Love of Nature from Parents

I love reading, and especially love the feeling you get when the author makes a point so powerful, you feel like a train just ran over you. Here's an excerpt from Dr. Jane Goodall's book, Reason for Hope. It's a story that she's told time and again, whenever you attend her lectures, about her trying to find how how chickens lay their eggs as a child. In summary, she had hidden herself in the chicken coop for 4 hours at least, waiting for a hen to enter and lay an egg, while elsewhere, her family (especially her mother Vanne) were in hysterics, thinking that she had gone missing and had even made a police report. The following excerpt describes what happens after she had observed the egg-laying.

"Filled with excitement I squeezed out after her and ran home. It was almost dark--I had been in that small stuffy henhouse for nearly four hours. I was oblivious of the fact that no one had known where I was, and that the whole household had been searching for me. They had even called the police to report me missing. Yet despite her worry, when Vanne, still searching, saw the excited little girl rushing toward the house, she did not scold me. She noticed my shining eyes and sat down to listen to the story of how a hen lays an egg: the wonder of that moment when the egg finally fell to the ground.

Certainly I was lucky to be provided with a mother wise enough to nurture and encourage my love of living things and my passion for knowledge. Most important was her philosophy that her children should always try their very best. How would I have turned out, I sometimes wonder, had I grown up in a house that stifled enterprise by imposing harsh and senseless discipline. Or in an atmosphere of overindulgence, in a household where there were no rules, no boundaries drawn. My mother certainly understood the importance of discipline, but she always explained why some things were not allowed. Above all, she tried to be fair and to be consistent."

It really set me thinking, about parents in general here in Singapore. I have often seen that when children go missing and then found again, parents just whack them. No questions asked. No thought given to the fear, or excitement of discovery, such as in Jane's case, experienced by the child. Imagine Vanne had been one of such parents. Would there have been a Dr. Jane Goodall, the Jane Goodall Institute and everything that she has done? If we really thought deeply, all of those things, inspiration to us and people like me, the survival and profound ethology of chimps and the livelihood that she has made possible for thousands in Tanzania, all of those might have hinged on that one reaction by Vanne when Jane reappeared, and thank goodness for what did happen.

Conservation, and nature in Singapore, I feel suffers from a desperate lack of parental guidance. Sure there are a bunch of parents who bring their children to guided walks and things like that, but a vast majority bring their children up on a diet of materialism, and the belief that humans do not need wildlife (both plants and animals) for survival. Zoologists and botanists are conventionally thought of as biology students who cannot make it to medicine. How many parents out there wholeheartedly support their children when they say they want to study zoology instead of business or medicine or law? We need a massive change in mindsets.