“When you mess with nature, nature messes with you!”
This clever maxim was co-authored and often quipped by my son, Brycen and I when we encountered examples of people attempting to improve upon nature—and suffering the consequences of those ill-fated actions. For example, we’d shake our heads and declare it in vexed unison as we’d hack through impenetrable curtains of invasive bittersweet vines suffocating tree trunks and ravaging forests with a voracious passion. These woody tentacles had a propensity for forests that had been previously clearcut by humans and repeatedly disturbed since. Indeed, “When you mess with nature, nature messes with you!”
I wrote my two books with the spirit of this maxim in mind, after witnessing in my professional work two decades of babies, young children, pre-teens, teens, and early young adults blaring various natural alarms signaling that something was very wrong. I chose to focus on boys in my second book, Nurturing and Empowering Our Sons because their alarms have escalated to tragic primal screams that are falling on indifferent ears. While we are seeing an unprecedented mental health crisis in both boys and girls in the 2020s, girls are empowered with thousands of federal, state, non-profit, philanthropic, and grassroots programs dedicated to their wellbeing, while boys and young men are omitted and left adrift.
Whether animal or human, nature builds alarm signals into every species of mammal young in order to alert parents that something in the young one’s environment is detrimental to its development. If homeostasis is restored quickly, sensitively, and consistently, the young will thrive. Mammal—including human—young develop secure attachment with their parents when this cycle continues until their natural adulthood. In turn, these young ones are later neurochemically and emotionally capable of nurturing and meeting the needs of their own young, and the cycle of secure attachment continues.
Our Paleolithic-era hunter-gatherer ancestors knew intuitively not to “mess with nature” when caring for the tribe’s children: Paleolithic parents and the surrounding tribe were intuitively aligned with the developmental needs of children, putting these needs before adult convenience for the duration of childhood…
Paleo hunter-gatherers carried their infants in-arms for nine months and they breastfed until toddlers weaned on their own. Children slept snuggled close to their parents at night until adolescence. Parents showered kids with physical and emotional nurturance throughout the day, whether toddlers or teens. Paleolithic kids of all ages learned together through all-day active play and adventure in nature, as well as by hanging out with their parents and extended families and imitating adult work tasks at their own interest and pace.
Adults in the tribe consistently and firmly modeled expected behavior. They didn’t demand, lecture, punish, “helicopter”, or “bulldoze”, nor were their standards permissive. Moreover, Paleolithic children ate a neurochemically sound, endocrine-supporting, nutrient-dense, biocompatible diet of meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, nuts, and seeds—with no refined sugar, no grains, no soy, and no milk from another species—Childhood body shame, obesity, and gender dysphoria were virtually unheard of, if ever.
Children received their full due of dependency and play until each individual youth proved that he or she was ready for adulthood responsibilities—Yet upon reaching adulthood, the youth was guided and mentored by the elders in his family and community. As a result of such nature-aligned childhoods, people in Paleolithic indigenous cultures were generally peaceful, mentally and emotionally stable, socially skilled, physically fit, and sharp at learning. Young adults were fully equipped to assume the helm of adulthood responsibilities.
Eventually, some bands of hunter-gatherers decided to innovate over (“mess with”) nature and turn to planting and herding. As the toilsome lifestyle of herding and farming replaced the more relaxed hunting and gathering way of life, the needs of children were eschewed. Babies were forcibly weaned. Play was replaced with work. Kids were smacked and punished for lack of obedience. Adulthood was fast-tracked through excruciating puberty rites. In time, more hunter-gatherer tribes imitated and assimilated the need-denying, power-over lifestyles of agriculture, civilization, and eventually, industrialization. Kids were sent off to village schools, subjected to hours of sitting, regimentation, and joyless indoctrination into civilization.
Our world’s children who became assimilated into agricultural, civilized, and later industrialized ways of life were thrust into adulthood with dependency and attachment needs still burning. When the wounded children of the world grew to become parents, well, a look at our human history of trauma, child abuse, violence, and war tells you what cycle they continued to pass down, generation after generation, with eventual global repercussions.
Today, our restless, apathetic, depressed, agitated, screen-addicted, sedentary, passive Millennial and Generation Z sons despair about, rather than look forward to, their future. It might seem that we’ve strayed too far to get these children and young adults back on track. But here’s the beauty of aligning with nature’s intent: The cycle of homeostasis and attachment is exquisitely simple to spark and symphonically rapid in regenerating forward momentum! Nurturing and Empowering Our Sons takes parents by the hand in restarting this healing cycle in their sons, whether their sons are newborns or college age.
Again, why boys? Our sons are distressed and sounding the alarm at a volume and speed that should be regarded as a national emergency. They are suffering biologically hostile schooling, neglect of basic attachment needs, rampant psychiatric drugging, real-life and online bullying, high but hidden sexual assault and sex trafficking rates, the brunt of physical violence of all types, a nutrient-depleted and endocrine-disrupting diet of junk food, and incessant male-shaming messages in the media. Their alarms come in many forms, including poor self-care, obesity and weak bodies, behavioral acting-out, mental health collapse, learning “disabilities”, body shame, eating disorders, gender dysphoria, screen and porn addiction, chemical addiction, failure-to-launch, self-harm, sexual paraphilia, violence, and epidemic suicide tragedies.
It is undeniable that our boy-bashing society is reaping the Couture maxim, “When you mess with nature, nature messes with you!”
I wish my son, Brycen were still here with me to snark about our nature maxim… but he took his own precious life at age 23. My devastation and anguish compelled me to finish Nurturing and Empowering Our Sons for two reasons: To give Brycen and his complex story of trauma, foster care, adoption, and loss a voice, and to help other parents protect and heal their sons while there is still hope and time. Fortunately for your sons, another maxim also rings true: When you align with nature, nature aligns with you.