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A new definition for being a good parent
June 27, 2007

On my way to pick up my daughter from her preschool one day, I heard an interview NPR did with Laurie David. She is called the “high priestess” of Hollywood activism. Aside from pushing An Inconvenient Truth into the limelight, she has raised millions of dollars for environmental causes. One of the things she said during the interview really struck me. When asked what motivated her to be an activist, she answered, “I am doing this for one reason only. All the things I care about are at stake here. Other than falling asleep at 9pm on my wedding night, this is the most selfish things I’ve ever done.”

A couple of weeks later, I heard another interview, this time with Barbara Kingsolver. She and her family moved from Tucson AZ to southern Appalachians to spend a year away from industrial-food. When the interviewer mentioned about eating tomatoes from Chile in the dead winter, she imagined the future when her kids would be her ages. And they would ask, “so you knew about global warming, and you knew burning petroleum oil exacerbated it. And what did you do? Used the oil to fly tomatoes in from another continent? And they don’t even taste like tomatoes!” Clearly that was a future she did not want to enter.

Neither do we. So I have been wondering a lot about what makes a good parent. Obviously the number one factor of being a good parent is the love we pour into nurturing our children. Thousands and thousands of articles and books have been published to discuss parenting techniques – the dos and the don’ts, the carrots and the sticks, the right ways and the wrong ways. The criteria and opinions of what makes a good parent continue to change and evolve overtime. Still a few themes have stood the test of time. We do our best to nourish our children with good food; we do our best to enrich their minds with sound education; and we do our best to instill in our children an important set of moral values to guide their lives. The list goes on. But even in its collective form, I still feel that a significant factor is missing.

Aside from the current conventional wisdom of what makes a good parent, I’d like to add one, one I think is of utmost importance: to hand the earth to our children in the same or better condition as we were born into. Thirty years from now when my children are my age, I would be ashamed if I had to explain to them: kids, you’ve got excellent health, education and moral compass. I did my best to ensure that. But I am sorry that 30% of the species on this earth have disappeared on my watch, I am sorry that scuba diving was a sport in the past because we ignored the signs of marine life depletion, I am sorry that the land shrank by 10% due to global warming contributed by the gas guzzlers I drove. The list goes on.

I don’t mind the label of generation X or the label of generation slacker, but I shudder to think the real possibility of being labeled the generation that bankrupted the earth. I only wish I was being too dramatic.

Edward O. Wilson, a Harvard zoology professor, non starry-eyed radical, said time and again, “If we continue at the current rate of deforestation and destruction of major ecosystems like rainforests and coral reefs, where most of the biodiversity is concentrated, we will surely lose more than half of all the species of plants and animals on earth by the end of the 21st century. “ How does that impact human life? He asserted, “On a global basis, I have no doubt at all that there would be severe effects on the quality of life-support systems such as watersheds and air quality and rainfall.”

Baiji dolphin from China, one of the four freshwater dolphin species in the world, was pronounced extinct on 12/13/2006 after a 6-year exhaustive search expedition. Baiji lived in Yangzi River for 20 million years. COD: industrial pollution.

Seen The Inconvenient Truth? Need I say more?

I believe that being an armchair environmentalist (as I was even a couple of years ago) is no longer an option. I, like many armchair environmentalists, supported environmental and green causes by voting for a particular party or a candidate and giving money to environmental organizations. While this model is still necessary, it is no longer sufficient. As a parent, I feel personally responsible for the future of my children and their peers. Being green to me is not a philosophical argument or a nice-to-have attitude any more; being green is a part of living, everyday living.

It means that every time I go shopping, I bring my own bags. I will save 1,000 plastic bags a year from going into the landfill or floating in the ocean. Think bigger, if we can get 1,000 friends, neighbors and family members to do it together, that is 1 million bags a year and that is 30 million bags our children do not have to deal with when they are our age. Think even bigger, if 10% of the US household can bring their bags to shop, this is 8 billion plastic bags that will not be littering the world our children will inherit. 8 billion!

It means that for my children’s birthday party, I will think of more creative ideas than simply giving goodie bags full of small plastic toys which will be lost between the car seats or tossed into the trash within hours. My two kids have gone to no fewer than 20 birthday parties this year. We received 40 goodie bags, all of the trinkets made their way into the trash within days if not hours. So let’s think big again. Imagine 40 million pieces of the plastic “junk” into our land, into our rivers, and into our oceans. We can easily prevent that.

It means that every purchase decision I make, I will need to think about the bigger picture. Am I creating 5 minutes of excitement in my children’s lives but contributing to a polluted and depleted world they will inherit? Can I in good conscience eat a delicious dish of Chilean seabass knowing that my children will never know its taste?

So for the sake of my children and their children, I will need to do more than just financially supporting Sierra Club and Nature Conservancy. I will need to change me, and I will challenge all parents who treasure their children to give them the most precious gift – a clean, abundant, and nourishing earth.

Let’s start now.

CindyW at Organicpicks
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