In addition to my green magazines, I get a handful of parenting magazines that a new parent may enjoy as a stocking stuffer holiday gift. Some are consistently great, some are consistently okay, and one is consistently poor, but I wanted to review them all. We got several for free as gifts or when we shopped at a certain store or catalog. While only one has a green bent to it, most have some articles each month about being eco-conscious or using found items for crafts, so I don’t totally rule them out as consumerist.
We received Parents magazine as a gift from a former coworker and it has been a good one. The magazines offers tips and advice for several different age ranges. They seem to be very current in their research when they talk about different dangerous chemicals, such as BPA, and they do good toys and gear reviews. They also have a recall page to alert parents to such events, and they don’t seem to be too product driven. It’s not published with a green focus, but they do have articles or product reviews each month that are for the eco-friendly parents. The website is easily searchable and has a great newsletter to sign up for to receive more craft ideas and Ages and Stages, which is their developmental milestones newsletter for each week of your child’s life. It’s definitely one that I will renew. The deal that they have going now is insane at 3 years worth of issues for only $12.
Hands down, this is the best family crafts and activities magazine that we get. It has a ton of great ideas in every issue, many of which use found materials or recycle things like shoeboxes or milk jugs. We got our first year free since we ordered from One Step Ahead. The website has a ton of crafts and activities to choose from too, and you can pin the activities from there in order to keep your paper clutter to a minimum. I will definitely be renewing this when its time is due! There is a digital edition available for the iPad and the special that they are running now is 10 issues for $12. This is money well spent for the crafty families in your life.
I just started getting Kiwi magazine, so I can’t speak to its consistency, but I can say that I was very happy with the first issue. Kiwi is a green-focused family magazine that aims to educate folks about living naturally and organically. I stumbled across it because Vickie Howell has done some craft articles for them. The crafts are cute, the recipes are much more adventurous than the other magazines, and they offer good challenges to follow online like cloth diapering and being TV free. It’s a nice find for me and I look forward to getting more issues. There is a digital edition available, and you can purchase back digital issues as well. The current regular subscription is going for 6 issues for $11.95, to which you can add the digital edition for $3 more, and the digital only edition is $9.95.
Yeah, this one has not been good…at all. Filled with ads and articles that are not well written or informative, this magazine seems to be catering to those who can’t wait to get the next new thing because everyone else has it or wants to do things for their kids so that they are assured a spot in the popular crowd. It just oozes that vibe, which isn’t one that we project here at our house. It’s a magazine that tries too hard to be liked, and I just don’t like it. Luckily, it came for free since I shopped at Motherhood Maternity during my pregnancy. So, if you shop there and they ask you if you would like the free subscription either in paper or on your iPad, say no.
Family Circle has a slow cookers suppers section each month. That might be all that I can say that is positive about this one. It is certainly not an eco-conscious magazine, as ads are very “Keep Up with the Joneses” and “Rat Race” driven and the articles tend to be on the other end of the spectrum of attachment parenting. They tend to be more about high tech gadgets and gizmos than homemade crafts and quality time with your family. Also, they seem to be favoring black page backgrounds, which I find distracting and confusing with the ads. This was part of what led me to cancel my Rachael Ray subscription. I was very disappointed with this one. Once the subscription runs out on this one, it won’t be returning to this house.
This is a sister publication to Parents magazine, but it is focused on the infant and toddler years. It’s been okay, and has had some good info. But, it is neither as consistent in quality as Parents nor does it arrive consistently. I signed up for a free subscription, which is apparently 12 issues, but that detail is a little fuzzy on the webpage. I think only 2 have arrived in the last year. I signed up again, so we’ll see if it shows up. Not one that I would pay for at first, but if it picks up in its quality, maybe I will.
So, that’s my take on the parenting magazines that I get. I’m curious to know if anyone else has some good parenting magazine suggestions. Please feel free to leave a comment below or on the Facebook page. Remember, you can go green with your subscription by sharing it with a friend or family member, recycling your paper edition when finished, getting digital to start or seeing if your pediatrician’s office would like a copy for their offices once you snip off the address label.
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