The kids in my household know that the argument "but everyone else is doing it!" will get them exactly nowhere. My husband and I expect our two children to think for themselves.
In this, we're not unusual. No parent wants their child to be browbeaten into submission or led astray — a la Pinocchio to Pleasure Island — by sketchy, swaggering friends.
So when Gov. Andrew Cuomo faced down the bullies in the oil and gas industry who had been pushing and pushing him to release final regulations on fracking in advance of a manipulated deadline — even though the state Department of Health hasn't yet completed its limited and insufficient review — I knew I had a teachable moment.
"You see," I said to my son and daughter over breakfast, "the governor is being gutsy. By granting the health commissioner more time to study the human health effects of fracking, he's telling the gas industry to back off."
My 11-year-old — a founder of Kids Against Fracking and who has written more letters to Albany than even I — wanted to know if this meant that Cuomo will ban fracking in New York.
I said I didn't know.
I would like to believe that our governor, who witnessed seawater sloshing through the tunnels of Lower Manhattan after Superstorm Sandy, will keep his promise to lead on climate change.
If so, his first step would be to close New York's doors to the brutal, methane-breathing dragon called fracking, which new studies say is a bigger climate-killer than coal and all studies say is at least as lethal.
But I don't know if he'll do that.
This is what I do know: In the face of enormous pressure to set sail for Pleasure Island, Cuomo has said, "Not so fast."
Here's what else I know: Sometimes — as when emerging data bring fresh insights — the brave thing to say is "wait." The New York Times has now famously referred to our deliberating governor as "Hamlet on the Shale." That's cute. But wrong. Waiting for the results of studies on the human health impact of fracking is not dithering. It's a wise decision — and, indeed, the only rational course to take to avoid putting New Yorkers' health at grave risk.
In fact, if it's a Shakespearean reference we need in order to understand our perilous situation here in New York — with a shale gas army massing at our southern border — we might look to another king's son: Prince Hal, who eventually becomes King Henry V and is featured in three of Shakespeare's plays. Hal bides his time, is unmoved by insults and mockery, and, finally, breaks off with his sketchy, swaggering friends and decisively leads the nation out of turmoil.
Governor, a few weeks ago I stood outside your office door with Arun Gandhi, whose grandfather once led the Indian people on a march to the sea.
We came to tell you that the sea is now marching to us. We came, with hundreds of other New Yorkers, to ask you to lead us out of climate change turmoil.
I don't know what you will do now. I do know that you were right to call a time out on fracking. And for that, for now, I thank you.
Sandra Steingraber is a biologist and founder of New Yorkers Against Fracking.