What My Kids Don’t Know Can Hurt Them

 We’re very privileged to have a guest blog from Beth at Confessions of a Mom, her wonderful website for real moms which “will celebrate the food on your shirt and mourn the hair you pull out each day.”

I started thinking about the things I saw and did as a kid that my children simply would not comprehend. I sometimes tell them stories about when I was young, but often, I’m ashamed of how “it used to be”.
 
I am not old by any means, yet much of the environmental practices I witnessed growing up are frowned upon now. I child of a couple baby boomers, I was raised on a farm in rural Minnesota. We had two ways of disposing of garbage: burning and dumping. Behind the machine shed was a large pit where everything was dumped that did not burn. These items included old appliances, furniture, glass jars and bottles, metal, farm implements, gas jugs and insecticide barrels, old fencing and barbed wire…you get the picture.
 
If you think I was raised in a family where these practices were the exception, think again. Travel to any farm in Minnesota, and I bet you that somewhere above or below the soil is a personal landfill. You certainly will find a place or two where dirty oil was disposed of for “free” on the farm land.
 
My family wasn’t wasteful. We certainly didn’t open the front door and toss things into the yard. In fact, my parents mowed acres of land around our house, planted flowers and fruit trees, and kept “junk” out of site. However, I do not remember ever hearing the word “recycle”, much less having any discussions or family rules on the subject.  Pop cans were the only thing that I can remember people saving, and that was for the purpose of getting paid for the aluminum.
 
If we had weeds pop up in the gravel of our driveway, RoundUp was readily available to give the pesky weeds a squirt. Organic farming wasn’t heard of back then, although we did use a combination of pulling and spraying weeds in the fields. I do remember getting lectures about what chemicals not to touch and the harm they could do if we disobeyed.
 
Driving down a rural road meant seeing all kind of garbage that had been pitched out of a moving vehicle. There was no civic group adopting a highway or gathering garbage for a visual improvement project. I don’t remember my parents allowing us to throw garbage from the car, but I remember seeing it done CONSTANTLY by others.
 
We’ve come a long way in the last three decades, but have so far yet to go. I am happy my children wouldn’t even understand how people used to treat our world. My hope is that my grandchildren will see such a drastic improvement in green practices, that they will have a hard time comprehending the way we do things today. Let’s learn, teach, and encourage each other so generations to come won’t have to shake their heads quite so much at history.

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Comments

[Melissa]

Wow, this is great! I remember when kids used to squirt round up at each other to keep cool. What a long way we have come.

[Andrea]

I'm squirming - you've taken me back to my own eco-unsavoury childhood! My husband also describes his family of eight taking a rare trip to their local McDonalds in Albuquerque, NM. The food was eaten on the way home and kids ordered to wind down the windows and throw every piece of rubbish out of the moving car. I mean, it wouldn't do to take it all home and mess up the house!

[Monica]

Sadly, things are still that way today in some parts of the nation. I just moved to a small farming community on the East Coast. It amazed me how people don't think twice about spraying round up over everything in their gardens and such. There's also no such thing as recycling that I can determine. Very hard for someone who came from the city where we had our own recycling bins that we put out once a week. It gives me great pains to see any kind of plastic, glass or aluminum cans go into the trash. We still have a long way to go!

[ConfessionsMom]

It makes me sad too to think of the ignorence and laziness still going on. I wanted to add on to my story that even though I remember these things from my childhood, things are different for me and my parents now. Given the information and resources, my parents are AVID recyclers and take great care of the earth. My dad is very passionate about green living, and has become a certified "green" architect, helping construct sustainable, eco-friendly building and building processes. My husband and I are very carefull in our own home and haven't used paper products in quite some time (with the exception of toilet paper). It is easier to grasp the concept of ground water when you know what you put through your septic system is running down into the well water coming into your house to drink! Ewww...

[Christy the Mommy-Muse]

What a great retrospective! When I think about how far we still have to go, I remind myself and my kids that every tiny bit of positive change really does add up to make a difference. Thanks for being part of the solution!