Green Mom Extraordinaire

If there’s one thing we’re finding more and more of these days, it’s awesome women of the blogosphere who are writing about their efforts to live a green lifestyle. At The Green Mom Review, we’ll be the first to admit that there are thousands of moms out there who are doing the “green” thing way better than us. We feel lucky to get to read their tips and advice on a regular basis through their blogs. What we want to do in return is acknowledge these ladies and tell you where you can read their words of wisdom online.

With that said, we are excited to announce our Green Mom Extraordinaire for January…

…Tiffany of Nature Moms Blog!

Tiffany is a freelance writer, newspaper journalist, and mom to three children, seven and under. In her previous life, she was a marketing and advertising executive and the owner and president of a cloth diaper manufacturing and distribution company. She is also a cancer survivor. For all these reasons and more, Tiffany is our Green Mom Extraordinaire for January. Check out our interview with Tiffany below!

1. What got you interested in green living?

My mother and grandmother had many important lessons to teach me about conserving resources and making what you have go further and perhaps doing without things you REALLY don’t need. These values are very important for green moms so to some extent I always tried to live “green” but I didn’t realize it in that way until after I had my second child and I decided to be a stay at home mom. When I actually had time to run my household on my own terms and think in depth about all of my parenting and lifestyle choices and their impact on my children and the planet, my green choices kept getting more frequent. I opted to use cloth diapers, to sew my own clothes, to make my own cleaners, and to strive a more sustainable family life. It has been a great journey.

2. What is one easy step that moms can take to lessen our impact on the Earth?

One step with a huge impact is to stop using disposables and replace them with reusables. This goes for diapers, napkins, plates, cups, bags, hygiene products, etc. Evaluate everything disposable in your life and see if you can live a reusable product of the same type. Even if you think you couldn’t possibly use cloth diapers or cloth menstrual pads for instance…try it for a month…and see if you aren’t pleasantly surprised that you CAN do it.

3. How do you help your kids understand the importance of protecting the environment?

We have many discussions about how our actions impact the environment and whenever I can I get them involved being the solution. We take weekly trips to our local recycling center to hand deliver our recyclables and we make a game of it to see how little we can wittle down our regular garbage can. We play environmental board games and trivia games together and we take trips to organic farms and other places of interest to green families. This summer we will be visiting a house made entirely of garbage and my kids are ecstatic about that prospect. We make green living fun for them and we make sure that being out in nature is fun for them because if you don’t really love something it is hard to drum up the dedication to protecting it.

4. If you could recommend one green product alternative to other moms, what would it be?

I suggest getting rid of plastic wherever you can in your home so moms might do that buy eliminating regular plastic bottles and sippy cups and using alternatives that are safer for their kids and for the planet because plastic is toxic for both. For bottles I recommend using glass instead of plastic and for sippy cups I recommend using stainless steel.

5. What are your green goals for the next year? Next decade?

My personal goals include growing a large portion of my families own food, eating more raw fruits and veggies and less meat and processed foods, and overall buying less “stuff”. I think those goals are pretty timeless so they will be in place for the next year and the next decade.

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You can read more about Tiffany at her website, Nature Moms Blog.