Nature Introduces Children To The Idea—to The

American Family Life Has Never Been Particularly Idyllic. In The Nineteenth Century, Nearly A Quarter Of All Children Experienced The Death Of One Of Their Parents.... Not Until The Sixties Did The Chief Cause Of Separation Of Parents Shift From Death To Divorce.

I Do Not Mean To Imply That The Good Old Days Were Perfect. But The Institutions And Structure--the Web--of Society Needed Reform,not Demolition. To Have Cut The Institutional And Community Strands Without Replacing Them With New Ones Proved To Be A Form Of Abuse To One Generation And To The Next. For So Many Americans, The Tragedy Was Not In Dreaming That Life Could Be Better; The Tragedy Was That The Dreaming Ended.

A Lot Of People Think They Need To Give Up Nature To Become Adults But That's Not True. However, You Have To Be Careful How You Describe And Define 'nature.

Time In Nature Is Not Leisure Time; It's An Essential Investment In Our Chidlren's Health (and Also, By The Way, In Our Own).

There Is Another Possibility: Not The End Of Nature, But The Rebirth Of Wonder And Even Joy.