This is it. In just a few short weeks children from across the country will wave goodbye to their summer vacations and head back to school.
Do you remember trying to squeeze every last drop of summer fun out of those last few days of August when you were a kid?
I sure do!
My sister and I would tear through the front door in the morning and, except for a short lunch break, we’d be gone, gone, GONE the entire day.
Bike riding, skateboarding, tennis, exploring the woods near our house, running around in massive neighborhood-wide Kick-the-Can marathons.
And when I got tired of all that activity, I’d grab a book and a blanket and claim a shady spot where I could escape to anywhere in the world.
So you can imagine my dismay to learn that, according to the Bureau of Land Management, children today are only spending 30 minutes of unsupervised time outdoors PER WEEK!
In fact, the average American child can identify 1,000 corporate logos but cannot identify a mere 10 plants or animals native to their region.
I can just see Mother Nature with a tear running down her cheek at this news, much like Iron Eyes Cody in Keep America Beautiful’s famous “Crying Indian” pollution campaign of the 1970s.
How can we possibly expect our children to take up stewardship of the planet if the only water they see comes from a faucet, if they can’t identify vegetables grown in a neighbor’s garden, if their most recent interaction with wildlife was through a TV screen and if their idea of the ocean includes a ridiculous sponge wearing pants?
But before pointing fingers of blame at the media or the video game industry for our youth’s horrifying lack of inactivity, let’s remember pointing two fingers in that direction still leaves a few fingers pointing back at you and me.
When was the last time you felt grass or sand squishing between your toes?
Did you enjoy your lunch in a park or did you immerse yourself in the hustle and bustle of a busy fast-food restaurant every day this week?
Did you jog or walk around your neighborhood or did you instead do two miles on a treadmill while watching your favorite sitcom?
Certainly with our crazy-busy lives it’s easy to become disconnected from our natural environments. But this disconnection is dangerous because it makes it easy to forget that we humans have a direct impact on that environment.
Clean air, clean water, natural resources, other species…we need them all to continue to survive on this planet.
So if you have kids, muster up your parental backbone and unplug the electronics for these remaining days of summer. Heck, unplug YOURSELF this weekend and see if you don’t face Monday morning feeling more calm and centered after soaking in some sunshine and taking out your earbuds so you can hear the birds.
After all, if you can look at a handbag and identify the LV logo as belonging to Louis Vuitton then you should be able to look at the gorgeous print on this vintage 1970s Trigere blouse and skirt set and recognize the plants as tulips.
Remember: Honoring and enjoying nature is a vital element to becoming a Vintage Crusader!
Available at Shrimpton Couture.
(To receive the VPOD free via email with detailed size and price information, sign up for the growing email mailing list here. Your information will never be sold or shared and you can easily unsubscribe at any time.)
