Reconciling

The early days of my second son's life were a heady time for me. The country was changing as Obama had been elected and then was sworn in a month after Benny was born. My parenting paradigm for my first son - Alex - completely changed with Benny's arrival and I felt unsure of every parenting move I made. And of course there were the many sleepless nights and wildly fluctuating hormones.

Add on top of that climate change and I decided to make some changes. Maybe being sleepless and hormonal aren't optimal conditions for life changes, but looking back on it I think I did alright.

The first thing I did was launch Outside Kids. We called it Nature Walks then and it mainly consisted of 2-3 friends and their families. It's since grown to over 100 families and dozens of walks and a deeply rewarding endeavor. More on that some other time.

The second thing I did was decide to focus my work on environmental issues. I was having a very hard time reconciling the doom and gloom of climate change (and all other uncertainties about the future) with the bundle of love I was holding in my arms.

Focusing my professional energies on the environment felt like the right thing to do. And it continues to today. I want to do what I can to leave a better planet. It feels like the most responsible thing a parent can do.