Not too many weeks ago, my husband informed my daughter and I that he was going outside to mow the lawn. Before he had made much progress toward the garage, where we keep the lawnmower, our six-year-old had flung herself between him and the fearsome, toothsome beast, declaring passionately that he could NOT mow down the dandelions that made their homes in our growing grasses. No, no, no!

My husband explained that he needed to mow the grass before snakes came to live in our yard and our neighbors reported us. Having heard this lecture before, she explained that she could cope with that, although she certainly disapproved of it, but that he would NOT savage the dandelions, too. They were her friends, they were flowers and they were the source of edible greens and of fluff for the birds to make nests out ofeach one of them was special and she was NOT going to let him get away with hurting them!

Sometimes you just have to know when to give in, and my husband could see that this was one of those times. The dandelions stayed. And let me tell you: they are much prettier when they are small than when they are three feet high. Thats just a little something I picked up along the way.

We now have quite a little thicket of dandelions poking out of our grass, which is mowed short around the plants, something which I expect is harder to do than it looks and for which I have to give my husband a lot of credit. I think my daughter deserves a lot of credit, too.

I am proud of my daughter for making a stand, in her six-year-old way, to save a little bit of our environment. She may be too young to have a well thought out and consistent view of ecology, but she cares about her fellow living things and she knows it is her job to protect them.

Keeping our dandelions secure does not seem like a great step toward saving the planet, but the fact that we listened and did not mow the weedy beauties because she spoke out may have taught our daughter a powerful lesson. It may have taught her that she has a voice that can be used to save something in the world. That is our hope. I think that teaching her to believe in the power of her voice may be one of the most important things that we can do as parents. To this end, we will work hard to continue to encourage her to use her voice to speak out for what is right and who knows? That could be a great step toward saving the planet. It really could be.

In the meantime, the dandelions will keep growing. Our daughter continues to bear the title of Protector of Dandelions. And thats just fine with my husband and I; we may not have the snazziest lawn, but we couldnt be more proud.