We are telling our kids that nature is in the past and it probably doesn't count anymore, the future is in electronics, the boogeyman is in the woods, and playing outdoors is probably illicit and possibly illegal.

By letting our children lead us to their own special places we can rediscover the joy and wonder of nature.

What would our lives be like if our days and nights were as immersed in nature as they are in technology?

The times I spent with my children in nature are among my most meaningful memories-and I hope theirs.

Rather than accepting the drifting separation of the generations, we might begin to define a more complex and interesting set of life stages and parenting passages, each emphasizing the connections to the generations ahead and behind. As I grow older, for example, I might first see my role as a parent in need of older, mentoring parents, and then become a mentoring parent myself. When I become a grandparent, I might expect to seek out older mentoring grandparents, and then later become a mentoring grandparent.

How can our kids really understand the moral complexities of being alive if they are not allowed to engage in those complexities outdoors?

Nature is imperfectly perfect, filled with loose parts and possibilities, with mud and dust, nettles and sky, transcendent hands-on moments and skinned knees.