Ep. 49: Less Stuff, Less Stress — Sustainable Living with Kids

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (00:01.036)
What is the most important sustainable swap you can make if you want to raise eco conscious kids? It’s your mindset. It’s simple, but it’s not easy. And that’s what we’re going to talk about today. Welcome to Sustainable in the Suburbs, a podcast for the eco curious who want to live a greener life and are looking for a place to start. I’m your host, Sarah Robertson Barnes, a soccer mom with a station wagon and a passion for sustainable living. Each week I’ll bring you practical tips and honest conversations to help you waste less,

save money and make small doable shifts that actually fit your real life. Because sustainable living doesn’t have to be perfect to matter and you don’t have to do it all to make a difference. Hello and welcome to Sustainable in the Suburbs, the podcast where we start where we are, use what we have and live a little greener, one small shift at a time. My name is Sarah and I’m looking forward to spending time with you today. Before we get started,

Just a reminder that the show is now being released bi-weekly for the foreseeable future. So new episodes are released on the second and fourth Tuesday every month. So please make sure that you’re following the show wherever you are listening today so that you don’t miss an episode. I also want to say thank you to everyone who has left a rating and a review recently. They mean so much to me and they help new people find the show too. So for everything else,

blog posts and episode transcripts, the newsletter, you can find what you’re looking for in the show notes or head over to sustainable in the suburbs.com. So today I would like to return to a common theme here on sustainable in the suburbs, sustainable living with kids and what that actually looks like in real life. The messy bits, the emotional stuff, the mental load, the money we spend and the habits underneath all of it. Somewhere along the way we’ve

Normalize this idea that having kids just means constantly bringing more stuff into your home. That it’s simply just a part of modern parenting. Got more snacks, more clothes, more toys, more gear, more convenience, more everything coming into your home all the time. And not only is that seen as normal, it’s expected. And all of that stuff costs money. It adds up really quickly, especially because kids are growing.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (02:23.086)
and their needs are constantly changing. But it’s not just the financial cost, it’s also the mental load that comes along with it. Keeping track of everything, replacing things, organizing things, cleaning things, making decisions about what to buy and from where. It’s a lot to hold and most parents are already stretched pretty thin. So when you’re exhausted and overwhelmed and just trying to get through the day, it makes complete sense that we reach for what’s easiest.

package snacks, the takeout, the one-click order, because it solves the problem quickly and lets us just move on. That convenience is there for reason. It’s built in. But over time, all of that stuff does create more to manage, more clutter, more decisions, more waste, and of course, more stress. So when we start talking about sustainable living with kids, it can feel like one more layer of shoulds being added on top of all of that.

Again, more work, more planning, more rules, more things to think about. And for a lot of families, it just feels unrealistic from the jump. But what if the opposite is true? What if raising eco-conscious kids isn’t about doing more, but actually doing less? Less stuff coming into your home, less waste, less spending, fewer decisions, fewer systems to manage, and over time, less stress.

Because what’s normal in your house is what’s normal for your kids. So in reality, raising environmentally aware kids often comes down to normalizing habits at home. Kids grow up assuming this is simply how life works. They don’t come into the world expecting brand new everything or on-demand consumption. They learn that. And they learn it from us, from what we buy and what we prioritize, what we talk about and what we accept as just a part of everyday life.

So when I talk about this today, I’m not talking about creating a perfectly zero waste household because there is no such thing. Instead, let’s think about raising kids who notice their impact, who think about their choices, and who begin to understand in age-appropriate ways that what they do can have positive and negative effects on the world around them. And no matter what, as parents,

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (04:47.025)
We’re helping them build the scaffolding for the habits that they will take into adulthood. And those habits come from how they are taught to live in the world and in our homes and how they’re taught to think about it. So as you know, I have two kids, they’re teens, they’re 13 and 14 now. And we’ve been doing this in some form since they were born. But what that looks like has changed over time. Our budget has changed, our circumstances have changed, they’ve changed.

and what’s available around us has changed as well. And that’s okay because the only constant in parenting is change. The way this looks in your home is going to shift as your kids grow and that’s normal. It gives you the opportunity to come back to it and sit down with your family to reassess and figure out what makes sense for you at this stage of life. And that’s what I really want to talk about today.

A big part of parenting, maybe the whole point, is teaching our kids how to move through the world. We teach them how to speak to people and how to cross the street, how to treat others, how to take care of themselves and their things. And a lot of our habits around consumption get passed down in the exact same way. Kids are constantly watching us and what we buy, what we value, what we repair, what we replace, and what we treat as disposable. So of course, things like

yogurt tubes and granola bars and birthday gifts and fast fashion, all of that starts to feel normal too. Kids are not asking for those things in a vacuum. They’re growing up in a culture that constantly tells them that more is better, newer is better, faster is better. And then if those messages get reinforced at home, often without us realizing it, we’ve created a bit of a problem. But that means we can also normalize something different.

we can make things like bringing reusables normal. Buying secondhand first is just normal. Using what you already have, repairing something instead of replacing it, or just not buying stuff in the first place can be normal too. It’s when that becomes part of your day-to-day life, it just doesn’t feel like a huge overhaul. It just feels like how your house works. And I think that’s the part that gets missed sometimes.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (07:10.107)
that this isn’t about introducing a whole new set of rules or overhauling everything in your house overnight. It’s about paying attention to what you already have, what already exists in your home, and then deciding over time what you want to keep and what you don’t. Because you set the expectations for your children. And that’s not meant to feel heavy. I think it can be really freeing because it also means that you can reset those expectations.

You can decide starting today, some things are going to look a little different. Maybe it’s something as simple as not buying the individual yogurt cups anymore and switching to the big tub and portioning it out into a little reusable container for lunches. And then that just becomes the new normal. But when you pair that with the why, even in really simple age appropriate ways, that’s where the shift actually sticks with everybody. Not because we have to save the planet.

but because you’re helping your kids understand the impact of our choices. What goes into making the things that we buy and what happens when we’re done with them? What kind of world are we participating in and what kind of world do we want to live in in the future? That’s the part that turns this work from sustainable swaps into a mindset.

The best way to raise eco-minded kids is to make them a part of it. Kids are more invested in changes that they helped create because this planet is their home too. And there’s a quote that I come back to all the time and it’s why I keep doing this. And it’s this, we do not inherit the earth from our ancestors. We borrow it from our children. And when you look at it that way, it shifts things a lot. It can’t just be something that happens around them or to them.

where things quietly change or it suddenly becomes, we don’t do that anymore without any context. The why matters, it really does. So you can change where you buy and you can swap all the things, but if they don’t notice or they don’t understand why those changes are happening, then nothing really shifts. It just becomes a different version of the same thing. So instead of doing all of the swaps behind the scenes, you bring them into it and

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (09:30.885)
that can look like starting with a family meeting. But really, it’s just a conversation. It’s not a lecture. It’s just a chance to sit down together and talk. And not just as a one-time thing, it’s something you can come back to again and again as your children grow. You can start by asking them what they already know. What are they learning at school? What have they heard about climate change? What do they notice around them in your neighborhood or in your home?

What are their worries? What bothers them about waste or pollution? Because kids notice more than we think. They notice everything. They’re hearing things at school from their peers, from the news they overhear in the car, and the conversations that we’re having with other adults around them. They’re always taking it in and trying to make sense of it. I think that’s a really good place to start. So from there, you can ask, so what are some things we can do to help? What are some things we could do at home?

And what are we already doing? Because they are already helping. They’re probably turning off the tap when they brush their teeth and recycling, using what they already have. Those small things matter. Remember, you’re not starting from scratch. You’re building on something that already exists in some form. And then maybe you can choose one or two things to try together, like packing a litterless lunch, paying more attention to food waste in your home, shopping secondhand first for toys.

or doing a litter cleanup together. It doesn’t have to be big. It’s just a starting point or a restarting point, and you can begin again at any time. And from there, you build it together as a family in a way that actually makes sense for your life.

Okay, so where do you start? What do you actually do? And this is where it’s really important to remember you don’t need to change everything and certainly not all at once. Again, we’re building habits over time so that they slowly become part of your everyday family life. So instead of trying to reinvent yourself overnight, start by looking at the places where these questions are already showing up naturally in your family life.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (11:44.899)
especially in the areas where your kids already have some input and agency and ideas of their own. So this is things like school lunches and snacks, their clothes, birthdays, gifts, food waste, what happens when they don’t finish for dinner, your everyday shopping habits and your household routines. These are areas where small shifts really add up over time and they’re part of your everyday family life.

Now you don’t have to figure this all out from scratch and I’m not going to list off a ton of tips for you while you’re listening, cleaning your kitchen or out for a walk. But I do have full episodes and blog posts that go deeper into all of these areas. So packing a zero waste lunch, zero waste birthday parties, how to shop secondhand, how to mitigate food waste with your kids, all of that. So if any of those stand out to you, they’re a really good place to go next and explore a bit more.

And I will link a bunch of those for you in the show notes. It’s also really important to take a moment and recognize what you are already doing because you are doing things. There are habits that you already have in place and choices you’re already making that give you a foundation to build from. You’re not starting from zero. You’re just starting one place to take the next step and building from there.

really persistent myth when it comes to sustainable living, especially with kids, is that it is more expensive. That it means buying all new products and adding more work to your plate and completely changing the way your household functions when you are already exhausted. And I understand where that comes from because there are absolutely products out there that are marketed that way. It can feel like you need the right containers, the right swaps.

or some perfectly organized home with low waste setups before you can even begin. And that is not what real life looks like. For most families, I think it ends up being the opposite actually. It ends up being fewer convenience purchases, fewer disposable items, fewer things coming into your home that you then have to store and clean and organize and manage and eventually figure out how to get rid of. Over time, that adds up. Financially, yes.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (13:59.498)
but also in terms of your mental load, there’s just less to think about. Of course, that doesn’t mean that you never buy anything. There are a few things that can make a difference. Having some basic reusables for lunches, for example, really change how often you’re buying disposables or packaged items going forward. So my oldest is currently in high school and still rocking the same stainless steel lunch containers that I paid for in junior kindergarten.

So that investment has more than paid for itself over time. So the bigger shift is in buying less overall, not just replacing everything you own with a more eco version of it. I think that’s just the crux of it. It’s just simply buying less. And those are the conversations about where wants versus needs start to come in. And honestly, that’s important whether you’re thinking about sustainability or not. That’s just parenting.

learning how to pause before purchasing something and asking, do we actually need this? Can we afford this? Talking through those decisions together. And that’s a skill that your kids will carry forward with them far beyond any eco swap you make at home. And when you’re not constantly bringing more stuff into your home, it creates space for other things. You have more time together because you’re not managing as much. You can spend more time outside.

More time doing those simple everyday things, playing a board game, going to the library, going to a community event, doing something that doesn’t revolve around shopping. Those things start to take up a bit more space and the stuff starts to take up a bit less. And for a lot of families, that ends up simplifying things in a way they weren’t expected when they first started thinking about this.

So this is what it starts to look like as your kids grow, because these habits and the conversations grow with them too. When our kids are little, it’s really about curiosity and noticing. This is where you’ll be prioritizing time outside, building that reciprocal relationship with nature, and letting them experience it in a hands-on way. They’ll notice litter when you’re out for a walk. They’ll ask why we recycle our compost. They learn where food comes from.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (16:17.532)
and helping in small, tangible ways. They can choose their snacks at the bulk store, portioning things out into their little containers, helping to pack their lunches, and so on. So I have a clean canteen that, again, my child has had since he was very, very small. And I’ll give you an example of that because it’s such a clear-cut illustration of how these habits can also grow with your kids. So originally, it started out as a sippy cup because it had a lid that was a sippy cup.

As he went into elementary school, it became a spout bottle. And now we just have a screw on stainless steel thing, but it’s the same container. The habit stays the same, but the container itself has evolved as he does. And I think that’s really the point is to find ways that these habits can grow with your kids. Then as they move into those tween years, you’ll start to see a shift into more systems thinking.

So that’s where the why really starts to click in a deeper way. They’re noticing packaging more, they’re thinking more about fast fashion and starting to understand food systems, where things come from, that there’s labor involved. What happens with food? Like how did it get to my house and where does it go when it leaves? They’re connecting waste to an environmental impact that’s more concrete.

And that’s where those earlier conversations really matter because now they have something to build on. And that’s where you also will start to realize that your influence as a parent is shifting a little bit too. When kids are younger, the family is a primary influence. And then the school becomes the bigger influence, then peers and social media and marketing and culture more broadly. Because our kids don’t grow up in isolation and that’s important to remember too. So by the time they’re teenagers, the conversation expands again.

This is where you start to see more awareness around labor behind clothing production and food systems. They become aware of environmental justice and marketing and consumer culture and their own personal spending choices with money that they’ve earned. This is where sustainability will become part of responsible citizenship and how they see their role in the world.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (18:33.276)
This is where I’m at right now. And honestly, this is where some really interesting conversations are starting to happen because teenagers are already thinking about their identity and values and the kind of people they want to grow up to be. So conversations about marketing and consumer culture, environmental justice, labor and spending choices start to feel much more real and much more personal to their lives.

It’s also where it can be really helpful to support their interests and their sense of purpose. So letting what they care about guide how they engage with these issues. So I talked about this in the climate Venn diagram episode, and it’s something that I come back to often because it can give us all a way to connect with what we care about and how we want to show up in the world. So if you’re looking for a place to start those deeper conversations, the episode that I did with Brittany Johnson is a really good one to go back to.

especially around environmental justice and how everything is connected. And I’ll link that one for you in the show notes. The key thing here is that this conversation doesn’t happen once. They build and they deepen. And over the years, my kids have absolutely asked why we do certain things differently. And my answer has always been that all families do things differently, whether it’s food or celebrations, religion, spending habits, routines.

Every family has different values and priorities and that’s okay. We learn from each other. We borrow ideas and we fold things into our own lives where they make sense. And that’s part of building community too. On the flip side, I never wanted my kids to feel othered because of any of this either. So if there’s a goody bag at a birthday party, you can take the goody bag. The goal is never to make them feel separate from everyone else, just to build awareness and thoughtfulness while still just being kids.

And over time, these stop feeling like, quote, sustainability habits and just become part of how your kids move through the world. Bringing your reusable is normal. Thinking about where you’re going to throw this away is normal. Choosing secondhand first is normal. And valuing experiences over constant consumption is normal. Because ultimately, we’re raising responsible citizens. We’re raising the next generation of stewards who are borrowing the earth from their children, too.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (21:01.162)
And if you’re listening to this and thinking, well, my kids are older now, or I wish I’d started this when they were little, I really want to say that it’s never too late to begin. A lot of us started learning about this stuff as adults ourselves. And again, I have another quote I think about all the time, which is the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. And the second best time is today. You don’t need to go backwards. You just need to start where you already are.

So maybe that looks like having a conversation about consumption with your teenagers, or maybe it’s talking more openly about money and values and how you make spending decisions as a family. Maybe it’s exploring a secondhand shop together or involving your older kids in discussions about what we buy and why. The goal here is awareness, thoughtfulness, and raising responsible citizens who understand that their choices matter.

and they are a part of something bigger than themselves. Raising environmentally aware kids isn’t about doing more or buying more or creating some perfect low-waste life. Really, it’s just about less. Less noise, less spending, less waste. It’s about what your kids see every day and what feels normal to them and what they carry forward.

Because when sustainability is woven into everyday family life in small, steady ways, those habits grow with them and they carry them into adulthood. And honestly, I think that may be one of the most powerful forms of climate action we have. So if you’re wondering where to begin, start with a conversation. Pick one area of your life, whatever feels easiest and most manageable, and begin there. You can start today. And for this week’s One Small Shift,

have a family meeting, start the conversation, and ask your kids what they notice, what they care about, and what ideas they have. You might just be surprised by the answers. As always, you can find links to everything I’ve mentioned today down in the show notes, or I have a blog post about pretty much everything over at sustainableinthesuburbs.com. You can also sign up for the newsletter where I share more ideas, reflections, and things to keep in mind as you’re trying to live a little greener.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (23:21.47)
in your own life. And if this episode resonated with you, I would love it if you shared it on social media or left a rating and review wherever you’re listening. Until next time, start where you are, use what you have, and live a little greener.

Thanks for tuning in to Sustainable in the Suburbs. Every small step adds up and I’m so glad we’re doing this together. If you enjoyed this episode, please make sure to follow the show, share it with a friend and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. You can find me at sustainableinthesuburbs.com or at Sarah Robertson Barnes on all the things. Until next time, start where you are, use what you have and live a little greener. This podcast is produced, mixed and edited by Cardinal Studio.

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