Forefront Families

We live in a semi-rural area over by Percy Priest Lake, in Nashville.  We decided
to go for a walk.   The scenery was beautiful.  The trees were green and the
air was fresh and clear.  The birds were singing and all seemed to be well with
the world. Then we looked down.  Lying in the gutters all along the roadside,
was trash.  We wondered why people just toss their stuff out the windows without
a thought about anything or anybody else. I thought about my own upbringing.  I
don't remember a particular time when I had a lesson from my Dad about caring
for the environment, but somewhere inside I knew that I would never ever be
a litter bug.  Every month or so my husband goes along our extensive road
frontage and fills big trash sacks with bottles, cans and other trash that has been
thrown onto our property.  Where do these litter-bugs come from?  They come
from homes where other litter bugs live.  This is where they learned to be one.

I remember reading a true story in a New Zealand newspaper.  A gas pump
attendant was filling a customer's tank when the driver opened his window
and emptied all his trash, cigarette butts and all, out on the ground.  He then
closed the window again.  The attendant quietly swept it all into a little shovel and
knocked on the car window.  When the driver opened the window, the
attendant said, `Excuse me, Sir, I think you dropped this', and promptly threw the
contents back into the car. YES!  Now there is an interesting story.

What does it take to create a concern for our environment?    We need to look at
our own attitude as adults.  Do we understand that trees, plants, and little
`greeblies' are in our environment for a purpose?  Everything is placed there to
give us a greater quality of life.  When we have an appreciation for our
surroundings,  then we can train our children to be the same. 

A good way to teach our kids about caring for the environment is to allow them to
plant a little garden or a tree. They should be responsible for looking after it and
watching it grow.  They will learn to protect it and water it.  By understanding
what it takes for those plants to grow, they will less likely thoughtlessly damage
tree limbs, stand or ride over garden plants and such like.  By taking your kids
out in the community with trash bags periodically, they will get an appreciation of
how much easier it is to put trash in cans in the first place, instead of just tossing
their stuff out windows.

We also need to teach our kids that, not only are we responsible for dealing with
our own trash, but also that of others.  Brian used to supervise the school
cafeteria.  If he asked a child to pick up someone else's lunch trash, the
response usually was `I'm not picking that up.  I never put it there'.  Of course,
they did pick it up, but not before major protest. 

The environment belongs to all of us.  We need to care for and protect it - not
just for ourselves but for future generations.  Our kids are part of that future and
their kids need to learn the same important value.