Why Is It So Hard to Get My Mom to Go Green?
My mother, the nice Jewish lady seen here at her box at the Hollywood Bowl, is among the biggest paper and water consumers in the country. It hasn’t been easy getting her to turn over a new leaf. (Or rather, fewer of them.)
She has a varied and colorful history of helping herself to fistfuls of disposable napkins at restaurants, collecting hundreds of brown paper grocery bags from Gelson’s Market and requiring daily soaks or showers. She’s pretty darn clean, my mother.
“I never, ever get dressed before bathing,” she has always told me.
“What? So you’ve never heard of French cologne?”
Last summer, I played the dutiful daughter and learned Italian to help mom out on our trip to Italy in September. Turns out, the only phrase that came in handy from Rome to Como was piu l’asciugamani, por favore: More towels, please. Uttered even more frequently to the nice Italian chambermaids was piu faccia l’asciugamani: More face towels!
If there’s someone out there who uses more wash cloths than my 80-year-old mother, I’d like to meet her. No exaggeration, there were several 3-foot high stacks of Italian terrycloth squares atop the marble vanity of each hotel we visited. How does one person use so many towels without wiping off their face?
The thing is, she would never use a towel more than once. Some people go through towels but they hang them to dry and use them again. Mom won’t even wear one of her 200 Façonnable print blouses more than once without dry cleaning it. Who knew daily treks to Gelson’s Market could work up such a sweat?
And as far as paper napkins and facial tissues are concerned, I think she associates having ample supplies on hand with being well-cared for.
Yep, that’s how Cherie rolls. I love her dearly and wouldn’t trade her in for anyone (except of course, Joan Rivers, and who wouldn’t?). But I have been frustrated trying to convert her to the ways of the unwashed revolutionaries fighting to conserve resources.
Funny, mom is a dichotomy in some ways; she stays out of the sun, shuns drugs (even aspirin) and sips herb tea instead of coffee. But she can’t seem to get on board that eco bus, apart from abiding by L.A. drought restrictions on water use.
Before he died two years ago, my dad, a real estate developer, considered himself to be an early conservationist.
The logo on his office stationary read, “The environment is our business.” He was frugal and a stickler about turning off lights, shutting off air, cutting down on sprinkler and telephone use, buying used cars for his kids and only building as much housing as he felt the market required. He was one of the first advocates of a mass transit system in L.A. He swore by solar power and used it to warm his pool starting in the 70s.
After dad’s years of chronic scolding, mom did learn to turn off lights and only cranks the heat when she is “freezing to death.”
Yet visits to her McMansion in the Valley become guilt-ridden ones for me and my conscientious kids as we stand idly by watching Nana toss paper and plastic into the garbage. Her gated community even offers recycling and composting bins to be picked up by the waste removal company. The kids and I have explained the benefits of composting to her many times, to which she has replied:
“Why would you throw extra food into a container when you have a garbage disposal?”
In truth, I can’t see her stomaching such a crude process as composting. After all, her breakfast room place settings go into the dishwasher even if no one has touched the utensils. “They’ve been out and so they are dirty,” she informs me. She glares at me with one of those disapproving scowls as if to say that I’m the one who’s crazy.
I forgive her these limitations. Mom is what you call a neat freak. My therapist has urged me not to elaborate.
The good news is that I am making a few inroads with the recycling lectures.
“Now, listen carefully, Mom, when you use a glass jar, let’s say of spaghetti sauce, and you toss it into the trash, it goes into a landfill. Landfills are really full and bad for the planet. If you recycle it, someone can reuse the glass to make something consumers can use.”
For years, she has refused to buy these arguments from me, her youngest. But the other day, when I questioned her about trash disposal again on the phone, she checked in with my older sister who was sitting nearby.
“Do you recycle your trash?” she asked Deb, while I waited patiently for the survey results. “Yes, of course I do,” said my sister. She’s the oldest.
“Oh,” said mom, now seemingly convinced. “I’ll have to tell Mariano (her helper) to start separating the stuff.”
And to think, all it took was a family intervention.
Main image: Visual Panic
Other images: Luanne Bradley
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16 Comments
July 31st, 2009 at 11:41 am
this is so funny and so true. we often forget how “eco aware” our generation is, and how the older generation didn’t have the same green education in their schools and young lives.this column really brings Nana’s green hesitance to life. the pics are cute too.
July 31st, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Great article! Yeah, mom’s are so stubborn about their ways, aren’t they? My mom says “I can’t taste the difference in an organic apple, swear to God!” and forwards me articles about organic foods supposedly not being any more nutritious than conventional.
Which of course makes me write her an uber-manifesto about the soil, water, petroleum-based farming practices, chemicals on food, nutrition, supporting small farmers and local economy…etc.
Maybe one day she’ll pay as much attention to buying the best foods as she does on buying the nicest clothes!!!
And then I wonder, what will my daughter think about me when she’s all grown up?
July 31st, 2009 at 12:15 pm
Thanks, Sarah. That is surprising. You are so down to earth I figured you hailed from hippie stock. Guess we are the first generation to really get there!
July 31st, 2009 at 1:07 pm
My parents were hippies in the 70s and my mum is still very conscientiously green. I try my best but she puts me to shame!
You lost me at the daily showers though – I take a shower every day, I just make sure it’s only two or three minutes long. That’s equivalent to taking a 15 minute shower every five days but I get to be clean.
I’m lucky that I only need to wash my hair every second day but some people don’t have that luxury and have to deal with major grease if they don’t shampoo up every day.
July 31st, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Sorry I lost you, Caitlin.
July 31st, 2009 at 1:25 pm
If we can convert just one bad habit of the “non-believers” it would still help the cause and possibly start them down the green path. Never give up!
July 31st, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Love this article, Luanne!
My parents were religious recyclers – our entire utility room was full of different bins, as you had to sort in those days – and growing up we often bought used items, including cars. They were always big on not wasting things. Dad’s deeply into eco issues but Mom still needs to trade in that Caddy!
(hint hint, Ma)
Caitlin, I’m with you on the showers, and I also don’t wash my hair so often since it’s fairly dry to begin with.
How has everyone else fared with getting family members to go green?
July 31st, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Hilarious! Hope your mom’s not mad at you!
July 31st, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Thanks, Sara. I’m not a daily shower person, except if I work out. Never have been, and I also don’t wash my hair daily because it really dries it out. I have many friends who take showers daily and insist their kids do too. Mine don’t. And no, my mom isn’t mad at me, cause she hasn’t seen this yet. I have yet to convert her to using her computer, as well. But It’s all in good fun.
July 31st, 2009 at 7:29 pm
My mom recently called me from a tent sale and told me “How could they price things for $19.99 when it was all crap?!”
She wasn’t going to buy anything for that price when it occurred to me to tell her that thanks to people like her expecting cheap bargains all the time, the place she was at got to overproduce and then, thanks to not being what anyone wanted, got to be incinerated at a landfill.
It’s the lack of appreciation for all that’s created and then wasted that kills me!
August 1st, 2009 at 8:30 am
Great piece! I laughed and cringed at “Why Is It So Hard to Get My Mom to Go Green?”
It struck a nerve with me since my mother-in-law refuses to recycle, and yet she considers herself “green” because of her concern for the preservation of the trees in cottage country. No amount of talking will get her to sort and recycle her trash — however if our City actively levied fines against people who don’t recycle, she would start recycling in a hurry.
I think it’s a matter of society using different levers for different personalities. (See my visual essay “The Real Poop on Social Change” for more on levers that can change behavior: http://www.frankejames.com/debate/?p=96 )
August 1st, 2009 at 10:12 am
There are many ways to go green as well. Not just in shopping and food, but in electricity and transportation as well. How many of us using train/bus to shopping mall? How many of us driving big car? How many of us forgot to turn off the light/electrical appliances when we are going out/sleep? How many of us still printing unecessary document in office? It’s all important too, right?
August 3rd, 2009 at 5:25 am
I wholeheartedly agree Stephen.
Takes a little extra thought to make small changes but the changes add up.
August 3rd, 2009 at 1:58 pm
I agree with Amy and Stephen. And I think the small changes are very doable every day from separating trash to reusable bottles, etc. It does add up. Hear that Mommy?
August 15th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
my mum and indeed both my parents are very green. i suppose they have always been very careful with money etc when they were younger and to be honest it keeps them busy so fair enough.
unfortunately with my lifestyle it is difficult to fit in the time to be green. its a rubbish answer but its the truth.
August 25th, 2009 at 8:13 am
Rich, it takes no time at all. Make little changes every day.
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