At-home dad of two Sky Cosby publishes Pirate Papa, "a journal of green (and red) parenting." It's an excellent firsthand account of involved, anarchist parenting, and in just a couple of months, Sky's collected a pretty meaty rich authoritative great assortment of resource for alternative, anarchist, and other free-thinking parents.
I bring this up because, as Sky rightly pointed out, for some parents, even buying a compact crib from a commune may be too much Playing By The Man's Rules: "You could always just not use a crib... you know there are other ways of doing things that don't require one to buy into the whole capitalist crap scene."
So what are they? Crib-wise, I know of two right off the bat: co-sleeping in The Family Bed and our current sometime-favorite, the memory foam mattress pad on the floor.
But if you have rejected some of the Baby Industrial Complex's relentless propaganda and have NOT bought something major, and you're pleased with your non-purchase--and you're not saving the secret for your upcoming Real Simple Parenting DVD series, available at Amazon for $49.95--tell us what it is, so we can not buy it, too.
Because every $30 you save is like getting another Che Guevara bodysuit, ABSOLUTELY FREE.
