Inheritance or Loan?

I wrote this article in February, while we were still living in California:

Kids. I brought my kids into this world, whose state is compromised by the choices

I make for them.

My choice to drive them to get "educated",

my choice to drive them to special classes,

my choice to drive them to play dates or field trips etc.

Each one of the above was attempted with a good will but in the process depleted the

very place that they need to survive -- our one and only Planet Earth. After all, oil/gasoline/petrol

is not a renewable resource.

I was constantly torn between being a provider for my children and being an

advocate for this Planet. I realized that convenience was an easy trap for us, the

grown-ups, to fall into; the price is unfortunately paid by the future generations. This

didn't seem quite ethically right to me.

I started questioning every one of our outing:
"is this trip to the grocery store really necessary? can I do something else too and get the most of it?"
"do my kids really need to have this play date that involves driving?"
"can I find something locally that is equally entertaining and avoid driving?"
"why are my kids more special than the kids starving in poor countries?" etc.

Thus we started staying local, walked and biked a lot. For the most part, the kids were not restrained

to their car seats for more than a few minutes.

- Hema

“We do not inherit the Earth from our parents, we borrow it from our children.”

Mangoes and Bananas

After living for 13 long years in the US, we recently have decided to move to India and explore the possibilities of living a simple life by practicing organic farming methods. We won't get to enjoy California grapes and strawberries anymore, but will relish locally grown mangoes and bananas.

Both my kids absolutely love mangoes and bananas. But I have always steered them away from the produce section that has those two fruits; I would read the sticker on the fruit and tell them how far that fruit had traveled and how much resource might have been used in that process. After hearing this a few times, my kids stopped asking me for mangoes and bananas. Sometimes I felt bad about depriving them of these simple pleasures, but still it was important for me to tell them about the impact of our choices.


- Hema