I was a Whore for the Mainstream Media
Sharon October 19th, 2008
So the book’s publicist was excited about the New York Times article. The reporter was reassuring when I worried that she would trivialize the subject – she told me she was just trying to get a hook onto this deeply important subject. Sure.
I was nervous, but now that the worst has happened – the article appears in a completely decontextualized article about crazy people, complete with quotes from therapists.
Good things about the Times piece:
There’s a cute picture of my husband scything.
Bad things about the Times piece:
Everything else, particularly that at no point did the writer mention the Riot for Austerity and the thousand other people around the world who are trying desperately to reduce their carbon impact in a world where increasingly few people seem to care.
I’m assuming that the next step in the McCain campaign will be to take up the cause of my son’s baseball deprivation (which is actually because we are Jewish and don’t do Saturday little league – there’s a baseball field 5 miles from my house, but they have Saturday games) and the way Obama’s carbon plan will deprive all cute six year olds of baseball ;-P.
I particularly like the inclusion of the psychologists, and the acknowledgement that while there’ s no documented reason to believe that there’s a psychological disorder here, there could be.
Sigh.
I mostly find it funny – but I admit, I’m a little pissed off that an opportunity to draw attention to the work of the Riot for Austerity was totally missed because cheap and tawdry sells papers so well. Still, I didn’t come off nearly as badly as poor Colin over at NoImpactman, whose toilet habits are yet again in the New York Times – although this time, in a level of journalistic accuracy that pervades the entire article, they say that Colin used “no toilets.” Apparently, he endured a year of heroic constipation for the ecological cause. Compared to that my low-level child abuse (cold house, no baseball) looks positively lazy.
Ah well, on to the next thing – might as well laugh about it. Remind me of this, though, next time someone wants to do a photoshoot 
.
Sharon
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- Comments(160)
Hey, Sharon, someone above mentioned that you could use room on their blog for promoting your book. I would like to include my blog in that also, and in fact, have seen alot of blogs that have book covers shown with a small blurb about the book and a connection to buy it. Do you have any idea how that is done? Because I would certainly be willing do to that for your book. Once you’ve sold a million, I would bet the NYT will write something different, ya think?
Gracie
Sharon – I don’t think that you are ‘guilty’ of child abuse…..you are providing your kids with a valuable education on the stewardship of the earth and consumer economics.
As for little league – you are sticking to your religious beliefs…..whats the harm in that?
TO Heck with the NYT……
Oh, I don’t think it’s that bad. Maybe it’s in the eye of the beholder, but I detected a note of envy at your passion. The article in general was just kind of random in harping on selected “privations.” My mom washes out her Ziploc baggies…what does that say? Not much; she’s one of the biggest shoppers I know.
I was disappointed that it let off the hook those who can’t be bothered to do anything beyond sort their recycling. And I thought that if it insulted anyone, it was their readers – presupposes them to be weak-willed shopaholics.
At least they mentioned that your rationale included a social conscience, it isn’t just deprivation for its own sake.
Also: I love your commenters. “Vegesexual” made me crack up. I also liked “sheeple.”
Sorry to keep “harping” on Sharon’s book:-) but…
Steve, the list of books is also at the end of
Depletion and Abundance if you aren’t able to find it here.
warm wishes
Wow….I read Crunchy Con.
Rod Dreher, I enjoyed your book.
Yes, a “victim” of child abuse.
Having to wake before school and start up the fire in the woodstove.
Actually a very good memory.
Wouldn’t it be much worse not to teach the kids how to do these things?
Thank you, Sharon.
Looking forward to receiving your book.
I’d have been rather excited to do an “interview”.
Really, is this anything new? My Grandmother taught me by example. I wish she were still here, because as I grow older there are so many questions I’d like to ask, so many things I would like to learn from her.
We live in a hurricane zone.
Others live in areas that can lose power.
Isn’t it best we be prepared?
and prepare our children?
Make that “the children”
the elderly?
Those are the ones who need us to take care of them.
Lisa
Sharon,
I didn’t really think it was that bad. You came off OK in my eyes, but maybe I’m biased since I just read your book. They were a bit harsh in portraying some of the ways that you raise your kids, but it didn’t seem over the top to me.
I think the important thing is to get the ideas out there, and have people see what others are doing. Thanks for what you do, and for your wonderful book.
52 isn’t that cold, my house was always 55 at night.
I think the most important sentence in Noah’s posts is “I’ve been on the receiving end of abuse and its rationales…”. That does make his reaction easier to understand.
Noah, my heart goes out to you (I’m allowed to say that kind of thing at my age) if you suffered any kind of abuse or neglect as a child. That’s a tough load to carry, and I hope you find much peace and love in your lifetime.
I don’t think anything I say will reassure you about Sharon’s kids, especially when I say that those gorgeous boys are my much-adored grandsons and their dad Eric is my son. But for anyone else who may be harboring even the slightest doubt, I can tell you that I live in a too-warm apartment in New York City, and the boys cuddle in an adorable heap when they sleep here also. They sleep that way because they like it, and of course if the room is cool it works to their advantage.
AND–I sleep up at their house also, in all seasons. In the winter I wear a warm nightgown and socks, and I sleep beautifully. The boys wear a double layer of warm pajamas and they sleep beautifully also. My son tells me that the temperature is usually around 58, and never as low as 52, and he’s the “numbers guy” in the house (forgive me, Sharon
), but whatever it is, it’s just fine.
I am proud of Sharon and Eric for so many reasons, but most of all for how they’re raising their boys. These kids are healthy, happy, unspoiled, and unjaded (I live in NYC, remember?) and they learn what’s important in life every single day just from the way their parents live. They are blessed, and so am I.
Sharon, I hope you’ll forgive your schmaltzy mother-in-law for going on like this, but I couldn’t help myself!
Well…while the comment in the article about your children “huddling together for warmth” in bed at night was clearly out of context…I liked how the author did give you credit for allowing your children popsicles!
And may I take the liberty of saying “Rock on Grandma Nancy!” You go ahead and take all the pride in Sharon and Eric’s family that you want. You are the Grandma and you earned it! That’s what grandmothers/mothers are for.
I, too, found it especially interesting how the whole potential psychological illness aspect got drug into the article. I think it is important to point out to the author—the theory of psychological illness can be applied to any topic and any person at any point in history or in the future for that matter. When any person is so consumed with a topic that it interferes with the normal flow of their life and stunts their personal growth—it can essentially be thought a psychological illness. But thanks to the author for going to such an unfounded and silly extreme!
Sharon–keep doing what you feel is right, keep living with moral integrity…that goes for Colin Beavan and everyone else mentioned in the article. I might not make the choices you all have made, but I sure as heck would fight for your right to make those choices and know that your families are all the better for it.
Hello.
Grandma Nancy, my comments stand on their own merits. It is true that, as an adult, I have been abused by frugal (or is it cheap?) people who deprived me of heat and access to physical comfort in my home, particularly during the day, and in the wintertime, but they were fine people otherwise.
Sharon, the reasons raised here to subject kids to the same treatment are ridiculous, from living like those less fortunate, to toughening up one’s children, to families living as generations earlier did (what realism!), to reducing one’s carbon footprint.
If you want to live like those less fortunate, don’t impose your misfortune on your children, but live on your own. If you want to toughen up your family, ditch the TV, internet, and sugary snacks, and stop drinking. If you want to live like earlier generations, stop driving. If you want to reduce your carbon footprint, oh, but you already do that. And if that’s what you’re doing, then keep your children warm as always. Thanks so much!
MEA, 52 is too cold. Colder is too cold, too, in the winter, during the day, in a poorly insulated house, which is what is under discussion. Hopefully, the cold rooms are sealed off at Sharon’s, her kids are always warm, and there’s no real cause for complaint otherwise. Otherwise, too bad for her kids.
-Noah
Ugh. The article was a hit piece, but it said more to me about the psychology of the NYT’s reporter than about the people she highlighted. Back when I was a vegetarian, it was interesting (living in midwestern farm country) how people reacted as though my personal decision to not eat meat somehow was an accusatory act reflecting on their dietary choices, despite my never even hinting anything to suggest that. I think the response was telling – revealing their inner fears (‘it’s an attack on my livelihood as a beef farmer’) or guilt (‘I should be eating a healthier diet’). Similar with the NYT’s piece. The reporter’s use of the quote from the Huntington psychologist: ‘if you’re criticizing friends because they’re not living up to your standards of green, that’s a problem,’ revealed the reporter’s inner fears. What is so threatening to people if Sharon and others decide to live an environmentally sustainable lifestyle? I suppose you could turn to the NYT’s business section for the answer….
My partner’s response to the Times article was to compare it to other attempts at medicalizing members of political and social movements. If you don’t like the dissidents, just diagnose them with a mental illness. There you go, they’re crazy – isn’t that tidy!
I have enjoyed reading your blogs and have been unable to pry my spouse’s hands away from Depletion and Abundance. You deserved better from the Times.
- A MN MD
Grandma Nancy,
What an eloquent comment, Sharon and Eric’s boys obviously have a wonderful grandmother!
Noah,
I completely understand why you stand by your statement that 52 degrees in a home is too cold. If it weren’t for a widespread, ice-storm-induced power-outage during the winter of my senior year of high school, I would agree with you 100%. However, after spending 32 days without electricity (we lived “far out” and were one of the last pockets of homes to have our service restored after the storm), I must disagree with that statement.
52 degrees IS cold when you can’t get warm, are wet and cannot get dry, or are so bothered that the cold is all that you can think of. 52 degrees is NOT cold when you can layer your clothing (adding and removing as needed), are able to dry yourself, are able to warm up (e.g. add layers, stand by the stove, be more physically active), and when you don’t notice the temperature.
Here is where I make an assumption: If Sharon’s children are uncomfortable, they all can let her know, and they probably do. Here’s my second assumption: any mother, when confronted by her uncomfortable child will make their best attempt at making their child comfortable – or will help that child learn to manage their own comfort (such as taking off their own sweater or putting on a hat without assistance…). If you take the time to read what Sharon has written, she consistently demonstrates that she cares for her children, which makes those two assumptions beyond highly probable.
Something more concerning to me (more concerning than the temperature that a mother keeps her home) is how you find it appropriate, and are willing to criticize someone based solely on an article where the accuracy and bias of the journalism is being actively questioned.
Perhaps, one of these days, you will be able to see beyond the minute details of Sharon’s (and others’) daily lives, and see the positive impact she and others are making in the lives of children – their own and the children the world over.
–Erika
I just thought I would jump in here. I thought the piece was pretty bad, but not as bad as I would expect coming from the NYT. Your boys are beautiful, Sharon.
As for the controversy regarding Noah, I would like to say that, coming from a background of child abuse -the real, heavy-duty child abuse that leaves you dealing with PTSD for the first part of your adult years -keeping your house cool does not qualify as abuse in my book.
My house is kept at 55 in the winter, and I come from the south where cold is not cool. It’s a process of acclimation. Once you are used to it, its not bad. I get used to the cool as it cools down in the fall and that’s that. I keep plenty of sweaters and clothes to wear around. I can understand the reaction though -when the (outside) temp dropped into the upper 40s overnight this weekend, my first reaction was one of utter horror. Oh no, its freezing! Hey, I did say I’m a southerner.
In Noah’s defense, people who have been abused often develop a knee-jerk reaction and are willing to jump to the defense of any child, if they see anything that might possibly be labeled abuse. As for malnourished vegans and malnourished vegan children, I have met some of each, usually people with more entuhsiasm than sense. Being a vegan is hard work compared to eating a mainstream diet, and its hard to convince some vegans that peanut butter and jelly all the time does not a balanced diet make!
This whole to-do had me recalling how someone once proclaimed that raising my son without TV was child abuse! Really they did- kinda blew my mind ……but they were totally serious.
Noah- you’re still not getting the whole concept though in terms of temp- you cannot just take the individual temps of the rooms and average them together- rooms next to the woodstove, closed off rooms, etc- doesn’t work like that. Also, you’re basing your attack on Sharon on the content of the article- I can vouch for how badly most writers get their facts straight- a recent article on me described the piles of grain waiting to be threshed in my basement- but I don’t even have a basement……
I’ve written hundreds of articles for publication and I always try above all to get my facts straight- now that I’ve been written about myself in a number of articles, I really understand why I’ve received letters and cards from people thanking me for actually writing an accurate article about them. It’s not always easy- it is easy to misunderstand when you’re busy taking notes while asking questions. I’ll leave alone the whole subject of subjective take on the material here but that’s huge, or can be, as well…
And Sharon- those are really cute kids and I’m glad they love each other so much that they want to pile up like a litter of puppies at night- you’re doing something right there.,…..
Sharon
A cool house and a family that behaves like a family is more than a reasonable trade off IMO. As a child who received a great deal of his parenting from Gilligan’s Island, Get Smart and similar drivel filled shows I only wish I could have suffered the kind of “abuse” you afford your children.
The concept of abuse itself gets abused.
Children are told immediately upon enrolment to school that they have the right to call social services if a parent sends a picky eater (or a just plain brat) to bed without a dinner. The fact that you offered a meal and they just did not like it is irrelevant. To smack the butt of a child running into traffic or reaching for the hot stove is abuse. To limit the freedoms of movement of a underage teen, abuse. A recent case somewhere in the states a teen sued or pressed charges against a parent who would not let them go to a party. (both the kid and the lawyer who took the case should get a slap in the back of the head)
In my jurisdiction people on welfare are told they deserve a house that has one bedroom per child rather than one bedroom male, one female. A renter can sue a landlord for not allowing the house to be in the mid 70s during the winter, while the owner of the house next door who has to pay for their own heat cannot afford to keep it above 65. In many cases poor working people live in worse conditions than those who can’t or will not work. While charity and government protection of children is fine, governments have set many minimum standards of behaviour, or rights to minimum comfort levels, that are not sustainable and in many cases interfere in the rights of parents to mould their kids as they see fit.
I’ve run into many emancipated minors who’ve just played the system to move out at 15 or 16 and get welfare, all because parents refused their demands for physical stuff, refused to give them absolute freedom of movement or demanded they supply their labour to the betterment of the household.
The coming fall is going to be a rough one but as governments collapse at least we will regain control of our children again.
okay my 2 cents here…Geesh , the writer of the Article did not even mention Depletion and Abundance or the Riot or this blog. What the heck! All these great resources would have provided some context in the article. Plus you should have had the plug, you did after all clean your house for this person!
Noah, this winter in many homes here in Maine normally, financially secure people are going to be living in much much colder houses because the cost of heating fuel is significantly more expensive than last year. Turning down the thermostat to 68 will be a luxury many will not be able to afford. Seriously. Even someone making 40,000 a year is going to be poorer if they don’t make serious changes to conserve. Last year was hard, this year will be harder. 52 degrees never killed anyone. It is only within the last century when we had central heat and plenty of cheap oil that we think we should live in a warm house. Humanity and children have lived around the woodstove or fireplace for millenia and lived to tell the tale. They way Sharon heats her home is the way many old farm houses have been heated. It just makes economic sense. They are big old drafty houses many are not insulated well. It is just throwing money away. Money that can be better spent of food, health insurance, books and popsicles.
Greenpa – thank you so much. I am doing very well, thank you for asking. Latest Pet CT scans (July and last week) show the illness has become stable, inert. We pray for many long years of THAT. I am finally off chemo, too. Celebrated by flying to Lebanon, hanging with my cousins while they harvested olives, and then going overland to Damascus by taxi for a four-day visit to the old city. Whew! Still recovering from that. I only bring it up because it shows how well I’m doing. Thank Goodness.
I appreciate your kind words.
Noah, I think we can safely say that you’ve made up your mind about me – and fair enough. It doesn’t really matter whether I clarify or not that the statement was out of context, that parts of our house are extremely well insulated (we added an addition for my husband’s grandparents when they moved here with R-54 walls – that includes the kids’ bedroom) while other parts (the old farmhouse part) are poorly insulated – which is why we don’t use them much in the winter, that they sleep together like a big pile of puppies when it is 90 too (and we don’t have air conditioning either, so there’s another abuse to lay at my door) – and while you can’t see them in the photo, next to the two queen sized beds, there are two additional bunkbeds, and each child has their own bed – they just don’t sleep in them most of the time.
You believe these are the rationales of an abuser – that they are the same things that a person who wasn’t abusing would say doesn’t really matter, I think – how could you tell? That is precisely how parents who don’t abuse but choose different lifestyles for religious, cultural or ethnic reasons find themselves on the wrong side of social services -and yes, I also recognize that sometimes parents do abuve – my mother worked for social services for almost two decades, I grew up in a home with foster siblings, etc… I do take child abuse seriously, but once the words are uttered, there’s no defense – anything I say will look to you as though it is intended to protect myself, at the expense of my kids. And since from the perspective of a non-abusing parent, protecting my kids is the same as protecting myself – they would not be served by the intrusion of well intentioned but wrong people accusing me of abuse into their lives – again, your interpretation is bound to remain the same.
To the extent that you are simply expressing your opinion, that’s fine – you are entitled, and I genuinely appreciate that you want to make sure my kids are ok. The idea that a stranger would care that much for my boys is actually oddly appealing to me. But again, the problem is that there’s nothing I can say. I can state the facts, and you can call them self-protective lies, and there’s really no good way, once the accusation is uttered, to respond. So I guess there’s really nothing else to say, except that I hope you’ll truly consider the possibility that you could be incorrect, that there might be more than one way to interpret events.
Sharon
Only in America, land of soccer moms, gas-guzzling SUV’s, ever larger flat-screen TV’s and name-brand everything, would keeping a cool house be considered abuse. It’s a shame that society has become so lazy, so comfortable and so entitled that we consider it a hardship having to wear layered clothing and ‘huddle’ around the hearth for warmth. Sharon’s kids look healthy and happy, and if her word isn’t enough, just ask Grandma!
The above-poster who mentioned acclimation was right on target. I took a mid-winter business trip to Florida a few years ago and got such a kick out of the Floridians running around in coats, hats, gloves, scarves…in 50 degree weather. For a country girl from Ohio, that felt like a spring heatwave! It’s all what you’re used to and what you’re comfortable with and if Sharon’s family is used to and comfortable with a cooler house, more power to them.
Sharon, you have truly inspired me to think outside the ‘framework’ and move toward a more self-sufficient lifestyle and I truly thank you for that. I’ll take your kind of crazy to the fast-paced, rat-race, buy-buy-buy, keeping up with the Jones kind of life any day.
God Bless You,
Andrea
Noah, I’m proud of you for sticking up. The insidious abuse of the children, elderly and others never really occurred to Sharon. On the surface, all is well in happy frugal land. But the abuse topic/discussion puts revealed a new facet of the living with less movement. But oh so necessary! Children grow as they are taught and expect what is. Adults live as they live.
I too grew up in a wood or morning stove heated house. During times when rooms were not necessary, they were closed off. Bedrooms weren’t considered necessary space. So we had heavy blankets, quilts, and hot water bottles to warm the bed. Sick or older people had a place near the heat source. The hot humid summertime was another epic.
Cuddling/huddling may seem cute to the big folks. But it ain’t always so. Trying to avoid the abuse or “being taking advantage of” behaviors fill many lives. Noah, keep speaking up and supporting your own thoughts/knowledge. I too live with good family secrets.
I have several suggestions in dealing with the article flack. In Abudence and Depletion and other writings, I have not read about avoiding taking advantage of others or preventing the taking advantage of others. I realize you plan for a well working life in which individuals are cared nutured. In real life, this doesn’t really happen. Noah has begun addressing this!
Please pay attention and don’t blow this off.
I’m not saying that the less abled are going to be placed into the local snow banks or whatever. We do need to examine these painful topics. Resolving them is essential for human survival.
I for one am often socially dropped/shunned and physically avoided due to my behaviors and philosophies. Even though I have supplies, skills and some knowledge, how is this going to play out? Without an accepting family of sorts, I am worried
I have no sympathy whatsoever for Noah. First, he says every parent is “an abuser” unless he/she earns enough money to maintain the standard array of Amurrican-style mod cons (central heating cranked up high, etc.). Well, if he can say it is every parent’s basic duty to go out and get as much employment as necessary to pay for all those heated rooms, that implies that there are no obstacles to ordinary people’s doing so. Then, Noah turns around and whines that he was “abused as an adult” by people who didn’t give him enough heat. Well, whyncha get your ass out on the job market and earn the money for warmer housing?
Second, he is an America-centric ignoramus. People use less heat almost everywhere else in the world. I have had my butt almost frozen off while staying in a Paris apartment in early spring, but I didn’t yammer that I was being “abused” (I’m sure the management would have laughed in my face); I just wore more layers. Does this mean that every kid in France is abused? Until recently nobody on the planet had central heating; does that mean that all of our great-grandparents were “abusers” and our grandparents all “abused” and “neglected”? Sounds to me like someone looking for universal victimhood as a fine excuse for all of life’s problems.
WOW Trainee, I don’t understand what you are getting at. It’s a time-honored practice to save money and energy by heating beds at night rather than bedrooms all day. Again, in many countries this is what people still do when energy is costly; why heat a huge room when the only thing you need kept warm is you? If you will forgive me maybe misreading your mentions of “abuse” and “taking advantage,” it sounds like you are hinting that when people “huddle together for warmth,” it might lead to incest.
If that is what you mean to imply, I’m sure the suggestion arises from your own painful memories, but you need to recognize that the same sort of thing can and does happen in well-to-do households with central heating, and that it’s not a necessary concomitant of wood heating either! Your second message expresses some survivalist leanings coupled with the concern that you don’t socialize well enough to have support in a crisis. I don’t know you, of course, but I wonder if it could be that your past experience has led you to regard others with undue suspicion (e.g., seeing potential abuse where none exists). If so, you might benefit from counseling.
Dewey,
Thank you. I’ve been lurking around and meaning to write a comment about the whole Noah affair; but you said pretty much everything I wanted to say, so there’s no need to repeat.
Oh, and as for heating bedrooms… I currently live in the Northeast; and I’m actually quite sensitive to cold. Last winter, I didn’t heat my bedroom at all, and I’m not planning on doing so this winter either. I simply slept in a sleeping bag, with a blanket on top. And during the day, I’d be in the living room.
Actually, the reason that I don’t heat my bedroom has nothing to do with conserving energy! It’s been explained to me that the way the building is heated, I can turn the heat on or off in any (or all) of the rooms in the apartment, and they’ll still be using the exact same amount of energy for the building as a whole! (I do wish someone would tell what idiot it was that designed the heating system for the building – grrr!) Furthermore, they told me that I’m not supposed to turn heat on and off during the winter, because that messes up the system; I’m supposed to keep it on all winter, or off all winter. Well, if I leave it on all winter, the radiator in my room starts leaking (they kinda fixed it, but not really) and emitting some horrible smell (poisonous?…). It also gets ridiculously hot occasionally (as in: ‘can’t sleep’ hot). So I solve the problem by keeping my bedroom unheated, and just heating myself with a sleeping bag and blanket at night. (I really do wish this at least saved some energy…)
I work at a residential treatment center for at-risk, adolescent boys outside of Boston. Most all have PTSD, RAD, severe ADHD, some have fetal alcohol syndrome, emotional disorders, ODD, etc. etc. Most all came from severe neglect, dysfunctional families, or unworkable foster care situations. Some are now in state custody, some still have some kind of home to visit. Full room, board, schooling, and services cost the clients’ sponsoring school systems and/or MA DCF I think is now over $140K per year, per child. Suffice to say, we get the abused, tough ones that almost no one else can deal with.
We have a 170 acre campus that the kids and I are transforming back into the farm that it once was. We’ve planted an orchard, a 10K sq foot veggie garden for us and a small CSA, small fruits, Christmas trees, and are working to convince our agency’s head office to allow us some livestock (so far, though no go on this.) I can see that our campus’ fields and woodlands (~145 acres is forested) could very well be an extremely important community resource very soon.
Still, one thing I worry about in the child abuse department is just how quickly deteriorating government budgets are going to shut us down. Now, most of our special educational services that we provide are required by law and society probably would rather not have orphans on the street, so I feel some confidence in my current position at this employer, but I am also thinking of the day when the kids in the dormitory might have to live at something less than the currently mandated 68 degrees and that we might have to feed them something different than what they have to eat now. I wish I could say all our staff love the kids as much as loving parents would, but of course that isn’t the case. Still, 52 degrees or not, loving staff or not, I *know* that these kids can ONLY be better off at our facility than compared to the living situations they once were in even if we have to lower the heat.
House temperature is the LEAST of my clients’ problems past or present.
Stephen B.
Longview Farm, a program of The Home For Little Wanderers
Walpole, MA
I too am concerned with the topics of how gin, vodka and other alcohols will help us get through. I too grew up in an abusive family where the emotional/social/spiritual and physical got worse and worse. “We’re sorry. The alcohol made us do it.” Resources and human love became less and less. I stayed away from drinking. It was only my destruction that I postponed
I do agree with Orlav that alcohol makes excellent trading goods and even provides some protection. During the War between the States, operating a still kept at least one family from being burned out.
Noah, I don’t know where all these strong negative comments are coming from. Perhaps your blog or maybe it’s just the individual’s personal beliefs? It certainly has brought up some new thoughts and concerns re future survival. My view is like pus filled wounds, these thoughts/ideas need to be brought out, opened up and exposed. Our quality of life no matter how many resources is at risk!
Sharon really accomplished a lot with just one NYT interview! Helen
Dewey, I have nothing against staying in warm rooms with cool/cold bedrooms. Warm rooms become the center of home life. The closed off rooms are kept closed off til the outdoors warms up etc.
Bundling is an ancient human practice and it’s a smart energy efficient practice. Incest doesn’t mean just bundling to stay warm.
Hypothermia is a real insidious risk. Little children and impaired individuals need access to a warmer environment. At this point, I don’t know what that temperature is. Maybe we need to gather more information about clothing and how other cold cultures survive.
I’ve lived through a lot of tough times. Some actions work and some don’t. I’ve learned a lot. I certainly don’t expect everyone to live or play fair. My heart felt warning about drinking alcohol vs trading it still stands. Alcohol lowers your ability to think, deal with your emotions and act clearly. In some situations, you need all your wits about you.
My major point to other readers….we need to be prepared for more of these life events. Instead of attacking the messenger, look at the messages being sent.
Counseling and role playing facilitate real life problem solving. Having specific plans to put into action also helps. However, reality seldom follows a specific script. Helen
Sharon’s comments about how to live after you’ve had the heat cut off (to put the situtation in short hand) deal with the needs of the elderly, very young, etc. She’s not oblivious to them.
And there are a number of people who post on this blog who are making plans to take into account family members with special needs, or their own special needs, as we go into this uncertain future.
I fully expect susbtance abuse and domestice violence of all kinds to continue to rise as life becomes more stressful. So do a lot of people here. And we think about how we are going to handle this in our own families (which you can define as you like) and communities.
I’ve been accused of child neglect and abuse for not breast feeding, not having a natural childbirth (you can’t really love you children if you didn’t sweat them out, you know), for not buying them Barbies, for letting them eat meat at other peoples’ houses, for not having soda in the house, for not being married, for making them wear handmedown, for not letting them on the internet, for having a TV, and all I can say is that if people are worried that that is abuse, what do think of REAL abuse, or do they just not notice it becuase they are too busy looking for for people who aren’t parenting just like them?
And Noah, why is 55 or 52 too cold? To cold for what? To live, to be confortable?
MEA
Sharon, you’re right, it’s hard to make a defense against claims of child abuse. So, here’s my remedy. Please notice that advertising the limitations of your character and philosophy can lend itself to unfavorable interpretations. You might be a child-abusing lush of a megalomaniacal farmer or a kind mother with push-over sweetness who gets drunk on a teaspoon of gin. I’m favoring kind mother right now, but I hate drinking.
Sharon, on the subject of earning a living to support children, though, here’s my thought:
You keep an income no matter what, putting aside your lifestyle preferences and personal values. For example, if canning food on the weekday takes 5 hours, you could work for $15/hr that weekday, and you can 10 containers, would the equivalent of produce from a grocery (bought out-of-season) cost $75 to buy and prepare? If not, your carbon footprint reduction method compromised your children’s welfare.
Worry about the impending fall of modern civilization plus your ethics of self-sufficiency could be part of a self-serving loop of excusing yourself from earning. Compromise.
If you were truly a whore for the mainstream media, Sharon, you’d be on Oprah, and have a six-figure book deal. Instead, you’re complaining on your blog about media exposure, where you reveal personal details of your life, hurt your image, and hurt your financial future.
Dewey, dude, the third world is a crappy place to live in or live like. Yes, I currently live in a rental that is comfortably heated. Thanks.
Helen, thanks for the words of support, however, my history of being abused is basically limited to cheap landlords helping themselves at my expense, appropriate for this discussion where social justice issues are just smokescreens for being cheap. I understand being cheap, living frugal, and living poor, and know the differences, but I wouldn’t impose any of those on kids. It’s not fair to them. Better not to have any.
Take care,
-Noah
Noah,
As a non-American, I personally am very disturbed by your belief that Sharon is obliged to provide ‘standard American comforts’ to her American children, even if the price of those comforts are the deaths of non-American children. I’m sure you realize that in order to keep houses as warm in the winter and as cold in the summer as Americans are accustomed to, you have to (1) heat the planet (causing crop failure and hence starvation around the globe) and (2) fight resource wars which cause additional deaths from wounds, starvation, and disease around the globe. I am disturbed that you don’t think that this is a big enough issue to get people to cause themselves and their children a bit of discomfort (discomfort of the sort that human beings are perfectly capable of successfully adjusting to when given a chance). Because clearly, you’d rather have children die in poor countries than have children get used to lower temperatures in America.
Helen – It seemed to me like you were expressing suspicion of Sharon or “huddling”; it seems I misread you. Sorry about that!
Noah, on the other hand, I think I was correct in reading you as a wingnut. I have seen space heaters and bed warmers in developing countries also, but the place I mentioned was PARIS. If you think that Paris is “the third world” or “a crappy place to… live like,” you are just too ethnocentric to be helped. Dude. How on earth could you think that no country more frugal than our own offers an endurable lifestyle? Have you ever lowered yourself to visit a foreign country, or even to talk with foreigners about their lives?
Here’s a clue. You write: “if canning food on the weekday takes 5 hours, you could work for $15/hr that weekday, and you can 10 containers, would the equivalent of produce from a grocery (bought out-of-season) cost $75 to buy and prepare? If not, your carbon footprint reduction method compromised your children’s welfare.” You thereby equate “welfare” with family income (and spending), suggesting that a good parent should always grind out as many hours on the clock as possible to have more dough to spend, no matter how little TIME that leaves him/her to spend with the kids. To assume that kids are always better off with more products and conveniences, but less time relating to family, is to say that material things are more important than relationships. Assuming that Sharon’s children are not sociopaths, they are likely to feel differently.
Isis – Many supporters of turbocapitalism would rather have foreign kids die than American kids reduce their consumption -and would be proud of their stance – but I’ve argued with Sharon before about the usefulness of that line of reasoning when directed at teachable people. Yes, global warming may lead to resource wars and many deaths, but the connection between my neighbor’s putting up coal-powered electric Christmas lights, say, and some Bangladeshi kid starving sixty years from now is indirect. If I tell him that he’s personally “killing Bangladeshi children (who don’t exist yet),” he will tune it out – which is what I do when whacked over the head with similar rhetoric. I think it’s better to start with direct, and if possible local effects (“the coal industry pollutes your state”) or purely personal benefits (“how many hours of your life do you spend working a corporate job so you can buy corporate junk you don’t have time to play with?”).
People think I’m poor because I do wash on a washboard, don’t watch television, use candles and oil lamps, grind wheat, heat at 58, etc. I imagine if my kids still lived at home, I’d be consider an “abuser”… hahaha
Oh, and 52 degrees is NOT “too cold”. 52 is fine. People bundle up and go outside all the time when it’s 52 degrees and even cooler. If you can bundle up and go outside at 52 degrees, you can bundle up and stay inside at 52 just the same.
The snarky judgmental spendthrifts are going to wish they had a 52 degree home, line-dried clothes, and home-canned veggies when the economy falls apart and they are homeless and standing in the soup line.
Just a couple of points that I think Noah overlooked…
1. If it were so easy to go out and pick up a 15/hour job, there’d be so many fewer unemployment claims right now. I don’t know about where you all live, but in SW Ohio, 15/hour is really very decent pay and those jobs are hard to come by.
2. What Noah neglected to calculate into his figures would be the price of enrolling Sharon’s children in daycare/after school care, even for 5-6 hours a day. You’re looking at 100 dollars a week or more per child because most centers consider 5-6 hours a day full time care. That 75 dollar a day income would be spent on daycare fees before she even stepped foot out the door.
3. Added expenses such as fuel, transportation, wardrobe, etc. AND the fact Sharon wouldn’t be around to can delicious nutritious food for her darling boys.
You go Sharon. I’m a stay at home mom, I garden, freeze, can, preserve, line dry laundry, bake from scratch, raise chickens…I know what a contribution we homesteading moms make to both our family and our community. Noone would dare say I abuse my kids and anyone with an ounce of sense would say that about you. Wingnut, indeed.
Andrea, I didn’t say it was easy to get a job. However, Sharon and her husband have the skills and means to find jobs sufficient to support their children’s health, education, and opportunities through college. And, they could afford to superinsulate their farmhouse or buy warmer clothes for their kids or get a second woodstove, etc, etc, rather than serving whatever reasons there are for their home being an igloo while they depend on physical labor and luck (for their food and fuel). And rather than buy a bigger TV or faster computer!
Sharon, my response to Dewey in this comment would serve you better as a response to me than acting interested in what I have to say, although it works better when your blogging doesn’t chronically reveal embarrassing details about you.
Why don’t you kick me off your blog, and get a spot on Oprah after you round the corners off your lifestyle. That way, more people will learn from you and your kids won’t turn into penguins.
Take care,
-Noah
Hi Sharon,
I was thrilled at first, when I saw the article. I thought, wow, I know this lady. But I was also disappointed. I wanted to learn something and the article was weak.
But as a publicist, I think yours did you a disservice by not preparing the writer with more material about you, the book and the blog. The writer should have had a list of Common Questions as a prompt.
Don’t give up on MSM. Maybe a little media training would help. A few points – YOU need to have YOUR talking points before you go into the interview. You need to get your story out. Also, an interview isn’t a conversation, no matter how friendly the writer is. There are ways to turn questions around to make sure you get all your points out. Just watch politicians and their surrogates being interviewed. They don’t get that way without lots of practice.
Anyway, it was the NYT for goodness sakes! My clients would suggest I give my right arm to get them in there. Congratulations!
Noah,
I just thought I’d point something out that you may not realize. You stated: “However, Sharon and her husband have the skills and means to find jobs sufficient to support their children’s health, education, and opportunities through college.” I am going to strike the two words “through college,” since I do not care to open the can of worms that is labeled “all normal people must go to college.” So, now we have a currently true statement: “However, Sharon and her husband have the skills and means to find jobs sufficient to support their children’s health, education, and opportunities” How so? Sharon and Eric certainly have the skills and means (regardless of employer) to raise four wonderful boys, all the while, paying much closer attention to their health, education, and other opportunities than most American families. If I had parents involved with their children’s education half as much as Sharon and Eric are, my job would be dramatically different. You see, Noah, I teach in a public school. Many of my (middle class) students come to school hungry, without sufficient clothing for the weather (at least Sharon layers her children’s clothing when it’s cold out), without any moral compass (regardless of where it “points”), and without any understanding of their place in the community, society, country, or the world.
So, I should mention again that can of worms… First off, it is completely naive to expect that every child should attend college. Secondly, if everyone attended college, we would significantly reduce our skilled labor force, and have many “book smart” people out of work, because they lack the skills and experience to be a “skilled laborer,” regardless of their desire to obtain work. Additionally, where is all this money to pay for college for everyone going to come from? College costs more and more each year, often times the cost of attendance increases disproportionally more than the cost of living; that is if it costs 3% more to live this year than last, college tuition rate increases are often greater than 4% (percentages are simply for the sake of the argument, and are certainly not accurate).
I have two college degrees along with professional certification. Unless my children highly desire university preparation and are dedicated to their studies and goals, I do not expect them to attend college. Do not misinterpret that to read I don’t expect them to achieve their dreams, because I hope they do achieve their dreams – but my children’s dreams are not grounded in the formal economy, that is, they are not based on “what I wanna be when I grow up,” they are based on the truly good things in life – friends, family, relationships, compassion, citizenship, goodness, kindness, and faith.
So, back to the point I was originally aiming at; Noah, you “lost” your own argument for yourself.
Best of luck to you in all your future endeavors.
Mayrie
Sharon,
I have been engaged with media organizations like the NY Time for many years. I think you fared better than most. By bringing your practical wisdom back into the end of the article you clearly had the last word.
It is unfortunate that many media outlets feel they have to produce controversy.
Let’s continue to show them that there is another way.
Thomas
If I wanted, I could learn how to be a farmer in college, Mayrie. Any argument based on circumstances, without including possibilities for how to overcome those circumstances, can be an excuse for almost anything that is a helpless response to those circumstances. In this case, Sharon is not helpless, but she’s loaded with excuses, which she changes sometimes. She should go Oprah, I say, and can the worms.
–Noah
[...] Sharon Astyk, of Knox, is one of the main subjects, but she doesn’t sound happy about the way her family’s life was conveyed. [...]
Noah, I’m so loosing track…
I thought the problem was that Sharon keeps her house “too” cold, which distressed you because you were abused as an adult by a landlord who didn’t heat the place (or didn’t heat it to your liking) and that Sharon had made plans in case she and her husband lost their income from his teaching that took into account the likelihood of his finding a new job without having to move away from the land that could support them in a future (which I gather you do not feel is coming) where jobs and a lot of other things are hard to come by, along with a feeling that because Sharon gets less return per hour that she could net at a $15.00/hour job when she’s canning she harming her children my the simple loss of money.
Did I get that right?
Now you are saying that Sharon isn’t helpless to change the above , but because she has reasons not to, she is (and this is where I loose the thread completely is) _______. Could you please fill in the blank for me.
TIA
MEA
MEA, oh, you’re talking about Sharon and her kids now.
Well, Sharon’s reasons are self-serving, out-of-balance, harmful to her children, for not going Oprah. Forget that taking care of her children means giving up the more impressive ways of cutting costs, carbon, and guilt, and that she has to actually compromise, and use the financial means most immediately at her disposal, namely, her book, to earn money to pay for heat so her kids don’t turn into penguins.
Yes, the more hardcore abusive parents will give her flack, but those with less impressive environmental credentials will forgive that she keeps a warm house, and that her family’s per capita consumption doesn’t match that of a farmer’s family in Nepal living in a cow-dunged house. Life goes on.
Maybe she’ll donate some book earnings to actually helping people with less opportunities, instead of selfishly concentrating on reducing her guilt levels on a lower income.
MEA, Grandma Nancy, stop inviting me to make more of the same comments. Whatever it does for you, it makes Sharon’s family a circus, and reinforces the same point: Sharon’s ideology and extremism raise questions about how she raises her kids. Get over it. I’m not posting to aggrandize Sharon, a total stranger.
-Noah
Got it. You’re pissed because Sharon pratices what she preaches.
On her kids.
From Wikipedia:
An Internet troll, or simply troll in Internet slang, is someone who posts controversial and irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the intention of provoking other users into an emotional response or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion.
Can we stop feeding him now? Maybe he read the NYT piece and came over here looking to stir things up for his own amusement or satisfaction, employing logical fallacies and circular reasoning. He’s had his fun. Let’s move on.
Hey look: A really articulate response to the NYT article!
Hey, this really is a good response: it think it hits the core fear.
MEA (who thinks she needs to learn to spots trolls)
MEA, since when did someone need an objective proof that a house that is 52 degrees on average indoors is too cold?
Positive responders here “trolled” for Sharon to abuse her kids with deprivation.
Many internet groups focused on a way of life put out people who disagree with abusive practices that the groups normalize, including eating disorders and cultism. They provide self-serving rationalizations for their behavior, and maintain discipline with deprivation, isolation, and worse.
Sharon leads the charge here, without self-doubt, but with plenty of slip-slidey BS greased with gin, quite possibly imagining worse circumstances of hardship, post-apocalypse, with drunken fervor.
I imagine that, as her notoriety increases, her kids suffering will increase, and that they’ll experience worse deprivations as they grow older. At least with Oprah, she’s got fewer excuses for the worst deprivations, or, maybe she’ll give *all* the money away, and the irony of her kids’ suffering will be all the greater.
Or maybe she’s a really nice lady who needs help handling her image and keeping her tongue in check. Hm. Not for me to provide.
Bye.
“Can we stop feeding him now? Maybe he read the NYT piece and came over here looking to stir things up for his own amusement or satisfaction, employing logical fallacies and circular reasoning. He’s had his fun. Let’s move on.”
e4—yes, yes, yes!!!!! I don’t know about the rest of you, but I couldn’t agree more.