Philippine Daily Inquirer
December 9, 2009
My twenty-year old self would never forgive me for saying this, but my almost-40 self understands.
When we were kids, things were so much simpler. Mornings were spent biking around our village, or playing luto-lutuan, using bits of plants and grass and broken clay plant pots. A toy could be had by asking my yaya to fold coconut leaves into a pinwheel or a ball. You could spend three hours in the talahib, trying to catch a dragonfly to keep in a mayonnaise jar.
Whining ‘I’m bored’ was unheard-of. We had our mango tree in the backyard, where my dad had put in a platform. Not quite the tree house I had always wanted, but good enough for hiding out in.
Our house was in one of the first suburbs in Paranaque. The breeze seemed constant, and we only turned on the air-conditioning once a week, when we all slept in my parents’ room.
Merienda was pandesal from the store, paired with Tang mixed by my yaya.
Back then, middle-class meant we had enough, but not much. We only got new things on our birthdays and on Christmas.
Now, I realize that what was simple then, is known as sustainable today. We had one TV, which was switched on maybe two to three hours a day (you can only watch so much Sine Siete, right?) and much of the electricity we used was just to run fans.
Food was mostly fresh, so there was little packaging to throw away. Our toys lasted for years, and were loved to death before they were let go (or hidden away in a closet, as I did with mine).
As a family, I’m pretty sure our carbon footprint was pretty minimal. And because we spent quite a lot of summers at the beach, in the mountains or in the rivers of Laguna and Bulacan, I grew up loving the outdoors. It didn’t hurt that I was a Girl Scout either, where camping was always a highlight of the school year.
But in this age of over-packaged snack foods and hyper-marketed everything, what’s a mother to do?
No matter how many times you valiantly vow to keep things simple and unspoiled for your kids, you’re bound to cave when pestered sufficiently. So you say yes to the adorable-pink-car-that’s-also-a-make-up-kit. Before the French fries are digested, the toy is broken and your daughter wants another one. This time, she wants the lipstick that’s also a flashlight, Mom.
Sustainable life
So how do you teach your kids to embrace the sustainable life without getting accused of negligence or withholding vital childhood experiences? I’ve found some strategies helpful.
One, teach them to delay gratification. When they ask for a fast-food toy they think they want, I ask them to wait one more week to see if they really, really, really want it. If they still do one week later, then they can get it with their allowance. But trust me, they’ve only remembered once.
Two, prepare food together in order to cut down on the packaging you throw away. They’ve found that cookies made from scratch taste better than those that come from a box, and they’re also a lot more fun.
Three, discover the wonders of recycling together. Cereal boxes make great beds for stuffed toys, and toilet paper rolls are essential robot parts. Papier mache is a good way to tackle newspaper recycling while teaching patience and hard work. It also helps when your child’s school is cooperative. My kids go to Centro Montessori, where they take Zero Waste seriously. So the kids have learned to segregate even better than we do at home.
Four, enlist the animals! My kids love animals and watch Animal Planet all the time. When I was trying to convince them to sleep without aircon on cool nights, I decided to use ‘the polar bear appeal’. I told them that the more electricity we consumed, the warmer the earth would get. The ice caps would melt, and the polar bears would drown. The next warm night we had, I tried to switch on the aircon, and my eldest girl held up her hands frantically, and said, “Mom! The Polar bears!”. Ok, maybe I was too convincing.
Five, take them outdoors regularly. Nothing builds love and respect for the earth better than getting to know it. And it has many other benefits for the child.
In the States, child psychologists have started to label a new problem among kids as ‘nature deficit disorder’. They’ve found that kids who don’t get outside tend to be more anxious and less focused in school. Being a nature lover, this idea is scary to me. That’s why since they were babies, we’ve been taking our kids camping in Caliraya. Now that they’re bigger, we go snorkeling with them in Anilao.
But going outdoors doesn’t have to be a major production really. An afternoon someplace where there are trees and lots of grass to run around in can be perfect.
Wildlife sanctuary
When we took the kids to visit the Wildlife and Bird Sanctuary at NUVALI in Laguna recently, they had a blast. We hiked a path, where they pretended to be explorers in the wild. We went to the gazebo, which was set high on rolling grassland, where they pretended to be lions in the savannah. They tried to outdo each other on who could spot more birds, but I’m afraid they weren’t as quiet as they should have been. But we did see quite a few fantails and some water hens. And just before we left, we caught sight of a hawk soaring high in the sky.
The excursion left the kids hungry so we had merienda at Conti’s in Solenad, the lakeside retail. It made for an easy, unplugged afternoon.
Life isn’t as simple. And being sustainable doesn’t come as naturally as it used to be when we were kids. But I think we owe it to our kids to keep trying. Who knows, maybe when our kids are forty, sustainability won’t be something they need to think about anymore, because it’s back to being their way of life?
NUVALI is Ayala Land’s first and largest eco-community, a 1,750 hectare mixed-use development spanning the cities of Sta. Rosa and Calamba, Laguna.
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