Response to Richard Louv's "Gifts of Nature"

This was probably my favorite of all the readings assigned this week. It was also the one I agreed with most. Louv is very poetic in his narrative concerning children and nature. It was an engaging read that brought me back to my own childhood.



I remember when I was young living in New Jersey. We lived in a very rural part of the state, with farmland and woods all around us. Most of my childhood memories consist of playing out in the field behind our house or climbing the trees in the backyard. Once, we even had a babysitter who wouldn't let us in the house until the sun went down (a little extreme, but we slept well on those nights). Even when it was freezing outside, with a foot of snow on the ground, we were out building snowmen, snow forts, and having snowball fights. I was hardly ever in the house.

It makes me sad that this new generation of children are more concerned with their iPods and computers. I know that times have changed, and it is more dangerous for children to play outside unsupervised, but time in nature played an important part in shaping who I am today. What will happen to those kids who don't have that kind of influence?