunk from a polycarbonate sippy cup in trouble? Of course not. Have I purged my own cabinets of plastic leftover containers? No way. But our love affair with plastic has gone on for nearly a century, and it’s time we learned more about the implications.
In the meantime, our sources have shared some of the ways that their families try to avoid exposure to chemicals on page 16. Some may fit right into your life. Some may complicate your life in ways that just aren’t worth it for you. No guilt. No stress. Have some Hagen Dazs. Or a bagel.
