Marginal Parenting

Posted on February 2, 2004 in Attitudes Hiking

I am a marginal parent. I enjoy the company of children because they retain imagination and passion about the world. They want to stop for the fossils in the road. They want to know the names of the plants and what the Indians used them for. And they want to teach you what they have learned. These things I learned while hiking with a family of friends that Lynn knew from Quaker Meeting:

• That the beetles you find near the girls’ bathroom must be girls
  
• That the best way to subdue a cranky child is to feed her
  
• That walking sticks for the young should be light and made from last year’s mustard weed