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Mother knows best: ‘Crunchy Moms’ take parenting back to its roots

By Katherine Mansfield newsroom@heraldstandard.Com 10 min read
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Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter

Sunny Wonsettler, center, looks for cucumbers ripe for picking with her three sons, Griffin, Knox and Forrest.

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Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter

Sunny Wonsettler and her three sons Griffin, Forrest and Knox plop down on the ground to draw during their morning nature walk. Like all Crunchy Moms, Wonsettler schedules lots of active, outdoor playtime for her children.

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Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter

Forrest Wonsettler, 6, and his little brother Griffin, 2, race up the road during morning playtime. The boys and their brother Knox are being brought up “crunchy” by their parents Sunny and Cliff, who encourage active play and outdoor time over screen time.

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Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter

Griffin Wonsettler, 2, looks for fresh produce ripe for picking in the family garden with his siblings and mom Sunny. The Wonsettlers are currently building a home and plan to recycle rain to water an expanded garden and raise chickens on the land.

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Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter

Many Crunchy Moms forego plastic toys for wooden ones, like Griffin Wonsettler’s race car toy. The Wonsettlers have a mix of “crunchy” and mainstream toys, and engage in lots of active play every day.

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Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter

Sunny Wonsettler encourages her children to pursue their passions. Her middle son, Knox, loves building and spends hours putting together complex Lego sets at the family’s kitchen island.

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Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter

Tucker Stanley is being brought up “crunchy.” Most of the time he wears cloth diapers, which his mother Amanda Strnisha said works just like a regular diaper, only you wash it twice.

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Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter

Amanda Strnisha encourages her girls to “free range” play, and Willow, Brynn and Harper spend hours picking berries, playing imagination and running around outdoors. The girls also help with daily chores, including feeding and watering chickens and their pets – a dog and guinea pig – and cleaning up their toys on inside days.

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Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter

Brynn Strnisha, 10, picks fresh produce in the family’s garden. Growing fruits and vegetables and raising chickens are staples of the Crunchy Mom movement.

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Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter

Brynn Strnisha, 10, holds the family’s hen Honey while her sisters Willow Stanley, left, and Harper Strnisha race around her. The girls feed and gather eggs from the family’s seven chickens and help their mother, Amanda, grow produce in the gardens.

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Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter

Honey the hen takes flight from Brynn Strnisha’s arm.

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Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter

Harper Strnisha, 4, peeks into the chicken coop while her sister Willow Stanley, 2, looks on.

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Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter

Jennifer Campbell and her son Odin, 2, spend a lot of time splashing in Odin’s water table. The duo also enjoys camping and kayaking, something unusual for most toddlers but quite common among Crunchy Kids.

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Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter

Jennifer Campbell introduced her son, Odin, to regular foods at about 4 months old. She credits the young introduction to things like avocado and peanut butter to Odin’s lack of allergies and willingness to try new things.

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Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter

Odin Campbell, 2, gets a lot of active play outside and in, and loves tumbling about in his DIY ball pit. The youngster is growing up Crunchy with his mom, Jennifer, who encourages imaginative play.

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Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter

While his mother Jennifer Campbell works from home, Odin Campbell, 2, completes stations at his very own desk in the office. While the Crunchy Kid sometimes watches educational shows on a tablet, he spends most days playing with sensory toys and gets outside every day.

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Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter

Odin Campbell, 2, reads to his mom, Jennifer, on the couch in their McDonald home. Most Crunchy Moms home-school their kids, but Campbell hasn’t yet decided if Odin will attend public school (he goes to day care) or stay at home with her.

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Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter

Odin Campbell loves adding glitter and foam pieces to his putty. His mother, Jennifer, created several sensory toy bins that double as fun and education for her 2-year-old.

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Courtesy of Lori Klivanick

Lori Klivanick, center, and her husband, Craig, pose in front of the family’s garden with their children Kai, 10, left, and Reese, 8. What the Klivanicks don’t grow, they buy organic, and the family uses natural cleaning products at home.

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Courtesy of Lori Klivanick

Kai and Reese Klivanick pick strawberries in the family’s garden. The kids are home-schooled, and the family is refurbishing an RV so they can participate in Road School in the near future.

A quick Google search of “Crunchy Moms” will lead you down a rabbit hole of home births and cloth diapers, organic diets and free-range children.

“Not a lot of people look at it as practical parenting,” said Jennifer Campbell, who lives in McDonald with son Odin, 2. “There are different ways of living. You don’t always have to follow what media and society tells you to do. As a single mom, I just find what works for our family and go with that.”

What works for Crunchy Moms often strikes mainstream mothers as over the top. Take, for instance, co-sleeping. Crunchy Moms are infamous for sharing a bed with their children from infancy until it feels right for the child to move into his or her own bed.

“It wasn’t something that I was going to do. It just kind of happened,” said Campbell, who still shares a bed with Odin. “I find it more comfortable to sleep next to my baby and knowing he’s safe. He’s only going to be little for a short time. That’s something that’s difficult for my family to understand.”

Like Campbell, Lori Kilvanick didn’t plan on being “co-sleep crunchy.” Kilvanick and her husband, Craig, are happily married, but enjoy crawling into their own beds at night. When the Peters Township couple was expecting their son Kai, now 10, Kilvanick decorated the perfect nursery.

“My dad laughs because we never used the crib,” Kilvanick said. “I really had intentions of using the crib. After I brought my son home, I just listened to myself and it made more sense for him to just be there in bed. I was able to meet his needs quicker, I was able to get back to sleep quicker.”

Both Kai and Kilvanick’s daughter Reese, 8, slept with their parents until the kids turned 4.

“I think any time someone does something that is not considered ‘normal,’ is looked at as, ‘What are they doing?'” Kilvanick said. “The way you sleep in your home doesn’t have to look a certain way.”

Sometimes, the “crunchy” lifestyle looks less like 21st century living and more like something straight out of Little House on the Prairie: Crunchy Moms are big on homesteading.

“We can pick our dinner out of the garden and bring it in and cook it together,” Kilvanick said proudly.

The Kilvanicks have three gardens, a strawberry field, apple and peach trees. When the family isn’t making farm-to-table meals from the backyard, Kilvanick opts for organic food at the grocery store and shops local farmers markets as often as possible.

“I just think that if you do the research, it’s there. Chemicals and glyphosate, it’s not good for you. GMOs are not good for you. I just think eating organic as much as you can – because there are limitations for every family – it’s really healthy and natural to eat that way,” she said.

Campbell loves tending produce and herbs in the family’s back porch garden. Odin has his own gardening set and is excited when seeds sprout into basil, tomatoes and other veggies and herbs.

Amanda Strnisha, who is raising four children with her husband, Cody Stanley, in Bentleyville, has canned most of her adult life, and grew up gardening alongside her own, less “crunchy” mother.

Last year, the Strnishas purchased seven egg-laying chickens – her girls love those animals and enjoy gathering eggs. The family is considering buying goats for milk within the next couple of years.

“The goal is to be completely self-sufficient, to have everything that we need, our own food sources,” she said. “Next year, we’re going to do some meat chickens. I think being able to provide for yourself is super important. It just makes you very proud of yourself, being able to do it on your own and not have to depend on others.”

And these days, with food shortages and inflation, it’s practical.

“We just want to be able to know that if anything happens, they’re fed,” said Strnisha, who makes homemade jams and apple butter.

Growing produce and caring for animals is a good learning opportunity, too, said Sunny Wonsettler, who lives in Scenery Hill with her husband, Cliff, and their three boys – Forrest, 8, Knox, 6, and Griffin, 2. (They were expecting a daughter later in July, when this interview was conducted.)

Wonsettler’s boys understand how food gets in the fridge, because they help pick produce. They also help their grandfather on his farm, baling hay for beef cattle and bottle-feeding lambs. The boys get attached to the sheep, Wonsettler said, and have witnessed the deaths of their favorite lambs.

“I want the boys to know the circle of life,” Wonsettler said. “I think it’s important for them to know the realities of life, not in a harsh way but, you know, this is just how life is. When you’re eating meat, an animal had to actually die for you to eat that. And we don’t waste that. We’re not wasting this animal’s life because you don’t like it.”

Crunchy Moms advocate experiences over screen time, often limiting their children’s exposure to technology.

“Some days we do screen times, some days I’m like, not today. Today, go use your imagination,” said Strnisha, who encourages her daughters to “free range” and imaginative play. “Sometimes we’ll have a day where I’m like, OK, we’re just going to be outside today. We’ll hook up the water table, we’ll hook up the splash pad and you guys are outside.”

Campbell’s son loves his water table, too.

“He’s really into water and swimming. I taught him how to kayak last summer,” said Campbell, adding the duo recently spent four days camping at a state park. “(People say) you’re going to take your 2-year-old camping and kayaking? What is wrong with you? It’s fine, he loves doing it. It gives him the life skills he needs.”

When Odin isn’t gardening, adventuring or digging in his sandbox, he plays with sensory toys (Crunchy Moms choose educational toys over plastic and electronic ones).

“He’s really into puzzles. He’s always reconstructing and building things,” Campbell said. “We have a bin with slime, putty and foam pieces that we put in the putty, or glitter. We don’t watch a lot of TV, but I do allow him to watch his tablet sometimes.”

The shows Odin watches are, of course, educational. Same with the Wonsettler boys.

“I let them watch TV, but for me, phones and YouTube, I do not ever let them have. They turn into zombies,” said Wonsettler.

Instead of watching television, Wonsettler encourages her sons to build forts with plush toys called Nuggets and build Legos, or ride bikes outside. The boys love jumping in the creek that runs through the farm and running through the woods.

“They’re just active, busy kids,” said Wonsettler. “They have a ton of energy, so playtime is just getting them outside no matter what the weather is like.”

Last year, the Kilvanicks started a 1,000 Hour Challenge. They set a goal to spend 1,000 hours each year outside.

“That’s about an average of three hours a day throughout the year,” said Kilvanick, who tracks the family’s hours on an app. So far this year, the family has logged 500 hours in nature.

“We love to go camping, we like to go on hikes. We do have a kayak and we love biking,” Kilvanick said. “My kids love to swim. We do have one of those pop-up pools. We do go to lakes and we’ll swim in natural waters.”

Because her kids are homeschooled – another “crunchy” characteristic – school usually wraps around noon.

“That’s when we really take the time to do our 1,000 hours outside,” Kilvanick said. “We really have the freedom to do what we want in the afternoon.”

Betsy Moore, of Washington, said her daughters Madilyn, 12, and Juliana, 9, have tablets, but would rather spend an afternoon baking than sitting in front of the television. Moore said in today’s world, being totally screen-free is difficult.

“They have Kindles that they use every once in a while,” she said. “Boredom, I think, is OK. A lot of parents don’t want their kids to ever be bored. It’s just constant stimulation. That’s when the creativity happens, if you let your kids be bored. They grab books, they’ll get the Legos out. They’re pretty good at entertaining themselves.”

Though the Moore girls do have tablets, there’s an electronic device that is noticeably absent in the household.

“I don’t use a microwave,” said Moore, who went to school for holistic nutrition.

What often gets overlooked about the Crunchy Mom philosophy (social media both mocks and lauds the lifestyle) is the grace granola mamas have with themselves and other mothers.

“It’s all about balance, really. I try not to stress myself out,” said Strnisha. “We’re not completely off-grid. It’s not an all-or- nothing thing. If something works out, it works out. If it doesn’t, that’s fine. You just do what you’re comfortable with.”

Strnisha prefers her kids eat clean, but she’s human. Her children eat processed foods – not regularly, but sometimes. Odin Campbell, the Kilvanick kids, the Moore girls and the Wonsettler boys also enjoy bowls of cereal and other freezer food, on occasion.

“I have an 80-20 rule: 80% of the things we can control, we’ll control. And then 20% of the things are going to go by the wayside,” said Wonsettler. “So, like, we have chicken nuggets. Or they go to school and they’re exposed to whatever is in their school. You could drive yourself crazy trying to control everything, and you’re never going to be able to. The less that you’re exposing yourself to intentionally, the rest is inevitably going to happen.”

Though Crunchy Moms do their best to limit exposure to chemicals, opting for natural cleaning products and soaps and everything organic, Kilvanick said her family doesn’t live in fear.

“You can’t avoid chemicals or people,” she said. “We don’t not go out in public. We’re confident in our immune systems. We’re confident that we’ll be able to be out in the real world.”

When they’re not in the real world, Crunchy Families stick to what works for them. The parenting philosophy promotes health, wellness and creativity, and cuts through the noise of daily life in our fast-paced society, all the moms said.

Strnisha wants her kids to be “kind human beings,” and Wonsettler wants something similar.

“Our goals for our kids: wanting them to be critical, independent thinkers,” said Wonsettler. “I want my kids to not live in such a linear, black and white world. Because I think it’s really complicated.”

In a world full of gray areas, Crunchy Moms are doing their best to provide for their kids.

“Ten years ago, being ‘crunchy’ was really looked at differently. I feel like it’s a little more accepted now,” said Kilvanick. “It’s really just a journey of listening to yourself and doing what is right for you.”

Added Campbell: “I think you know what’s best for your child.”

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