TimesLeader.com

The plight of the eco-conscious mom Parenthood, Abington Style with Adriane Heine

I’ve been green since way back when people thought that meant I was feeling ill. For years, my family would roll their eyes when I started in on global warming, and if I dare broach the subject of factory-farmed meat versus buying local, audible sighs ensue.

click image to enlarge

Select images available for purchase in the
Times Leader Photo Store

My kids are well-trained to always turn out lights, and just like their mom, shriek with pleasure at the site of the windmills we pass on the way to their grandparents’ down I- 476.

I was so proud several years back when little Dani came home from her first day of kindergarten, empty plastic Pringles container still in her lunchbox. When I inquired about her snack debris, she said, “Oh, mom, they don’t have a recycle bin.” My heart soared at my 5-year-old’s goodwill to the landfills.

I wish all my fellow workout partners were so enlightened. Months ago at Brown’s Gym, bright yellow recyclable containers were placed all around, right next to the trash cans. But week after week, despite the ever-bolder signage that goes on the cans, people put trash in the recyclable cans and plastic bottles in the trash cans. Did they not see WALL-E? I mean, you are there to exercise, why not take that extra step and use the correct bin?

I was helping my girls brush their teeth before bed. “Remember to turn off the water when you’re not using it,” I reminded for the thousandth time. My daughter Dani said, “Oh, Mom, (my friend) said that’s silly. Her mom told her not to worry about it… There’s plenty of water to go around.” Her mom may not be a card-carrying member of the Sierra Club and the National Resource Defense Fund like me, but as I pointed out to Dani, even she must’ve seen Barney singing his song with lyrics, “Never let the water run, no!”

I was in the car line in front of the school to drop off my afternoon kindergartener. The car line snakes all along the front of the building and out onto the main road. When you arrive to drop off, you must wait for the teacher, and depending on if you are early or if the teacher is late, it could be five to ten minutes. Invariably, there are parents, be it warm or cold out, who idle their motors, exhaust pouring out of their tailpipes for (what seems to me) endless periods of time. Have they not seen all the stories on carbon emissions?

Later at bedtime, Lauren asks me to help her read one of her favorite books, The Lorax… “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not…Now all that was left ’neath the bad-smelling sky was my big empty factory...the Lorax...and I. The Lorax said nothing just gave me a glance. Just gave me a very sad, sad backward glance. He lifted himself by the seat of his pants and I’ll never forget the grim look on his face as he hoisted himself and took leave of this place through a hole in the smog without leaving a trace and all that the Lorax left here in this mess was a small pile of rocks with one word…UNLESS.”

As I tuck her in and turn out the light, I silently thank the great Dr. Seuss for teaching this lesson in a fun, rhyming way. The prolific storyteller has much to teach, not only to children, but to parents as well.

Adriane Heine and her husband, Doug, own Dublin’s Pub in West Scranton and are raising their two daughters in Waverly. Contact her at news@theabingtonjournal.com or heine123@epix.net with column questions or suggestions.