Teaching social consciousness is a complicated business when my daughter has been institutionalised for nearly 6 years and her father and grandmother were both huge "consumers". And once I was far more of a consumer than I am now too, so she started out life thinking that fun was BUYING STUFF!
Since those days I have become far more socially aware and concerned, and this is something I want my children to embrace. There are many socially conscious living decisions I have already made in life
- no slave chocolate or coffee - we get fair trade organic chocolate and coffee / tea
- we try to avoid sweat shop produce - and shop second hand as much as possible
- cruelty in farming - we buy organic and free range animal products
- environmentally aware - we use enviro friendly cleaners through out the whole house, we re-use and recycle as much as possible, we do not waste power, we do not waste water
So these are some of the basics that I have implemented around the house. But I am struggling to get the family to go along with it. It really bothers me the way consumerism is so NORMALISED in our society. Here comes Easter! Lets buy lots of chocolate!!! How many people know the truth about chocolate production I wonder???
Anyways what I'm trying to get at is that I want to find ways to get the kids on board with this. I think I'll have to start getting Stylish to read up on a few things.
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