Making children wild
Ok. There's something that has been bothering me a lot, but I'm not really allowed to tell you the whole story because of a blood oath that I made to my ten year old daughter. I don't think she'd mind if I told you this much though: a few days ago, I was in the middle of one of those jaunty free-wheeling conversations that you can only have with a confident, only slightly prepubescent, well-read and well-informed young woman. It was late at night. We were somewhere we had no business being on a school night. We were having fun in a large parking lot under some unfriendly sodium lighting. We were making fun of the people we saw wheeling into the parking lot with their monstrous great SUVs and pickup trucks and then driving away with such essentials of life as mini-Milkbones for their terriers, or colourful bags of "organic" corn chips (containing negative calories too, no doubt) to munch while they sucked down their Evian and watched the latest episode of Survivor. We know we don't have all the answers, pre-teen and I, but we have a few more clues than most people we encounter in an average day and sometimes, when we're feeling a bit cocky, a bit giddy with fatigue, and very much in love with one another, we like to poke a little fun at the world and have a few chuckles. That's what we were doing when she dropped the bombshell. I've already said more than she would want me to, so I'll just say this. This wonderful young woman, who has more talent and potential in one small bit of her little finger than I had in my entire body at her age doesn't have any faith at all that she will be given the chance to live out a normal life. You can probably fill in a few dots yourselves from this point with no help from me, so I'll move on to the general question.
It's one thing for me to sit here and to bleat and moan about global warming and peak oil and food made of chemicals and cellulose and stupidity and greed and all of the things that are poised to do us in over the next several decades. It's another thing for me to tap out poetic little ditties here about how, on reflection, perhaps it wasn't the wisest thing in the world for me to have helped place a big bunch of delicate little souls on a planet about to catch fire. But it's something else again to try to look your kids in the eye and give them a reasonable accounting of all you believe and to not send them shrieking in fear to their rooms, heads stuffed under pillows, waiting for the sky to fall. I give my daughters complete credit for not doing this, but also feel they'd be completely within their rights to look back into my eye and say:
"Ok Dad. You're a pretty smart guy. You saw what was coming. You weren't all that optimistic about our chances. So WHAT THE FUCK? Broadway Boogie Woogie? That's really why you brought me here? And we did agree that you're smart? Didn't we?"
I like watching my kids sleep. Their little features unwrinkle. They look like lovely porcelain angels hovering above their pillows. They're light, airy, perfect. Provided they don't wake up, they seem so safe tucked up in their little turrets in their rooms, surrounded by artwork they've made, rocks they've collected, leaves and feathers they've somehow spirited into their beds. More and more, as I stand in their doorways and watch their chests rise and fall amid all of this wonderful chaos, I find it difficult to push out worrisome thoughts about how their lives will be when they are 20, 30, 40.
As bad as all of that is, it doesn't compare to what happens when their eyes open, they fixate you with a deep, knowing stare and they ask for an answer or two.
I only have one answer for them. Be wild. Be wild with anger. Be wild with impatience. Be wild with energy. Most important of all, though, is for them to recognize what they love and stand to lose. Children have a natural affinity for wild places. They love the forest. They love lakes and streams and oceans. My children try to fill their rooms and even their beds with wildness. It's great, in a way, for schoolteachers to talk about carbon dioxide and melting icecaps and energy alternatives and recycling. There's a place for that. But, for a child, this all seems like hard work. It makes Nature a problem to be solved, a chore to add to a long, boring list of chores. Kids hate chores. Kids love Nature. Make them wild enough and I think they'll know what needs to be done.
It's one thing for me to sit here and to bleat and moan about global warming and peak oil and food made of chemicals and cellulose and stupidity and greed and all of the things that are poised to do us in over the next several decades. It's another thing for me to tap out poetic little ditties here about how, on reflection, perhaps it wasn't the wisest thing in the world for me to have helped place a big bunch of delicate little souls on a planet about to catch fire. But it's something else again to try to look your kids in the eye and give them a reasonable accounting of all you believe and to not send them shrieking in fear to their rooms, heads stuffed under pillows, waiting for the sky to fall. I give my daughters complete credit for not doing this, but also feel they'd be completely within their rights to look back into my eye and say:
"Ok Dad. You're a pretty smart guy. You saw what was coming. You weren't all that optimistic about our chances. So WHAT THE FUCK? Broadway Boogie Woogie? That's really why you brought me here? And we did agree that you're smart? Didn't we?"
I like watching my kids sleep. Their little features unwrinkle. They look like lovely porcelain angels hovering above their pillows. They're light, airy, perfect. Provided they don't wake up, they seem so safe tucked up in their little turrets in their rooms, surrounded by artwork they've made, rocks they've collected, leaves and feathers they've somehow spirited into their beds. More and more, as I stand in their doorways and watch their chests rise and fall amid all of this wonderful chaos, I find it difficult to push out worrisome thoughts about how their lives will be when they are 20, 30, 40.
As bad as all of that is, it doesn't compare to what happens when their eyes open, they fixate you with a deep, knowing stare and they ask for an answer or two.
I only have one answer for them. Be wild. Be wild with anger. Be wild with impatience. Be wild with energy. Most important of all, though, is for them to recognize what they love and stand to lose. Children have a natural affinity for wild places. They love the forest. They love lakes and streams and oceans. My children try to fill their rooms and even their beds with wildness. It's great, in a way, for schoolteachers to talk about carbon dioxide and melting icecaps and energy alternatives and recycling. There's a place for that. But, for a child, this all seems like hard work. It makes Nature a problem to be solved, a chore to add to a long, boring list of chores. Kids hate chores. Kids love Nature. Make them wild enough and I think they'll know what needs to be done.
posted by Colin at 10:26 AM
1 Comments:
Our ideas hover and mingle- but yours is so much better. I suppose mine came more out of the fear that children would become overwhelmed....but you jumped that hurdle by using something children have in abundance, nearly untamed wildness. Thank you.
Post a Comment
<< Home