Have you heard about Emily Morrow, the star of the Really Very Crunchy Mom social media platforms?

She just published her NEW book, shown above, a guide to being crunchy without being annoying. My married daughter showed me some of her videos two years ago, and now I’m bingeing on the rest while I wait for her book to come out in Everand in two days. (Everand is a subscription service to digital books, go here to learn more.)

I’m having fun watching her stuff. Seeing her videos, I laugh, seeing my young mom self from the 90s, and the crunchy granola mom path I started down once I became a breastfeeding mom. It’s interesting to see me in these and then see how my married daughter, 2nd generation crunchy, has pushed the crunchy fronter even further than I do. She does some of the stuff Emily shows, that I never did, like Forest Friends School, the Pickler gym and reusable food pouches. (I didn’t even know a Pickler gym existed until I learned about it from her.)

As I watch her stuff, the words I wrote for my Tree of Life Mothering Vol 1 book over 15 years ago come echoing back to me as well. I basically wrote that once you start down the crunchy mom path, you eventually come to a wall that stops you, with either your finances, your time, or your sanity. Is it really practical to have only all natural materials for all your clothing, including your swimsuits and pajamas, your bedding, and your mattresses? What about to only have all beeswax candles and natural lighting in your home? Or never buy anything that was produced by slave labor from Walmart? To recycle and reuse everything? Does one mom have the time and money to feed her family all organic, locally grown food, practice cloth diapering, cloth feminine hygiene, and elimination communication, garden with a compost pile, and raise bees? Only use “family cloth” instead of toilet paper? Is it possible to tend to kombucha, kefir, and kraut, make sourdough bread, and protect children from all screens, all plastic toys, and all toxins? And all this on top of homeschooling, ecological breastfeeding and self-care, not to mention cleaning our homes and preserving our marriage!? I haven’t even mentioned having grounding, green landscaping, or eco-friendly funerals. This video about the Really Very Crunchy Mom at a funeral made me laugh so much as I thought about a certain friend and her crunchy standards for funerals.

We each get to decide how much crunchy we can be, and in the process, let’s give each other grace, not be judgmental, and laugh in the process as well. It’s so easy to let crunchiness be a badge of honor and try to outcrunch other crunchy moms, unless we find a balance.

Here are some videos of Emily telling her backstory of her platform and book. I enjoy all of it!