Writer, teacher and mother Jennifer Case grew up backpacking Minnesota’s Superior Hiking Trail, where time outside gave her a sense of safety, belonging and connection to something larger than herself. Years later, she saw a photo of her daughter at ecology camp, sitting on a rocky overlook with a journal—having a version of the same experience.
In this episode of Raising Wild, Ashley and Jennifer explore what it means to raise children who care deeply about other people and the living world without asking them to carry the full weight of its problems.
Drawing from her new book, The Carework Project: Reckoning with Love, Labor, and the Living World, Jennifer talks about caregiving as climate work, why families were never meant to care for children in isolation and how time outside can help both children and parents find steadiness. She also offers a thoughtful way to approach climate anxiety and activism: do the work, but act from love rather than fear—and loosen your grip on the outcome.
In this episode:
Ashley and Jennifer talk about:
- The childhood experiences outside that helped Jennifer feel safe, grounded and connected
- Seeing her daughter recreate one of Jennifer’s most meaningful childhood experiences
- Why families need wider networks of care
- Raising children who understand where their food comes from
- What backyard chickens can teach kids about responsibility, life and death
- Talking honestly about climate change without allowing anxiety to overwhelm wonder
- Helping children participate in joyful, community-based environmental work
- Why caring for children, communities and the earth are interconnected
- Becoming steady enough within ourselves to offer steadiness to our children
- Recognizing the grief and love beneath anger
- Teaching children to engage fully without becoming attached to a perfect outcome
A few moments from the conversation
Jennifer remembers sitting on a rocky overlook above Lake Superior as a middle schooler, looking out at the landscape and feeling connected to a much larger world. She would sometimes ask to return alone with her journal. Decades later, she saw a photo of her daughter sitting with a journal on a rocky outcrop at ecology camp and recognized that same experience taking shape in the next generation.
Jennifer also talks about raising children during a period of climate uncertainty. She wants her kids to understand what is happening, but she does not want fear to replace their wonder. Her family looks for ways to participate in joyful, caring communities—from volunteering with a local food network to caring for chickens in their backyard.
One of the most powerful threads in the conversation is Jennifer’s belief that the energy we bring to difficult work matters. Anger often has grief beneath it, she says, and that grief comes from love. By reconnecting our actions to that love, we can care for the world without allowing fear and anger to consume us.
Ashley and Jennifer also explore what it means to raise children without promising them a particular outcome. We can teach them to care, participate and do their best while also showing them how to experience disappointment, recalculate and keep moving forward.
Links & Resources
- Learn more about Jennifer Case
- The Carework Project: Reckoning with Love, Labor, and the Living World
- Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
- Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet by Thich Nhat Hanh
Subscribe to Raising Wild today and follow along.
About Raising Wild
Raising Wild is a podcast from Wild Idea Media, hosted by Ashley Arnold, about what wild places build in us — and what happens when childhood drifts too far from them.
Every other Wednesday, Ashley talks with writers, scientists, educators, leaders, artists, athletes and parents about childhood, nature, freedom, risk, resilience and the wild, capable kid in all of us.
Together, they explore how time outside shapes us into more capable, curious and connected people. And why the wild places that made us who we are are worth paying attention to, caring for and protecting.
About Jennifer Case
Jennifer Case is a writer, teacher and the author of The Carework Project: Reckoning with Love, Labor, and the Living World, We Are Animals: On the Nature and Politics of Motherhood and Sawbill: A Search for Place. Her writing explores place, environment, home, family and motherhood.
Jennifer teaches creative writing at the University of Central Arkansas, serves as an assistant nonfiction editor at Terrain.org and is the supervising editor of Arkana. She lives in central Arkansas with her family.