I have a very active fantasy life. Before you start snickering, let me just tell you that my imaginings are more along the lines of Mary in In Plain Sight or Madonna in "Express Yourself" rather than Linda Lovelace in Deep Throat. Anyway, over the last few months, my daydreams have become extremely mundane. I fantasize about what sports my son will play when he's older (Gabe is just a year old) or how he'll make me laugh when he's in the second grade and thinks Martin Luther King Jr. was a real king like I once did, or even how I'll foil his attempts to sneak out of the house when he's a teenager. I tell you this not to make you gag, but to communicate how much I love my son. He's the absolute center of my world—my past, present, and future. And I also tell you this because I know that's how most people love their children—WITH every fiber of their being.

... That's why I'm always looking to experts for the best ways to combine my parenting obsessions. So when a colleague handed me Smart Mama's Green Guide: Simple Steps to Reduce Your Child's Toxic Chemical Exposure, a new book by Jennifer Taggart, my radar immediately went up. Finally, some tips on how to keep Gabe safe in a world surrounded by industrial dangers. (Quick quibble: How did smart papas get off the hook? Why are moms the only ones ever called upon to keep the kids alive?)

...I think it is dishonest and worse, cruel, to let new parents worry that invisible substances in their homes are hurting their children. Taggart does give herself an out by saying that even if the risk is small or unknown, it's worth tackling it, just in case there's a problem. "If I'm willing to die for my children," Taggart writes, "wouldn't that mean that I would do anything to protect them from toxic chemicals?" Yes, it is true; I would die for Gabe to save his life from a clear and present danger. But I don't appreciate Taggart using this fact to guilt me into panicking over household cleaners. Taggart reports that radon is the No. 1 cause of lung cancer in nonsmokers, which is true. But she fails to tell you that nine out 10 lung-cancer deaths happen to smokers, the number of nonsmokers who die each year from radon-induced lung cancer is 2,900 according to the EPA.

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