Toddlers At The Saturday Farmers' Market

I’ve spent time down at the Capitol Square on summer mornings this year. The square is long the home to the famous Farmers’ Market.  There is, also, a troop of organizations who have information tables across the sidewalk from these local farmers. They attempt to pass along their various messages to the crowd.  In our case, it’s the climate change action agendas of 350.org.   Science, politics, petitions. 

Admittedly, these tables are sometimes just wallpaper for the counter-clockwise conveyor belt of market goers. Folks are, after all, on the mission of vegetables and honey and pasteries.  A glance and a smile our way is the norm.  So I get the chance to really watch people as they slowly stream by.  It occurred to me on my recent visit that one demographic really stood out in this crowd...toddlers.

Two-year-olds and three-year-olds. On market morning in Madison there are probably more toddlers in one place than any other in the city at any time of year.  Young families obviously take advantage of this wonderful weekend morning event. (They’re up...they might as well be out...)

Toddlers on Dads’ shoulders.  Toddlers under one arm.  Toddlers walking independently behind parents.  Toddlers falling in Capitol Square flower beds.  And, it’s stroller mania.  Strollers and double strollers.  Sibs in strollers.  Strollers full of market produce being pushed by toddlers and Mom.

I realized it was not incongruous that my business on the Square on those Saturdays was related to these toddlers.  Though I had a smile all morning watching the kids, I was also so very aware of a poignancy:  Me, trying to convey a message of a wounded Earth and a future of mind-boggling questions.   Me, hoping that these parents have pathways in mind that will infuse a resiliency into that generation.

NASA scientist James Hansen has long been the leading public voice on climate disturbances and their cultural reprecussions. But his voice has added a very personal tone in past years as his two grandchildren were born.  Along with his science, Hansen is focused on how the younger generation today will be handed failing systems and harsh climates that might have been forstalled by an earlier generation.  His recent book on climate change issues is titled Storms Of My Grandchildren.  He would agree that parents of toddlers today need to be, themselves, active agents for a resilient society as well as the nurturers of their children.

Seventh Generation Foresights

The Seventh Generation concept was ingrained in the people of North America even as the takeover by Europeans began 500+ years ago. This cultural ingredient was and is a moral promise to Mother Earth and to descendants of the human communities.

Before the traditional Iroquois convened their consul meetings, 
they invoked this declaration:

“In our every deliberation we must consider 

the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.”

The rights of future generations never became an issue of policy 
because it was, instead, the very context of policy. 
Conservation was, thus, the very foundation upon which 
their culture was built. The medium was the message.
Jim Nollman

It is further explained how, over time, we Westerners have become simply observers of nature instead of nurturers in a communion with nature. The lack of the true bond to the networks of the planet, which include homo sapien, blurs our view of a future. 

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For a time I was personally totally engrossed with genealogy. Following my family back into time was an intriguing journey in history and ancestral lineage. One of the tools I used to organize my searches was a large five generation chart for each side of the family. The lines and spaces for each generation branch into thicker and thicker blocks. Ancestral names, dates of births and deaths are recorded as research continues. Additional details for each family are recorded on separate sheets, but this one chart gives one a quick look at the extent of the lineage. It is the table of contents for the family tree.

A descendent chart, on the other hand, just doesn't work. It's hard to envision. We don't know the dates and names of folks to come. They are, seemingly, unimportant, past those grandkids and maybe great grandkids already part of the family. We may speculate about our own unborn grandchildren but, realistically, they don't get placed onto a chart. We don't think a whole lot about ongoing generations. I know we don't give much thought to descendents in relation to their own contemporary quality of life, or the state of their society. 


Shouldn't we...?

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A generation is currently considered to be a period of about 30 years. Seven generations takes us out quite distance on the timeline, but three generations may be easier to grasp. If you are now 30, you might become a grandparent when you are 60. That's in 2040. 

(Yup, I'm going to bring it up...) 


In that era, climate disruptions will be in fuller swing and fossil fuels for electricity and heating and transportation will be restricted. I am hopeful that our society will have made major transitions to live with less and will have retooled daily life; the life of our descendents.

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It's the hindsight/foresight thing. Instead of 20:20 hindsight, we need 2020 foresight...just for starters. How do we educate for stuff like this?

Just like the human heartbeat, the seventh generation is 

singing its quiet song just about everywhere these days. 

Teach yourself how to listen. Teach a friend. An enemy.

Jim Nollman