The day my daughter was born, the doctor had to come find me.

She found me collapsed somewhere in the room, in shock, my world having crumpled. “Do you want to meet your daughter?” the doctor asked, with concern in her voice. I was numb, but slowly her words cut through the haze of grief and terror. Meet her? I thought she had died. A difficult birth turned into an emergency, turned into a miracle.

I climbed off the floor and held my daughter as she turned from mottled gray to pink. Her silence turned into cries. I fell in love.

It didn’t happen all at once. The first time my daughter laughed, I fell harder. When her first two teeth broke through her bottom gums and her grin glittered with mischief, I fell further. When, as a toddler, she stepped between me and a ferocious guard dog, holding her stuffed animal to protect me, I knew there was nothing I wouldn’t do to protect her. Over time, my heart opened and grew. I discovered a kind of love, a depth of love, I didn’t know I could experience.

Now, when I tuck her in at night, I often whisper in her ear, “I love you as much as I can.”

That’s true. It’s true from the very core of my being. And as we live our lives together, my love for her continues to expand and grow. As we share experiences, change together, and walk through different stages of life, our capacity to love becomes deeper and fiercer.

Love is built through shared experiences.
Love is built through knowledge—knowledge of details, of story, of preference.
Love is built through time.
Love is built through finding beauty—beauty in the moment, in each other, in the journey.
Love is shared.

This love drives me to invest. I spend my hard-earned money, my most treasured time, and my emotional resources on the people I love. In some moments, this is exhausting, but the return on that investment is enormous. Deep and meaningful relationships are where I find my greatest joy, my greatest fulfillment, my greatest contentment.

I don’t think I am alone in this experience. I believe these truths are shared by every other parent, lover, and friend.

What if our relationship with nature, with the world around us, is not that different from our relationship with each other?

I firmly believe that the best motivation for people to protect and nurture our shared environment is love. And just like my relationship with my daughter, my relationship with nature becomes deeper and richer through shared experience, knowledge, time spent together, finding beauty, and sharing moments.

If we, as educators and/or parents, want kids to nurture and protect our shared environment, we should start by helping them fall in love with the world through experiencing nature. We should help them form a relationship with nature.

If we want kids to grow into adults who care about sustainable agricultural practices, maybe we should start by growing plants together on the windowsill.

You don’t need to buy a plane ticket or hire a guide to experience nature. The good news is that whether we are in rural Alaska or midtown Manhattan, nature is all around us. In most places, you can find a way to feed a bird, watch a sunset, plant a flower, sketch an insect, or take a walk.

Let’s prioritize giving kids the chance to have real experiences with nature, and over time, they will build real connections. Maybe they will even fall in love.