It’s the little things Mothers do everyday that count. Clipping toenails, folding laundry, washing little faces; the bedtime songs and stories. The hours spent tossing a football or cheering from the sidelines. Every little thing we do as Mothers adds up. We are so immensely powerful – every decision we make from the time we hold our newborns until the time they grow wings and fly away is meaningful. I’d like to inspire mothers to think beyond their own families, their own homes and their own communities. How do the decisions we make impact humanity?
I want to share with you, in time for Mother’s Day, the story of Lois Gibbs and the residents of Love Canal, NY. Their story is a highlight of the documentary A Fierce Green Fire, an exploration of the environmental movement. Initially branded “an irate, hysterical housewife with a sickly kid” by the superintendent of her local school district, Lois Gibbs was relentless, and in a peaceful non-violent way caught the attention of the state and federal government. What she learned as she went door-to-door petitioning to have the school on the canal shut down, was that her child was not the only “sickly child.”
The residents put together a health study that showed 56% of the children in the community were born with birth defects. During this time, there were 22 pregnancies, and of those pregnancies only four children were born healthy. After a two-year battle, the federal government gave the residents of Love Canal the funds to permanently relocate their families away from the Hooker Chemical hazardous waste dump-site. On October 1, 1980, President Carter signed papers, buying out the homeowners and pledging, “There must never be another Love Canal in our country.”
Lois Gibbs’ story is an extreme example of how environmental toxins affect our children. When I look at the world I live in, I see families struggling with chronic disorders like ADHD, asthma, allergies, eczema, autism, diabetes, autoimmune and so much more. In Love Canal, the chemicals seeping into the residents’ homes were so easy to identify. Today, the toxic chemicals seeping into the bodies of our growing children are much harder to identify.
According to a 2005 study by the Environmental Working Group our children are exposed to over 200 chemicals before they even take their first breath. Our children ingest over 140 lbs of sugar – a known toxin – each year. Chemicals are everywhere – from the foods we eat, to the water we drink (tap or bottled), to the air we breathe.
The challenge before mothers today is to clean up the food supply. When people ask me how to do that, I give them an answer I’ve come to over time and through experience working with diet: buy the cleanest food you can afford. Prioritize grass-fed meats and organic vegetables and fruits over everything else. Just those few decisions alone cut out excess hormones, antibiotics and pesticides. Avoid packaged foods that rely on chemicals and sugar to capture “stomach share”; our bodies don’t function optimally on sugar, gluten, canola oil and high fructose corn syrup.
The organics industry has grown to be an 11 billion dollar market. When we choose organic or locally grown over commercially farmed agriculture, it means someone’s daughter/sister/mother or son/brother/father doesn’t have to stand in a field spraying chemicals on our food. This means fewer chemicals in our air, streams, rivers and fewer chemicals in our food supply. When we make these types of choices they don’t just benefit our own children – they benefit every child.
I hope this Mother’s Day, each and every one of us will feel empowered to make big changes as we go about doing little things.
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Jillian Burne is a holistic health coach with a private practice in Manhattan. She is a graduate of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Jillian is dedicated to helping families and adults with ADHD manage their symptoms with diet and lifestyle modifications. Her approach is geared toward effective changes that can be implemented in today’s busy, high-tech world. Her work in functional medicine led her to create a 4-step program to help busy families and adults recover from ADHD, autoimmune and so much more. For a free 15 min phone consultation to see if this approach is right for you call 646-226-9312.
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