Whitman Adopt-A-Street Program:
This past Saturday, April 16th, a team of Whitman volunteers gathered in the town park and kicked off a one year commitment to cleaning up the streets of Whitman. I was one of those volunteers. When we arrived we each received a neon mesh vest, a pair of gloves and a trash bag. But I brought a little something extra to the park; a make-shift trash spear that my husband rigged up just moments before I left the house on Saturday morning. I noted the looks of amusement around the picnic table and felt very proud of my husband’s creative ingenuity. A few of my co-volunteers wanted a trash spear of their own. I told them that they could make one themselves, and all they needed is a broom handle, a long nail and a c-clamp. And, if you wanted something even more dynamic, you could visit the local fishing tackle supply store and buy an inexpensive but more effective two or three-pronged fish spear. Shawn even fashioned a protective device to cap the nail when the tool is not in use…a simple wine cork. (Remember the white Cotes du Rhone I fell in love with last year? The cork came from her sister, a traditional red Cotes du Rhone, and she’s just as pretty and a little sweet).
As we started getting into the down and dirty chore of picking up cans, bottles, scraps of paper, carelessly discarded packaging of easily recognizable brand names items, and literally hundreds of one inch cigarette butts, I could hear a voice in my head shouting out “It’s not mine!” The voice was loud, indignant, full of defensiveness and tinged with a modicum of shame. That was how I felt for about the first five minutes I was out there. It was a challenge from the start, fighting with the wind to keep my bag from twisting and looping around me as I delicately slid each stack of small trash bits from my spear into a big, black trash bag without snagging it on the nail.
I picked up literally dozens of plastic bottle caps, aluminum cans, soda bottles, plastic scraps of who knows what, broken sunglasses, large hunks of cracked car parts, squeaky styro-foam chunks, dunkin’ donuts bags, boxes and paper cups. Tiny, glinting pieces of foil, tin and metal reflected in the sun lay winking at me from the ground in almost every direction. With each bend of my knees and upward burst through my core I surrendered a bit more to the honor and humility of caring for the earth. I felt proud to be physically fit enough to repeat this motion a hundred times and not feel too tired or too daunted by the “hot mess” that others had created in our park. I knew we could handle this park cleanup. But even so, I was hopeful that others in town would see what we were doing and become inspired to join us or, at least, commit to changing their littering habits. A little effort on everyone’s part would surely ease the burden on the few that had been created by the collective many.
“It’s not mine!” sounded in my head a few more times here and there, particularly when I came upon the plastic bags from grocery stores and the unrecognizable plastic pieces that required prying out of the earth. I thought about what was underneath that I couldn’t see, and I felt a helpless. Despite that inside voice of childish anger and indignation, I felt mostly very peaceful, and I started to sing as I worked (to the horror of my co-volunteers). Bending, bursting and fighting the wind for the collection and proper disposal of someone else’s trash is not how anyone wants to spend their Saturday morning. But for me it was an important opportunity for revelation, realization and acceptance that, in fact, it is mine.
And, it’s everyone else’s, too.
“It’s not mine!” This is a cop-out phrase I hear at home on a daily basis spoken without the slightest consideration of what “It” is. And whether or not it belongs to either of them is a matter of perceived value of the item in question.
Relatively speaking, my kids are the champions of recycling. My six year old refuses to put anything into the trash unless he’s told specifically that it can’t be recycled. He questions this, too. In his mind, everything can be recycled. I wish everyone felt that way. We can all learn a lot from Ben.
Sofia, who can find a use for just about anything, also cannot find it in herself to throw anything away. Every little paper doodle, doo-dad, disassembled doll part, dirty and diseased looking stuffed animal has value, and has a place in her life. I only wish they didn’t have to take up so much space in my house.
Both of my kids know a thing or two about recycling and reuse. What they have yet to learn about personal responsibility, however, already seems like a short coming on our part. As parents, we often find ourselves debating about our children’s readiness to absorb new ideas, take on new responsibilities and develop new skills. We hope to identify the ideal moments to introduce these concepts so that they make a life-long indelible impression on them. I am adamant about teaching them to make their beds and pick up their rooms on a daily basis. Partly because I can’t stand a mess but more so because it teaches them how to care for, honor and respect themselves and the privileges of ownership, including our pets. Where bed-making and room-cleaning offer the perfect forum for teaching care and respect for ourselves it is the common areas of the house that are often seen by my kids as nebulous and neutral ground for mess making. Often this is where “It’s not mine”, and “if they didn’t see it, I didn’t do it” attitudes can sometimes prevail. And this is where we have had to discipline ourselves to keep from just picking up the item in question and tossing it out all for the sake of avoiding conflict. Sometimes, these showdowns are critical watershed moments that make a lasting impression on a child.
Juice boxes, their accompanying straws and straw wrappers, can lay around for hours or days behind the couch or under a chair. When discovered, a call goes up; “whose is this?” to which the response comes “It’s not mine, it’s (child’s name here)!” A glance is cast over to (child’s name) followed by the inevitable question “(Childs name), is this yours?” With eyes still firmly glued to paper, book, train table or television, the following answer is almost always “It’s not mine”. Activities resume without further consideration of the question or the object in hand. But, not to be ignored or deterred, another question is launched; “If it doesn’t belong to either of you, and I know Dad and I don’t drink juice boxes, whose is it likely to be and what can we do about it?” Pause for consideration, then a thoughtful answer is tendered…usually from the more verbal child (and you know who I mean); “Mom, I think its Niko’s because he was here last weekend and he drank a lot of juice boxes. I think he stuck a few of them under the couch and didn’t throw them away even though he knows he’s supposed to. Yes, I am pretty sure that’s what happened. Ok, Mom? So you’ll have to throw it away because Niko and Jodi aren’t here and she’s your friend and Niko is her kid.” I got give her props for creativity and strategy. She’ll make a dynamite lawyer one day.
I could include the rest of the conversation, but in the end, it’s always the same. A bit of indignation at my request to stop what they’re doing and help clean up the mess…whatever the mess may be, regardless of who created it. I might even get a bit of foot-stamping or “Come on Mom, why do I have to do it”? My answer is always some version of “Because we all have to live here and we are all responsible for honoring and respecting our sacred space by keeping it clean.”
Here I was talking the talk, and now I was going to walk the walk. As I drove over to the park, I found myself reflecting on my own words to my children when announcing I would be taking part in regular street cleaning. I also made no secret of my frustration with our litter problems, and showed my own indignation over how careless and inconsiderate my fellow citizens can be, whether they want to admit it or not. Why should I be the only person on the street to stoop and stab, chase and capture every bit of paper, plastic and errant bit of trash thrown, discarded or abandoned on the sidewalks and gutters of my street? Whether by inconsiderate human hand or tactless trash truck, I would now be the hapless parent whose lessons will go unheard or unseen by the many ignorant people too busy or unconcerned to notice the mess s/he has created. And, despite the desire to stomp my foot and ask why, I simply conceded to accept that this was an important part of taking care of my sacred space. I am happy to help.
Teaching my two children about taking personal responsibility is a really critical aspect of my parenting. I want them to build a strong foundation in this because I feel strongly that this belief system will give profound shape to their daily lives for the rest of their lives. It’s a considerable task given that this philosophy about taking personal responsibility for their thoughts, decisions and actions will play a huge part in their relationships with themselves, their friends and family, their future spouses, co-workers and managers, potential children, and the planet as a whole. It is personal responsibility, and the subsequent actions we take working together that define our true character.
In fact I will go so far as to say I believe when we make a choice about how to discard our litter, we make a choice between “sin” and citizenry. That has never been more apparent to me than in the park this weekend. When I returned on Sunday to play with the kids in the park, there was fresh litter everywhere. Sometime in the twenty four hours since we volunteers had been there to clean the park, others had returned to show us they won’t be easily taught, they refused to see what they were doing. And, they refused to take responsibility for it. The park was loaded with parents and their children, teenagers playing on the basketball court, and my children chasing each other up the sledding hill in the center of the park. I watched as they began to roll down the big hill...right into the collection of aluminum soda cans piled up at the bottom of the hill. I began furiously kicking them aside, angry at the faceless perpetrators who had thoughtlessly flung them out into the dark night from the top of the hill. At least, this was the vision I had in my head. Ben looked down at the cans and asked me, “Mom, why do people litter?” And I said “I don’t know buddy, some people just don’t think about what they are doing and that makes it a lot harder on everyone else.”
As for me, I plan to repeat this same cleaning routine on my street for two days of every month for the rest of the year. And I know, for the first five minutes I will hear that same little voice…”It’s not mine”. But I’m pretty sure I can sing louder than that voice, and hopefully my neighbors will tolerate my singing as I clean up their sidewalk.
