Mommy Learns

I have truly fond memories from growing up in our Michigan neighborhoods. My sisters and I made friends easily with other neighborhood kids and our summers were full of imaginative games and acivities. But I now realize that my suburban childhood failed to provide me with a close connection to nature. No matter how dirty I got playing in the yard all those summers I never learned an appreciation of the real outdoors in wild nature.

We’ve had the awesome opportunity to bring our kids on vacation to some fairly undisturbed land and have let them explore the world the way it exists without human interference. Books and pictures will never be able to teach these children about a painted turtle the way actually finding one in a pond and holding it will. At the age of four my son can name more varieties of fish, birds, insects and plants than I could at the age of twenty four.

I know many people don’t have the same opportunities we do to spend their summers becoming one with nature but it would be nice to see less time spent in suburbia and more time spent in parks or nature preserves experiencing the natural world and not just learning about it through books and movies.