My Toxic Baby

So we went to see this film My Toxic Baby by Min Sook Lee tonight at the Centre for Social Innovation.

The film chronicles the director's search for trying to find sustainable alternatives and environmentally friendly options for raising her newborn daughter.

For instance, it talks about how wasteful diapers are and spends a lot of time delving into elimination communication techniques (ie strategies for learning to communicate with your infant about when they need to go to the bathroom so you can take them to the toilet). This was pretty intruiging.

However, the movie also spent a lot of time talking about the environmental hazards that are all around us (including lead paint) and those we choose to expose our children to (e.g. immunizations). This is where Min Sook Lee lost me. She seemed to be equating the two exposures and portrayed them both as harmful. In the Q&A following the screening, she talked about how she purposefully did not interview or engage with scientists or experts. Instead, she wanted to draw on the experiences of parents. Unfortunately, in doing so, I think she may have left some dangerous misunderstandings among her audience.

Overall, I am not sure I would recommend this film.