Young + Green

I nanny for Meg + Nate. Nate is eleven; he plays guitar in a band, wears skater gear and thinks that basketball and baseball are epic. Meg is nine; she wears purple high-top Converse and skinny jeans, wants to be in a girl band and open a cookie shop.

I spend two afternoons a week with them and they have truly opened my eyes in regards to youth and our environment. I am at that impressionable age of 26 where I am vaguely thinking about the possibility of having my own children sometime in the not-so-near future. Hanging out with these two stellar kids, models of idealism and action, has taught me a lot about how to include examples of sustainable living during a child's formative years.

Meg + Nate's parents are both professors at Wellesley College and clearly engaged their kids from a young age in raising awareness about the broader discourse of environmentalism, encouraging them to make environmentally friendly choices and take action. Their parental environmental education, whether it was playing outdoors, gardening, walking instead of driving, enrolling the kids in camp, has shaped these kids into conscientious, savvy young citizens, and as an outsider entering into their lives on a weekly basis, I have taken notice.

Both kids have weekly chores, which they do with passion and commitment: taking out the garbage and recycling, setting and clearing the table, feeding Bilbo the dog, cleaning their rooms, etc. They also engage in action projects at school. Meg told me today about their school's Catalogue Canceling Challenge, "The school has this contest where, like, each grade competes to cancel as many catalogues as they can. And if we cancel enough, the teachers promised to do crazy stuff like, our teacher, Mr. Lawton, dressed up in a green-frizzy wig and it was really funny." Meg spent many afternoons on the phone calling J-Crew, Pottery Barn, Garnet Hill and Land's End, canceling their names from the mailing list. Without even knowing it, her involvement displayed citizenship, respect for the environment and social action.

Tonight we made pizza which turned into a science experiment. They'd never made homemade pizza from scratch, so they were completely curious about the yeast. They watched it grow and bubble and chatted about how yeast works-- and why it makes bread and dough rise.

These kids are creative (their pizzas proved it: a colorful display of cherry tomatoes, turkey bacon, cured olives, caramelized onions and fresh arugula). They are engaged during a complicated time in ones young life when building your identity can be confusing, frustrating or too easily influenced by peer pressure.

Meg + Nate, without knowing it, have taught me about environmental education and leadership and have encouraged me to return to my inner-child.