Hello, my name is Rbrta and I manage a seed bank, which stores seeds to preserve genetic diversity. There are many reasons to store seeds: to preserve the genes that plant breeders need to increase yield, disease resistance, drought tolerance, nutritional quality, improved taste, etc of crops. Another, increasingly important reason is to ensure that the loss of genetic diversity, especially in rare or endangered plants, is forestalled in an effort to conserve biodiversity. Seed banks also offer a way to preserve plants of cultural or historical significance. It is more than just a job to me and one I was prepared to dedicate my life to.

Before taking on this role, I lived on a farm with my husband Rck and son Oscr. We bought the farm when we first married with a view to raising our children in a healthy, clean environment where they could learn first-hand the value and importance of the land and natural environment. We were only blessed with our son Oscr, but he was more than enough for our happiness. Both Rck and I are committed environmentalists, having met at university when studying environmental science. I majored in botany and horticulture and Rck eventually navigated toward environmental law.

When Oscr was 15, I was offered my dream job, that of managing a seed bank. It was an opportunity to fully use my educational qualifications and the hands-on experience I had gained as a farmer together with my passion for environmental protection. Rck was also keen to be more active in his chosen field of environmental law and secured a job with a consultancy firm. We thought that, as Oscr would probably be attending university or another tertiary education facility when he finished school in 2 years’ time, it would be good to have him settled in where he could make friends while still at school. In addition, if we stayed on the farm, Oscr would have to relocate to pursue his studies and we felt it was better to have the family stay together. It seemed the right thing to do.

Both Rck and I enjoyed our work, but the demands meant that we both worked long hours. Oscr, didn’t complain and we thought he was coping well with the changed lifestyle. It’s amazing what we can’t see under our very noses when we choose not to look.

It became clear that something was not quite right with Oscr. At first, I was pleased with his new interest in current affairs, and it didn’t occur to either Rck or I that our sensitive son was finding the news distressing. I recall an article I once read about research conducted into how children may be affected by violent movies and the surprising finding that even very young children can differentiate between’ fantasy’ violence and’ reality’ violence. The study recommended that children not watch the news until they were older and that parents should ensure that they are on hand to discuss what their child was seeing. Hindsight is a pretty useless thing!
We also found that Oscr was accessing dubious information from even more dubious sites through the Internet on his phone. We looked through his phone Internet history while he was sleeping and we both shocked. We started to get an idea about why our robust, energetic, enthusiastic son had stopped eating and sleeping properly and withdrawn from us. It was more than just the teenage hormonal changes that we had put it down to.

Our guilt as parents was immense. How could we put our ambitions before the needs of our son? We decided that we all needed to hit the reset button and so, after arranging matters at work, we packed up the car and headed to the bush.

I had forgotten how wonderful it is to physically be a part of the environment. We hadn’t planned our conversations with our son, we just wanted to let him know that we understood his fears and that they could be overcome by talking about them. He was withdrawn to start with, so Rck and I talked randomly about all the things happening in the world that we, and our parents, had grown up in the shadow of. War, famine, disease, murder, the threat of nuclear war, etc. The difference now is that while there has always been turmoil in the world, today’s children are more exposed to it than ever we were. While we were off playing cowboys and Indians, or other politically incorrect games of imagination, children today are increasingly accessing material not designed for their young minds.

Finally, Oscr started to talk and thankfully it is something that continues today. Rck and I are still passionately committed to our jobs, but we recognise the need for greater balance in our lives. We now ensure that either one of us, preferably both, is usually home for Oscr, although now that he has joined a cricket team and has made some good friends, we are finding that Rck and I are increasingly getting to spend more time with each other than Oscr. But that’s a good thing too!