by Chris Taylor

I don’t know, maybe my standards are too low. Some days, I just want to get through the day without any major catastrophe or any permanent damage to my child. I AM a part-time, stay-at-home Dad.

My wife and I each work three 12-hour days at our respective places of work, and then we will usually put in a couple of hours from home, me especially. That enables us to each be home with our 15-month old daughter two days a week, and my mother watches our daughter on the day we both work. Our schedule does not come without its challenges and sacrifices, but for us, for now, it works well and we feel incredibly fortunate to be able to have that choice.

“Daddy Days” are Thursday and Friday, which means after working three very long days, I am rewarded first thing Thursday morning with the exuberance of my daughter who knows of no such thing as a day “off.”  That’s what many people refer to the days I am not in the office – Chris’ “days off.  I love that.

I especially love it when my wife goes away from Friday through Sunday one weekend a month for her duty in the Coast Guard Reserve. Three long days at the office, followed by four long days as a “geographically single Dad.”  Try waking up at 5:15 am on Monday morning after that routine so that you can get an early start to your next three 12-hour days at work. Then throw in four rental properties that I manage, repairs around the house, bills, finances, family, a wife who is seven months pregnant (we’re having a boy this time), and everything else life has to offer and it’s an awful lot of balls to juggle.

Hey, it is what it is. Everyone has their challenges, everyone I know with kids is working their butts off, and considering the challenges that many people have, I feel like the luckiest man on Earth. Just don’t ask me to do a whole lot more, are you feeling me?

So here comes all the “environmentalists” wanting me to do all of this “green” stuff. Great. That’s just what I need. I know, I know. Don’t you care about the environment? Well, sure. Don’t you want to save the Earth so that your daughter and your daughter’s daughter will be able to live in a safe, beautiful, functioning world. Well, sure. Don’t you think you think that it’s important enough that you could possibly take a little of your precious time and a little of your precious money to help save the Planet. Well, sure.

We also need to make our health and fitness a priority. Spending time with family and friends is a priority. Eating well is a priority. Educating myself and my child is a priority. Maintaining my spiritual health is a priority. Helping my fellow man is a priority. Oh, and by the way, being able to pay my mortgage is a priority. It ALL is important, but who has the time and the money to be able to make everything a priority? Angelina Jolie, maybe?

How are we, those of us in the real world, supposed to pull it all off? Isn’t it enough to be a relatively good husband, a relatively good father, and a relatively good worker and provider?

Maybe. I don’t know. I certainly don’t have all the answers. But I think we can try. There seem to be more and more things we can do to help the environment that don’t require a whole lot of time and money. And like many other priorities of life, if we can find ways to incorporate these things into our normal activities of daily life, the easier it will be to do while still maintaining our collective sanity.

How to do that, exactly, I don’t know. I’m no expert at this stuff. I’ve been a father for less than two years and I haven’t found that tome of knowledge that tells us how we are supposed to do all of this. What I do know is that it helps to hear what other people are doing. It seems that women have this one already figured out and men may be behind a bit on helping each other succeed in anything other than sports and our professional lives.

So let’s help each other out here. I’ve got a few little things I’ve done in my life and around my house that I’ll share in my next post. In the meantime, I would love to hear from other dads about what they are doing to become more environmentally responsible, while they manage their jobs, their marriages, their roles as Daddy, and all the other priorities we have in life.

Chris Taylor is an OrganicGreenDaddy reader who wrote in to share what he knows about being a “green daddy.”  If you have an idea for a post, contact us by clicking here!