Children in the wilderness
By Kevin Mattson |
I’ve searched the nature writing canon for insights on kids in the wilderness. Henry David Thoreau, John Muir and Jack London talk about the experiences I had in my earlier days — solitude, fear, peace of mind — but zilch about kids. Edward Abbey’s one mention is describing a camping trip with his daughter Susie. He leaves on a solitary morning walk; Susie awakes, scared shitless. Abbey finds her wandering around, looking for help. “Poor little kid,” Abbey recalled to his friend. Better to hike with grown men or alone, the story suggests.
There’s good reason not to write about bringing kids into the wilderness. Hiking with kids can be a drag. Those kid-carrying packs leave big-ass blisters. You have to bring diapers if the kid’s that age, and urine-soaked sleeping bags are enough to make you bolt no matter how far you’ve made it in.
That’s just the physical side. The real change for me has been psychological. I still remember the zen of walking from my solitary days — the creaking of my pack, a slight squishy sound in my boots, the soft sound of my breathing lulling me into a primeval state of mind. Even with a friend or my wife, I hit that plane.
Now my meditative walking is cut by questions: “Daddy, how did that waterfall form?” “When are we going to camp?” “Where are we on the map?” These words “harsh my buzz,” as the saying goes. On trips today, my mind drifts but is quickly snapped back by the kid’s questions.
Consider the pay-off, though. Preparing for a week-long trip in Colorado, my wife and I did something we’ve regretted but haven’t corrected: We rigged and drank. After the fifth beer, what’s going into the backpack is not necessarily what should, and what should is often a blur on the floor, easy to kick under the bed or just ignore. This time, I forgot the trowel, that bright orange thing necessary to facilitate defecating in the woods. When we discovered it wasn’t there, I did something I never thought I would: I cursed that fifth beer.
Looking for smooth rocks and sticks, I discovered my son’s “Little Tikes” shovel that he brought with him in order to dig pretend “coal mines” in camp and thus freak out his environmentally-minded mother. It served nicely. I beamed with fatherly pride.
I’m getting bogged down in practicalities here, and the real focus of my story is love. Consider the same trowel-less trip. Hiking up towards a ridge line, my wife, much smarter than I at occasions like this, suggested we break for camp. For some reason I wanted to press onward over the ridge. Pushed up the hill by my belligerence, we watched clouds move in. First, nice puffy white ones (“that’s pretty,” I thought to myself stupidly), then dark ones. Then we were on the ridge, and the storm moved in.
Hail, lightning and a wind that could push you over — all happening above 13,000 feet. I have never been so scared. But I didn’t look up to see if the storm was moving off; I looked down to my child’s face. I saw fear (he later denied this) and felt love and an instinct that I had never felt before in the wilderness. I scurried off to look for a shorter way down the ridge while my wife and kid got on rain gear. Running in a panic, a thought went through my head: If I get struck by lightning, and it seemed a good possibility then that I would, I want to be with my family. I ran back and remember seeing them at that moment, shivering, cold, their eyes riveted with fear. The sensation of love I felt then never left me.
Most fellow parents look at me askance when I describe these trips. They’re the same parents who scream, “ARE YOU OK, SWEETIE?,” when their kids fall on a soft bed of grass. I swear, a kid automatically cries at those words.
These are the same parents who can’t travel without computerized games and learning videos. They read those awful books about becoming good parents, the sort that warn about fucking up kids for the rest of their lives just by telling them “no” incorrectly.
Parents today exist in a state of perpetual anxiety, prey to an army of specialists who insist parenting is learned, not instinctual. My wife and I know this isn’t true when we bring our son to the wilderness.We keep the kid safe, warm, fed, and we keep moving. Parenting, no matter what the hucksters of books and magazines tell us, is still 99% instinctual.
Today’s parent prefers to leave nature to Disney movies with their singing animals and happy endings. Our kid knows something about nature absent from mass culture. Once, while fishing next to a waterfall, my son fell into a whirlpool. I watched him waving his arms in the white frothy water and then jumped in to save him. And when I brought him on shore, he knew fear and knew, if he had ever doubted, that nature wasn’t a nice little place with singing animals. He still talks about that whirlpool. And I hope against hope that he’s better for it.
Kevin Mattson is author of “When America Was Great,” and other books. He lives in Appalachia.
