RE: Your child IS your most important crop!
I think it's a very valid and important conversation. Technology is creating the death of experience and technology addiction in the youngest of kids. Our children are going to live shorter lives than us. We are in the face of a full-flown global ecological crisis and we are depriving the next generation of the one thing that might make them give a duck (contact with nature).
We're also learning more and more from advances in psychology (thank you attachment theory!) about the importance of secure and loving relationships between children and parents if they aren't going to grow up with a sackful of issues.
And yet it's easier said than done, we're enmeshed in a mature (maybe even old-aged and about to kick the bucket) capitalist system that puts enormous strain on both parents to be out working to meet basic needs that once would have been a given part of a leisurely peasant life-style. In the west especially people are living more and more isolated from extended family and really do have to rely on the TV / tablet as a make-shift baby-sitter a lot of the time (totally understandable). It's not necessarily all that easy to simply opt out from the 9-5 capitalist game, depending on the sort of support and education you will have had in your life from friends and family. And if that is a viable decision, then it really does involve strong decisions that leave to the side certain luxuries and priveleges that may be cherished habits to many.
I guess I have an opinion about this a bit like vegetarianism. It's not black and white. It can be grey. If you can't be veggie all the time, cut down a bit and that makes a difference. So even if some people feel they can't cut technology out 100% maybe they can ring-fence places in the house or times of day that are "device-free".
Your post made me think of this meme I saw on FaceBook the other day. :)
That was my rambling two cents. :) Now back to work! <3
Wow! It sounds like you should be writing a blog post about it! (:
We are very lucky to be close to Family. I wasn't trying to discount that at all!
I agree that the children are in honest danger. The scariest part is that they will not know how to fend for themselfs, or even help provide if the illusion that is a food system in the US and in other places as well. Adults don't even know where food they eat comes from. (not to even mention FAST FOOD) Say, an adult family goes to the local grocery store to get produce every week. Then one day the refrigerated trucks stop coming... These people will not even realize what food they are ABLE to grow around them. They will expect dragon fruits and kiwis to be staples in the diet. To say the least it will be humbling.
As for the meme.... YESSSS! That is so true. You often hear young people judging others "my family won't be like that" "I will never let my kid do that"
With Facebook and other social media outlets it has caused a an eternal circle of attention for information. And people sit in front of their TV and watch Teen Mom and think that creating, or tolerating a hectic family situation is something that will get you pity... and attention. It's heart breaking to see people butting heads with each other. When they say "it takes a village" They aren't kidding. Children are curious and need to be exposed to as many healthy lifestyles as possible.
I'm writing a PhD about the wild food scene in Brazil, and I'm especially interested in the reasons have for foraging and the role that that serves in their lives. I think for urbanites an activity like foraging can have a lot of value in creating a "relationship" between themselves and the natural environment. It's an alternative to mindless consumerism, and yes, as you say, a lot of people are worried and with good reason that people are losing the skills and knowledge necessary to make it if the "system" breaks down. Certainly it has very much entered into the collective imagination through post-apocalyptic genres. A lot of people are waking up to what is being lost and are making the decisions in their own lives that bring us closer to nature and closer to ourselves.
Jeez, just reread that, how rambley and pretentious, he he.
Hahaha no worries (: I loved it!
your side of things is not going unheard!
I'm going to go ahead a follow you!
Mindless consumerism is such a great way to put it into words.
I think it's really interesting the psychology behind consumerism and also commodification (when something that used to not involve money is transformed into a commodity that you can buy). Like it's interesting the whole wild foods thing. These are things that people have gone out and collected no doubt since humans weren't even humans. Along with tracking animals it's one of our most ancient and time-honoured skills that we have as the human race. At it's heart it is consistently linked with notions of freedom from commercial logic. Yet as it becomes more and more popular people are increasingly interested in buying and selling. Since the 80s conservationists have been harping on about the potential of commercialising wild forest products in order to motivate people to preserve and conserve wild areas instead of liquidating them into immediate monetary assets via a chainsaw and truck. Yet if you impose the capitalist monetary values onto things that you used to value for their contribution to your diet, as being a leisurely activity, as being an opportunity to spend time outside in nature with your family, as being a sacred/spiritul activity etc etc. Is that simply an extra way of valuing these things that coexists and sits beside those other values, or does it oust all those other fluffy values to the side and force you to become solely focused on the money element? It seems like the modern human is obsessed with putting a price tag on everything, as though if you can't put a monetary price on it then it doesn't matter. But it seems like at the end of the day you end up with a society that knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
These are things I sit thinking about!