"This is where the revolution starts.
Taking back and reconnecting
with our land, our food, our health
and our communities."
– N. Johnson, Vernon, NJ
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Juno, 2, exploring the marsh at her school. Photo: Caroline Martin
Staying free-range in 2019
“I don’t like going outside.” My six-going-on-15-year-old, Kai, was lying in bed next to me and the baby, a rare arrangement even in our household of musical beds. Usually Kai climbs wearily up the ladder to her top bunk after our nightly books. Watching her slow ascent feels a little sad, like she’s under a self-imposed exile from the sleeping jumble of old. But she needs to sleep undisturbed.
Waking up for kindergarten has been exquisitely painful for her, and by extension for all of us. We’ve shaved every possible minute off her morning prep time to max out her sleep and avoid a liquidating meltdown. I wake her for real at 7:30, brush her hair as she nibbles the breakfast husband Joe has waiting, help her into sneakers and coat as Joe gets the “chariot,” aka the stroller, which she climbs into – even more wearily, and Joe runs her down the hill to the 7:56 bus.
I admit we could tackle this beast by the other end and get to bed earlier; we’re working on that. But this was Christmas night, Kai had nowhere to be the next day, and – joyful joyful – she had chosen to snuggle in next to me, like the old days.
We’d been butting heads recently, both of us so tired. Kai’s left me more than a few admonishing notes calling me “men” or “crenky,” which I probably should keep at least one of, but so far have consigned to the fire or recycling bin when she’s not looking. But she was, for the moment, not in a combative mood. She was drifting in that unguarded place between waking and sleep, which was why her assertion caught me like a backhanded slap.
My children are so wonderfully different from me, and from each other. I’m doing my damndest to meet them where they live, a world more shimmering than the one I grew up in, sandwiched between brothers. Santa left a lipstick in each stocking (after investigating non-toxic brands online) and two Barbies under the tree. It hurt to buy Barbies, plastic in every way, but there she was on top of Kai’s handwritten Christmas list, and Juno, 3, wants whatever Kai has. For what it’s worth, the girls, who’ve also been at fisticuffs recently, spent an hour on Christmas day in Kai’s bunk playing with “Rose” and “Lily.”
I admit we could tackle this beast by the other end and get to bed earlier; we’re working on that. But this was Christmas night, Kai had nowhere to be the next day, and – joyful joyful – she had chosen to snuggle in next to me, like the old days.
We’d been butting heads recently, both of us so tired. Kai’s left me more than a few admonishing notes calling me “men” or “crenky,” which I probably should keep at least one of, but so far have consigned to the fire or recycling bin when she’s not looking. But she was, for the moment, not in a combative mood. She was drifting in that unguarded place between waking and sleep, which was why her assertion caught me like a backhanded slap.
My children are so wonderfully different from me, and from each other. I’m doing my damndest to meet them where they live, a world more shimmering than the one I grew up in, sandwiched between brothers. Santa left a lipstick in each stocking (after investigating non-toxic brands online) and two Barbies under the tree. It hurt to buy Barbies, plastic in every way, but there she was on top of Kai’s handwritten Christmas list, and Juno, 3, wants whatever Kai has. For what it’s worth, the girls, who’ve also been at fisticuffs recently, spent an hour on Christmas day in Kai’s bunk playing with “Rose” and “Lily.”
But an indoor kid? I’m not convinced such a thing exists, not without outside influence. My spidey mom-sense tells me this is nurture talking, not nature; fixable, in other words.
Lying there in the dark, I tried to talk her off the ledge. It’s because it’s winter, I said, and we’ve gotten out of the habit of dressing in warm layers – which we’d about mastered at her Waldorf preschool where they went outside every day, come sleet or bomb cyclone.
And it’s true, bit by bit we’ve shed our armor when it comes to getting dressed for public school. Take gym day, which is every other day: you have to wear sneakers, or else sit out. So it doesn’t matter if it’s snowy – boots are out. My solution was to buy a pair of shiny high-tops (fashion being another newly pressing concern), but though they’ll keep snowflakes off the ankles, they’re useless for trudging in lovely snow and muck. Kai can’t really play outside in wet weather, not with the kind of abandon as when she wore waders over woolen long underwear. But what are you gonna do? On inclement days they often have indoor recess anyway.
Maybe I was making too much of an offhand comment from an overtired kid. Or maybe Kai was tipping me off to something serious. She had been making excuses recently when the rest of us went outside, staying behind to color or practice writing, and who can complain about that? But maybe these little concessions – to fashion, to exhaustion, to conformity – have compounded, were compounding all the time, to nudge my mountain climber, my flower collector, my fairy house builder, into more sedentary habits, which were calcifying before my eyes.
The trampoline is outside, I tried again. The garden. Building snowmen.
Shush, she said. I smiled in the dark. In seconds her breathing slowed. She was right. I wasn’t going to win this one with words. It was a case of show, don’t tell.
The next morning, I tried to convey my epiphany to Joe. I’ll take the baby to the office, I said; you get them out, and to play, not just to hang around while you do chores. He does not like when I bark orders – can you believe it? So I put the case as simply as I could and repeated Kai’s words verbatim: I don’t like going outside. His eyes popped. Message received.
Just because our kids are growing up on a homestead with chickens and goats and a mountain to climb does not mean they’ll automatically be little Paul Bunyans. Just because their dad’s an Eagle Scout, just because their parents got hitched at City Hall and then grabbed a bottle of bubbly and went kayaking in lieu of a party, doesn’t mean our kids’ love affair with the outdoors is preordained. They’re a product not just of their parents but also of their moment. We’re up against iPads, climate control, so much glitter. If we get complacent, even our kids might forget what they’re missing.
It’s part of why I fell in love with you, I told Joe, as I bumped the car seat out the door -- you’re like a camp counselor.
We’ll put up the swing, he said.
I felt momentarily weak with relief. I would not have to fight him on this. We were on the same team.
That night when I got home, I heard the good news before I saw it. The girls were bouncing with joy, not a meltdown on the horizon, as Joe cooked dinner in PJ pants and slippers. The new trapeze bar was hanging from a cedar branch, they reported gleefully, and they’d tracked Joe down on the mountain. We were back, for tonight, to feeling like us.
Lying there in the dark, I tried to talk her off the ledge. It’s because it’s winter, I said, and we’ve gotten out of the habit of dressing in warm layers – which we’d about mastered at her Waldorf preschool where they went outside every day, come sleet or bomb cyclone.
And it’s true, bit by bit we’ve shed our armor when it comes to getting dressed for public school. Take gym day, which is every other day: you have to wear sneakers, or else sit out. So it doesn’t matter if it’s snowy – boots are out. My solution was to buy a pair of shiny high-tops (fashion being another newly pressing concern), but though they’ll keep snowflakes off the ankles, they’re useless for trudging in lovely snow and muck. Kai can’t really play outside in wet weather, not with the kind of abandon as when she wore waders over woolen long underwear. But what are you gonna do? On inclement days they often have indoor recess anyway.
Maybe I was making too much of an offhand comment from an overtired kid. Or maybe Kai was tipping me off to something serious. She had been making excuses recently when the rest of us went outside, staying behind to color or practice writing, and who can complain about that? But maybe these little concessions – to fashion, to exhaustion, to conformity – have compounded, were compounding all the time, to nudge my mountain climber, my flower collector, my fairy house builder, into more sedentary habits, which were calcifying before my eyes.
The trampoline is outside, I tried again. The garden. Building snowmen.
Shush, she said. I smiled in the dark. In seconds her breathing slowed. She was right. I wasn’t going to win this one with words. It was a case of show, don’t tell.
The next morning, I tried to convey my epiphany to Joe. I’ll take the baby to the office, I said; you get them out, and to play, not just to hang around while you do chores. He does not like when I bark orders – can you believe it? So I put the case as simply as I could and repeated Kai’s words verbatim: I don’t like going outside. His eyes popped. Message received.
Just because our kids are growing up on a homestead with chickens and goats and a mountain to climb does not mean they’ll automatically be little Paul Bunyans. Just because their dad’s an Eagle Scout, just because their parents got hitched at City Hall and then grabbed a bottle of bubbly and went kayaking in lieu of a party, doesn’t mean our kids’ love affair with the outdoors is preordained. They’re a product not just of their parents but also of their moment. We’re up against iPads, climate control, so much glitter. If we get complacent, even our kids might forget what they’re missing.
It’s part of why I fell in love with you, I told Joe, as I bumped the car seat out the door -- you’re like a camp counselor.
We’ll put up the swing, he said.
I felt momentarily weak with relief. I would not have to fight him on this. We were on the same team.
That night when I got home, I heard the good news before I saw it. The girls were bouncing with joy, not a meltdown on the horizon, as Joe cooked dinner in PJ pants and slippers. The new trapeze bar was hanging from a cedar branch, they reported gleefully, and they’d tracked Joe down on the mountain. We were back, for tonight, to feeling like us.
Becca Tucker, dirt editor