Kids have much to teach us. A week with the grandchildren showed me that
Quite the week, huh? A blue moon, huge tides and an election, and I was totally oblivious to it all. My wife and I spent the week caring for my two grandchildren in Virginia while their parents took a break from home schooling, and never once did I watch the news.
It was great! It wasn’t that I chose to abstain from watching all the back and forth before the election and the grim news about the pandemic. My daughter Camden, way smarter than I, decided that while her kids were growing up, their TV would have only the most basic channels. No news channels, no channels with inappropriate or questionable content. Instead, she would engage the kids in creative projects, book reading and other activities that might inspire them to be independent thinkers.
At first, I was thirsting for word from the outside world. But as each day passed, my stress level eased considerably, and by the time I headed back to the Lowcountry, I began to rethink my own lifestyle.
I love a good movie or two, the fishing channel, the Discovery channel and college football, but maybe it is time I ditch all the noise. Take all that wasted time watching highly divisive news channels and replace it with activities that might benefit the environment or other people, no matter what their political persuasion might be. These thoughts about change have grown daily since my return.
It wasn’t the lack of TV time that inspired me most but rather talks I had with my 4-year-old grandson, Benjamin, and my 7-year-old granddaughter, Alice. Along with our responsibilities of caring for them, we were tasked with making sure they both did their homework.
How hard could that be? After only one homework session I have never felt so stupid. Half the stuff completely baffled me, and I had to have Alice explain it. Kids these days are definitely smarter than I ever was at that age.
One subject that absolutely floored me was instigated by little Alice. It was about the environment and global warming.
Each day after school chores were completed, the four of us would take her dog, Heidi, and my beagle, Butterbean, for a walk. In the process, we’d take along a trash bag and pick up litter along the streets. Both kids really got into it. Seeing a gum wrapper or some other piece of litter, they would race each other to see who could pick up the most trash. Talk about a warm, fuzzy feeling. I couldn’t have been prouder.
As inquisitive as most kids their age tend to be, we tried our best to answer the questions, which seemed to never end. While Ben is still a bit young, Alice’s questions were so well thought out that had I closed my eyes, I would have sworn I was talking to an adult.
Intensely interested in troubling signs about the environment, Alice and I talked at length about what she might do to turn things around. I did my best to explain how massive amounts of plastics and pharmaceuticals are getting into our waters and in some cases, actually changing the sex of certain marine species. I explained to her that I am involved in a plan to add filters to washing machines because so many clothes are synthetics that contain plastic particles, and water treatment plants are unable to rid these particles before the treated water is discharged back into our waters.
What really surprised me was her knowledge of global warming and its long-term effects on the world. Though I never asked, I wondered whether her school had taught her about this subject. Regardless of where she learned so much, she was truly disturbed that so little was being done, and it was her generation that was going to pay the price for my generation’s inaction.
Right before I left, she said something that no 7-year-old should ever have to contemplate.
“Pappy,” she said, “I don’t think I want to have babies because by then, the world will be too polluted for them to have a good life.”