“I don’t know what to do.”
As a mom, I’ve said those words more times than I can count. When my kid’s fever has spiked – again. When I was so delirious with sleep deprivation that I thought I might be hallucinating. When my kid got out of bed for the tenth time that night. When I was nursing our younger son and our older son was desperate to sit in my lap.
“I don’t know what to do.” Six words that mean so much.
My younger son points urgently at the manatee stamp on his arm and then at the real creature in the water. “That’s right, a manatee!” I exclaim and smile. I watch it float, just letting the water hold its massive bulk like magic. “Geeze, they really aren’t very bright, are they?” I think. Then I shrug and think, “Eh, whatever.”
We’re at Homosassa Springs Wildlife Park, a state park in Florida that’s home to five resident manatees and a variety of other Florida animals. It’s also where I had a life-changing experience when I was 10.
As a nature-loving third grader, I fell hard for the manatees. They were so cute and so innocent! I found out they were endangered, convinced my class to adopt one, and became a lifelong environmental activist.
Except when I returned as an adult, Homosassa was not the same as I had remembered it. Disappointing is an understatement. I left with a bad taste in my mouth, my heart just a little broken.
“Your shirt is not a mechanism for storing snacks,” I said to my two-year-old after he tried to shove food down his shirt. Better than throwing it, I suppose, but not exactly what we were going for.
There are a lot of funny moments in parenting, but very few of them are substantial stories worthy of a blog post. For at least some of them, I’ve made them into memes that I share on the blog’s Facebook page. As I’ve never shared them here, I thought it would be fun to gather a number of them together in one place.
“Tell me I’m a good mom,” I say to my husband, Chris. Most of the time when I say that, I’m half-joking. This time, I’m not.
We’re sitting on our couch side by side. I’m usually writing or reading blogs while he watches people play video games on YouTube. Today, I’m staring blankly at the turned-off TV. He looks up.
“You’re a good mom,” he replies. He’s not smiling. His seriousness just reinforces my worry.
“We’ve done what we can, right? I mean, I think it would have been worse if we had done other things.”
“It’s not your fault. It’s not anyone’s fault.”
My parents didn’t have a clue what the impact of bringing me to Homosassa Springs State Park in Florida at the tender age of nine was going to be. It ended up not only shaping my elementary school passions, but determining my life’s work.
I first wrote this essay about the strange ways childhood experiences shape us for the wonderful live show (and podcast), The Story Collider. I performed it live at Busboys and Poets in Washington D.C. on January 26, 2017 and you can check out the video on Facebook. As I’ll be returning to Homosassa Springs tomorrow with my kids, I thought now was an appropriate time to share it!
Has your child heard about climate change and are starting to ask questions? Or do you want to broach this difficult topic but don’t know where to start? Here are good ways to talk to kids about climate change.
“We’re going to tell the people who make the rules that we want clean air and water for everyone,” I told my then three-year-old as we made signs for the People’s Climate Mobilization. As we got ready for the march, I struggled with what to say to him about it. In the end, I settled on the vague “air and water” statement. A clear mom fail at avoiding the issue.
Or was it? After all, three is awfully young to face the fact that our everyday choices could affect everyone on the planet in both in the present day and hundreds of years from now. There are plenty of adults who can’t grapple with that reality. Climate change activism is my personal passion, but it’s not right to force it on him before he’s ready.
Since then, I’ve thought a lot about explaining climate change to our kids. More than a year later, we still haven’t directly explained it. But now I see it as more of a process than a one-and-done conversation.
In addition to my personal interest, my professional background is informing a lot of my approach. As a science and environmental communicator, talking about climate change and related issues is one of my specialties.
Here are some big principles to consider if you are going to talk to kids about climate change:
A twig of a tree stands in our yard, a few buds starting to form. In the future, those buds could become branches. But now, they’re nothing but green and brown nubs off of a slim trunk.
It’s hard to believe that one day we’ll be eating pears from that tree. In fact, we may not. Deer may nibble the buds or disease may fell it.
And yet we planted it anyway.
Just as we plant tiny seeds in fine, fluffy soil each year. Then we tend them under the soft glow of lights in our basement. After exposing them to the sun and wind, we transplant them into our garden in the hopes that they’ll grow hearty and bear us vegetables. The groundhog may chomp on the leaves or the squash bugs may suck them dry. There are never any guarantees of what we’ll get.
And yet we plant them anyway.
Just like we chose to have children, despite the constant uncertainty of this world.
Thick curved lines and straight angles danced on a red background. Pointing to the painting, I said, “It’s part of a series of paintings called ‘Playground.’ That one reminds me of a teeter-totter.”
Studying the painting, my four-year-old (nicknamed Sprout) piped up, “That one reminds me of a slide!”
“Yeah, it does!” I replied.
Photo courtesy of my four-year-old – I let him use my camera to take photos!
At the next painting, we read that Paul Klee painted bold dots because he liked Bach’s bass notes. So I played classical music low on my phone so we could recognize the similarities. In other places in the Phillips Museum, we stood in silence to take in the singular colors of Rothko, discussed how artists sometimes paint what they’re feeling instead of objects, and boogied in front of an Edward Hopper painting of train tracks.
It may seem odd to bring a preschooler to a modern art museum. It may seem even odder that he looked forward the trip. But we didn’t go because I’m a tiger mom or think he’s an art genius. (In fact, I have no idea what the heck his pictures are most of the time.)
Want to get your kids outside, have more exercise, and lower your carbon footprint? Try biking and walking places with your kids with these five ways to help them love non-car transportation.
“You said we were walking! Noooooooooooo!” my four-year-old yelled as we tried to get in the car. Oops. I may have mentioned that we would be walking to the library instead of driving.
While it can be inconvenient on days when we’re running late, I do love that my son loves walking and biking places. Active transportation gets kids outside, keeps them moving, builds relationships with neighbors, minimizes greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change, and increases kids’ independence.
While our society advertises a minivan as the ultimate family vehicle, it’s actually possible to shift trips away from driving. One of my friends with four kids under seven years old actually doesn’t own a car at all! (I am still in awe of her.)
If you’re interested in making the shift, here are some tips to get you started:
Experiencing a lot of sibling conflict? If your kids are always arguing, try these eight approaches to building respectful relationships between your kids.
“It’s mine!” my four-year-old yelled, trying to pull the slinky away from my two-year-old. In response, my two-year-old scowled and responded, “Mine!” holding it even closer to his chest.
In moments like this, I wonder if we’re raising our kids to respect each other.
The next day, my older son (nicknamed Sprout) peeled stickers off a sheet and handed them to my younger son (nicknamed Little Bird) for a 15 full minutes. That was despite the fact that I knew my older son wanted those stickers for himself. As I listened to him ask his brother over and over, “What sticker do you want, Little Bird?” I smiled. Maybe we aren’t doing a bad job after all.
While there are definitely days I question what the hell is going on, our kids honestly have a great relationship. Here’s what we did that I think has helped build that relationship and reduce sibling conflict: