I loved this. It feels like there’s so much more danger in our built environment — cars, screens, slippery tubs — than in the natural world. Yet many of us keep our kids “safe” in the human-engineered world when some dirt and ticks and toe-biters is just what they need. Thanks for the reminder. :) Hope the little one is recovering nicely from the stitches. 💚
Yes! Every accident we've suffered has been around the man-made stuff: a scooter on pavement; a bathtub; a playground slip. And every single one of them happened with a grown up inches away. Ha. I'm so honored to have you here, I love your work. Rebecca!
these are for sure the luckiest boys in the world... humor and kindness is a great mantra for them to know and ❤️ IS such a delicate balancing act and your ease of description matches the ease with which you make the choices of when to let go...fine writing Isabel
will listen in AM
we have ticks aplenty here but will have to evening drive to hear peepers which is an emphatic harbinger always
Emphatic harbinger, indeed! Only after I went on this excursion did I realize I'd spent most of my youth wading around a vernal pool just yards from our back door.... the peepers back then were so loud you almost needed headphones to sleep. I remember the excitement of hearing them--and knowing the good times were coming.
I just love how the timing of writing can just be so *on point.* Yesterday, when your essay arrived in my inbox, I was at the doctor with my teenager who sustained a mild concussion while mountain biking. He is OKAY and YES he was wearing a helmet. Yes it was a dramatic/slightly scary Mother's Day...*AND YET,* at the end of the night, I was trying to describe to my husband why the mom-part of me felt so happy and fulfilled. He was testing his body to its limits in the most wholesome way, his friends came to his rescue and continued to sweetly check in with us the rest of the afternoon, he loves being outdoors and active, and best of all he is going to be FINE. Weirdly, it felt like a success. I don't wish for head trauma obviously, but I know exactly what you mean. There is an essential ALIVENESS at the heart of it all and I love how you put it in words. And those words will stick with me.
(Still thinking of your littlest one and hoping his health is on a positive trajectory-- you certainly don't need any more bumps in the night for a while.)
Sorry! I just left a comment and it doubled and so I deleted one, but they both disappeared!! I hope you get it in an email. In case you don't... I'm so glad all's well and glad this was timely for you... I'm sure you don't need me to say it (again and again and AGAIN) but I would definitely count a mild head-bump as the cost of doing business while vibrantly alive! xx
Somehow, my comment got lost so I’m rewriting it now. Dave and I just listened to your essay while tucked into bed in our nomad van in the Utah desert tonight. Your words brought your frog night alive in so many ways. And naturally this links to the many many adventures we had with our kids, their friends and scores of other children we took into our western forests. Thank you for my favorite essay you’ve written ( and I love all the others too but this one…). Deep gratitude Isabel on this Mother’s Day night.
Oh man, that sounds like pure magic! You were both on my mind as I wrote this... I imagine the impact you had on those thousands of small people. I can't imagine a greater gift to the world.
I loved this essay. Helene and I just listened to it and your words echoed what I spent much of my life doing - getting kids - thousands of them - outside experiencing wild Nature. Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods was my bible for a time, as statistics and studies and language from the book found their way into numerous grant proposals I wrote. That book helped me raise hundreds of thousands of dollars that enabled so many kids - most from low income families - to get out of the city and into the woods. Thank you so much for your excellent essay, for your delightful reading of it, and for making sure your kids do not suffer from Nature deficit disorder!
When I first picked up Louv's book in the early 2000s, I went "AHA!" Suddenly my childhood made so much sense. It is a dream of mine to get inner-city kids out to the country in the summers. I can't wait to discuss this with you... and no surprise I found my way to such admirable folks for guidance. I so appreciate your readership, Dave.
This is a great reminder on the joys of freedom for our little people. May I not transfer my anxiety to my kiddos. Ha. Maybe we should spend more time in our woods and trails behind our house! Xx
Beautifully said. Perhaps our own most sanitary confines (the immaculate bathroom!!) can be the greatest danger of all!! So many wonderful outdoor adventures and yet the stitches have come from baths, showers, slippery floors, falling off stools and once tripping in a divet in the grass into the corner of a flower pot. Sounds like a miraculous evening.
I am always grateful for growing up on a farm. In the summers, I nearly lived in trees, spending hours reading or pretending I was on a pirate ship or in a fort. My only supervisor was our Australian Shepherd, Foxy. She did not approve of me swinging from the rafters in the barn, but was generally up for all other adventures. I earned a few bumps and bruises and have a healthy respect for wasps. Wouldn't trade it for anything.
That sounds like pure magic. Isn't it amazing all the places we can travel in our minds when we are alive in our bodies? I also had a dog who came with me everywhere--Pippy. More than once, she was the one who got us home :)
The image of little you packing up snacks and heading out to your wide open kingdom brings a smile to my face! It was exactly what you needed it to be. And you were always brave. I’m glad to finally be coming around to power of what exists around us.
Please oh please take me to flying squirrels! I find squirrels in general, their frantic movements, so fascinating 🐿️
I just loved this piece especially the part encouraging the kids to come back dirty. Your descriptions about the journey through the woods brought it to life and I was eager to hear the whole story.
My two year old recently started insisting he has to wear shoes to go outside...to play, in the grass, I am not sure where he got such a wild idea. I try to tell him he doesn't need them, but he's learning to be autonomous. It is good to see someone else raising their children with such a connection to the earth, it is a connection my partner and I try to share with our son.
Yes!! So exciting. Shoes are a marvel, what a discovery!! Whatever his little sole longs for is a good lead to follow. Sorry... had to :) Thanks so much for being here, Emma!! I love following your adventures, too.
It’s perfect, I set you up for it. Letting him lead is usually best for everyone’s sanity. You are so welcome, I’m always grateful to read your words! Thank you for your kindness.
Ahhhh!!!! This was so fun!!! You sound like an absolute blast as a mama!!! I agree completely with your approach to parenting. So much confidence comes from adventuring. Your family sounds so wonderful and fun. I so love hearing about the boys and your adventures.
I would def get in those vernal pools as long as I had on waders. My sister has a ton of tree frogs on her property in Kansas and when I visit during the summer we love to watch them come up to the front porch to eat all of the bugs attracted by the porch lights.
I grew up in Kansas with a big brother as a best friend so we played (and fought) extra hard. When I would come in from playing outside, my mama would smell my skin and hair and say, “You smell like a puppy” with the biggest smile on her face. She was a farm girl so she loved when her babies played hard.
I relate so much to outside being a safe space. After my parents died, sitting outside in nature was the only place I felt truly safe. It was as if Mother Nature herself embraced me in a protective shroud, whispering into my baby ear, “Little one, here you may rest your heart and I will look after you.” Nature will always be my happy, safe place.
Indeed, glories and disasters are all around us and we are the luckiest to have all of this adventure at our feet. 💥😍
Yes... someday I hope to write about how nature was a safe space from a lot of frightening stuff... much more than the schoolyard bully. My kids spend a lot of time outdoors, but I have to nudge them to the deeper woods. And it makes me sad, but also... happy. Because I realize they have a home they don't need to escape. And that is good! Even so, I insist on taking them out there because nature is my church. And someday, when we can't be together, I hope they'll wander into a forest, and there I'll be.
I loved this! As a new first-time mom of a baby son, and a gal prone to anxiety, this opened up a rich other way of seeing for me. I hope to be able to offer my son some of the wild freedom and play you describe here.
Aumaine!! I am so grateful to have you here. Thank you so much for this response. I am sure your son will lead you to many unknown places--and they'll all be adventurous and very alive, no matter where you go. Huge congratulations.... the back of his head is, frankly, adorable.🧡
Isabel, I read this nodding and chastened as I went through and then laughed a belly laugh at the end. Clyde's reaction being to boast is adorable and shows how safe he feels, and I love it 🖤🖤
Why did I feel chastened though? Because a post I was working on yesterday morning is literally half about our fear of those "small dangers" 😅😅😅😅
I am conflicted about this approach - I would probably leave them adventure further on my own, but parenting is a team sport and M is a person who sees danger around every corner. I think it may be a by-product of a childhood in an apartment in Kuwait: proper uniforms at private school during the day, a city right outside when you got home. There was no neighbourhood or woods to explore nearby - they were either in the enclosed courtyard of their building complex or they were upstairs in their rooms... I've pushed on some elements of this approach but relented on others, and we've found some happy balance that mostly works for us - the kids can wander a certain radius around the house but we can track them on their phones (I know I know it's the worst, but the phones have settings on them that limit actual access to apps while still allowing them to call us in case of any awful situation).
I was talking with someone about my constant catastrophizing, about how I literally assume the worst at every hiccup, and she pointed out that it might be in our DNA, might be generational trauma, and it was this lightbulb moment.
My family are not refugees, so I've never considered this before, but: my family did come from an authoritarian country. My family does know people disappeared in the "home country" for commenting on politics. My family does consider whether going home to see relatives is "safe" before booking tickets. AND my family knows other people who were disappeared by supposed democracies in the countries we immigrated too.
I never considered the way the body might keep that score, even if we didn't run away in the middle of the night with go bags.
It's funny because as I was writing this I realized what a privilege it is to be able to venture outdoors. That not everybody is able to just wander around feeling free... for a zillion reasons. And absolutely I believe we are inheritors of the difficulties our ancestors have faced, passed down through maternal mitochondria. EG https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7889635/
I am totally digging into that! I remember reading an article a few years ago as we were first discussing the horrific mass graves of Indigenous children at residential schools in Canada (I'm sorry I'm dropping this on you if you've not heard of it. Truly truly horrific...) - in the article, they were discussing the idea that trauma will stay in the gene pool for 7 generations...
Isabel, this brought back so many memories of growing up in rural areas. My parents had a hands off approach about the outdoors as well and we explored and adventured to our hearts content. What a blessed way to grow up.
It really is! I only see it now that I am an adult and realize how fiercely I have to protect my children' wildness. I took for granted that kids my age were growing up with lots more restrictions and it's even tighter now. I do think the tide is turning once again. I'm happy you got to adventure so freely--no doubt it contributed to your creative spirit!
Ps. Would you please be my mom?
I second this.
teeeheeeheee
I wish I lived a life a life like your kids. Maybe I wouldn’t be so afraid of bugs haha.
Such adventure. Thank you for sharing ❤️
Next year, I am inviting you to Amphibian night. You can decline, but I'll keep trying!
I loved this. It feels like there’s so much more danger in our built environment — cars, screens, slippery tubs — than in the natural world. Yet many of us keep our kids “safe” in the human-engineered world when some dirt and ticks and toe-biters is just what they need. Thanks for the reminder. :) Hope the little one is recovering nicely from the stitches. 💚
Yes! Every accident we've suffered has been around the man-made stuff: a scooter on pavement; a bathtub; a playground slip. And every single one of them happened with a grown up inches away. Ha. I'm so honored to have you here, I love your work. Rebecca!
Oh, and vice versa, I can assure you!! Thank you, Isabel.
these are for sure the luckiest boys in the world... humor and kindness is a great mantra for them to know and ❤️ IS such a delicate balancing act and your ease of description matches the ease with which you make the choices of when to let go...fine writing Isabel
will listen in AM
we have ticks aplenty here but will have to evening drive to hear peepers which is an emphatic harbinger always
xo
Emphatic harbinger, indeed! Only after I went on this excursion did I realize I'd spent most of my youth wading around a vernal pool just yards from our back door.... the peepers back then were so loud you almost needed headphones to sleep. I remember the excitement of hearing them--and knowing the good times were coming.
ever the optimist huh?!😉😇
I second that!
I just love how the timing of writing can just be so *on point.* Yesterday, when your essay arrived in my inbox, I was at the doctor with my teenager who sustained a mild concussion while mountain biking. He is OKAY and YES he was wearing a helmet. Yes it was a dramatic/slightly scary Mother's Day...*AND YET,* at the end of the night, I was trying to describe to my husband why the mom-part of me felt so happy and fulfilled. He was testing his body to its limits in the most wholesome way, his friends came to his rescue and continued to sweetly check in with us the rest of the afternoon, he loves being outdoors and active, and best of all he is going to be FINE. Weirdly, it felt like a success. I don't wish for head trauma obviously, but I know exactly what you mean. There is an essential ALIVENESS at the heart of it all and I love how you put it in words. And those words will stick with me.
(Still thinking of your littlest one and hoping his health is on a positive trajectory-- you certainly don't need any more bumps in the night for a while.)
Sorry! I just left a comment and it doubled and so I deleted one, but they both disappeared!! I hope you get it in an email. In case you don't... I'm so glad all's well and glad this was timely for you... I'm sure you don't need me to say it (again and again and AGAIN) but I would definitely count a mild head-bump as the cost of doing business while vibrantly alive! xx
Somehow, my comment got lost so I’m rewriting it now. Dave and I just listened to your essay while tucked into bed in our nomad van in the Utah desert tonight. Your words brought your frog night alive in so many ways. And naturally this links to the many many adventures we had with our kids, their friends and scores of other children we took into our western forests. Thank you for my favorite essay you’ve written ( and I love all the others too but this one…). Deep gratitude Isabel on this Mother’s Day night.
Oh man, that sounds like pure magic! You were both on my mind as I wrote this... I imagine the impact you had on those thousands of small people. I can't imagine a greater gift to the world.
I loved this essay. Helene and I just listened to it and your words echoed what I spent much of my life doing - getting kids - thousands of them - outside experiencing wild Nature. Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods was my bible for a time, as statistics and studies and language from the book found their way into numerous grant proposals I wrote. That book helped me raise hundreds of thousands of dollars that enabled so many kids - most from low income families - to get out of the city and into the woods. Thank you so much for your excellent essay, for your delightful reading of it, and for making sure your kids do not suffer from Nature deficit disorder!
When I first picked up Louv's book in the early 2000s, I went "AHA!" Suddenly my childhood made so much sense. It is a dream of mine to get inner-city kids out to the country in the summers. I can't wait to discuss this with you... and no surprise I found my way to such admirable folks for guidance. I so appreciate your readership, Dave.
This is a great reminder on the joys of freedom for our little people. May I not transfer my anxiety to my kiddos. Ha. Maybe we should spend more time in our woods and trails behind our house! Xx
We are all so much happier after a romp outside (even when the kids complain). It doesn't take much!! Just 10 minutes can feel like a total reset.
Beautifully said. Perhaps our own most sanitary confines (the immaculate bathroom!!) can be the greatest danger of all!! So many wonderful outdoor adventures and yet the stitches have come from baths, showers, slippery floors, falling off stools and once tripping in a divet in the grass into the corner of a flower pot. Sounds like a miraculous evening.
We will fold your pack into the human caravan next April! It was pure magic.
I am always grateful for growing up on a farm. In the summers, I nearly lived in trees, spending hours reading or pretending I was on a pirate ship or in a fort. My only supervisor was our Australian Shepherd, Foxy. She did not approve of me swinging from the rafters in the barn, but was generally up for all other adventures. I earned a few bumps and bruises and have a healthy respect for wasps. Wouldn't trade it for anything.
That sounds like pure magic. Isn't it amazing all the places we can travel in our minds when we are alive in our bodies? I also had a dog who came with me everywhere--Pippy. More than once, she was the one who got us home :)
The image of little you packing up snacks and heading out to your wide open kingdom brings a smile to my face! It was exactly what you needed it to be. And you were always brave. I’m glad to finally be coming around to power of what exists around us.
Please oh please take me to flying squirrels! I find squirrels in general, their frantic movements, so fascinating 🐿️
That's the word! KINGDOM. That is literally how I felt. It was all mine. And nobody had ever been there before me.
I just loved this piece especially the part encouraging the kids to come back dirty. Your descriptions about the journey through the woods brought it to life and I was eager to hear the whole story.
Betsy, this means so much!! I am so grateful to you for reading. Enormous thanks. I hope we see you soon--maybe in the woods!
My two year old recently started insisting he has to wear shoes to go outside...to play, in the grass, I am not sure where he got such a wild idea. I try to tell him he doesn't need them, but he's learning to be autonomous. It is good to see someone else raising their children with such a connection to the earth, it is a connection my partner and I try to share with our son.
Yes!! So exciting. Shoes are a marvel, what a discovery!! Whatever his little sole longs for is a good lead to follow. Sorry... had to :) Thanks so much for being here, Emma!! I love following your adventures, too.
It’s perfect, I set you up for it. Letting him lead is usually best for everyone’s sanity. You are so welcome, I’m always grateful to read your words! Thank you for your kindness.
Ahhhh!!!! This was so fun!!! You sound like an absolute blast as a mama!!! I agree completely with your approach to parenting. So much confidence comes from adventuring. Your family sounds so wonderful and fun. I so love hearing about the boys and your adventures.
I would def get in those vernal pools as long as I had on waders. My sister has a ton of tree frogs on her property in Kansas and when I visit during the summer we love to watch them come up to the front porch to eat all of the bugs attracted by the porch lights.
I grew up in Kansas with a big brother as a best friend so we played (and fought) extra hard. When I would come in from playing outside, my mama would smell my skin and hair and say, “You smell like a puppy” with the biggest smile on her face. She was a farm girl so she loved when her babies played hard.
I relate so much to outside being a safe space. After my parents died, sitting outside in nature was the only place I felt truly safe. It was as if Mother Nature herself embraced me in a protective shroud, whispering into my baby ear, “Little one, here you may rest your heart and I will look after you.” Nature will always be my happy, safe place.
Indeed, glories and disasters are all around us and we are the luckiest to have all of this adventure at our feet. 💥😍
Yes... someday I hope to write about how nature was a safe space from a lot of frightening stuff... much more than the schoolyard bully. My kids spend a lot of time outdoors, but I have to nudge them to the deeper woods. And it makes me sad, but also... happy. Because I realize they have a home they don't need to escape. And that is good! Even so, I insist on taking them out there because nature is my church. And someday, when we can't be together, I hope they'll wander into a forest, and there I'll be.
I loved this! As a new first-time mom of a baby son, and a gal prone to anxiety, this opened up a rich other way of seeing for me. I hope to be able to offer my son some of the wild freedom and play you describe here.
Aumaine!! I am so grateful to have you here. Thank you so much for this response. I am sure your son will lead you to many unknown places--and they'll all be adventurous and very alive, no matter where you go. Huge congratulations.... the back of his head is, frankly, adorable.🧡
Isabel, I read this nodding and chastened as I went through and then laughed a belly laugh at the end. Clyde's reaction being to boast is adorable and shows how safe he feels, and I love it 🖤🖤
Why did I feel chastened though? Because a post I was working on yesterday morning is literally half about our fear of those "small dangers" 😅😅😅😅
I am conflicted about this approach - I would probably leave them adventure further on my own, but parenting is a team sport and M is a person who sees danger around every corner. I think it may be a by-product of a childhood in an apartment in Kuwait: proper uniforms at private school during the day, a city right outside when you got home. There was no neighbourhood or woods to explore nearby - they were either in the enclosed courtyard of their building complex or they were upstairs in their rooms... I've pushed on some elements of this approach but relented on others, and we've found some happy balance that mostly works for us - the kids can wander a certain radius around the house but we can track them on their phones (I know I know it's the worst, but the phones have settings on them that limit actual access to apps while still allowing them to call us in case of any awful situation).
I was talking with someone about my constant catastrophizing, about how I literally assume the worst at every hiccup, and she pointed out that it might be in our DNA, might be generational trauma, and it was this lightbulb moment.
My family are not refugees, so I've never considered this before, but: my family did come from an authoritarian country. My family does know people disappeared in the "home country" for commenting on politics. My family does consider whether going home to see relatives is "safe" before booking tickets. AND my family knows other people who were disappeared by supposed democracies in the countries we immigrated too.
I never considered the way the body might keep that score, even if we didn't run away in the middle of the night with go bags.
It's funny because as I was writing this I realized what a privilege it is to be able to venture outdoors. That not everybody is able to just wander around feeling free... for a zillion reasons. And absolutely I believe we are inheritors of the difficulties our ancestors have faced, passed down through maternal mitochondria. EG https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7889635/
I am totally digging into that! I remember reading an article a few years ago as we were first discussing the horrific mass graves of Indigenous children at residential schools in Canada (I'm sorry I'm dropping this on you if you've not heard of it. Truly truly horrific...) - in the article, they were discussing the idea that trauma will stay in the gene pool for 7 generations...
Isabel, this brought back so many memories of growing up in rural areas. My parents had a hands off approach about the outdoors as well and we explored and adventured to our hearts content. What a blessed way to grow up.
It really is! I only see it now that I am an adult and realize how fiercely I have to protect my children' wildness. I took for granted that kids my age were growing up with lots more restrictions and it's even tighter now. I do think the tide is turning once again. I'm happy you got to adventure so freely--no doubt it contributed to your creative spirit!