Are your family supportive of your iNatting?

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I’m the only one in my family who iNats. My oldest has uploaded a couple of observations, himself, but he mostly has an account to follow me and show his friends any cool things I upload.

My husband says things like “You weren’t home so I figured you’d be out in the woods somewhere.” I don’t think he even knows how to take photos on his phone.

My 16-year-old refuses to walk with me because I stop at every plant and look under every rock. They’ve made several comments about staging interventions and refuse to enable me.

Today, the dog was waiting at the gate to leave the dog park, and I’m pretty sure she rolled her eyes when I stopped to get photos of some fungi on a fallen log.

How do other people’s families react to the iNatting? Do they point things out? Make fun of you? Complain you walk too slow? Is iNatting a family affair?

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My housemate points things out that are inside, instead of automatically squishing… he prefers the days I can spend hours “somewhere out back” and shows no concern. Of course, so far I’ve made it back in time for dinner, so nothing to worry about.
I learned long ago that my outdoor pursuits like berry picking (or iNatting) would be solitary.
I prefer it. I see more wildlife alone.

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Well, let’s just say most of my family isn’t particularly appreciative of nature in general, and I have been made fun of. But hey, that isn’t gonna stop me from using iNat and encouraging others to do the same! :grinning_face:

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This is a cute topic :)

I started using iNat at university for a class project, and brought it home to my Dad, who now uses it often. We use it a lot on the farm as a public engagement tool (annual bioblitzes), but also to document what species we see and to plan land management. For example, it helped us identify butterfly species that are present and absent on the farm, connect them to host plants, and identify where those host plants most often grow. We’ve now incorporated this knowledge into our wildflower seeding locations and a larger landscape rehydration project. So my Dad loves it! My mom doesn’t use it, but she will ask me to ID things she sees in the garden or on walks. My fiance has used it some, but is more likely to accompany me and help me document what we see on our hikes for use on my own account (and to buy me wonderful gifts like field guides and my camera <3)

I think the most interesting thing about my (i)naturalist hobby is how my grandparents and my future in-laws perceive it. My grandparents don’t have the internet or smartphones, but my grandfather is a classic Canadian outdoorsman and my Nan has a dinky point-and-shoot. I have long conversations with them about what has changed in their 80+ years of fishing, forestry, hunting, birding, and gardening in our village. They will show me the odd thing that they can’t identify, sometimes keeping bugs in their freezer for me for months while I’m off in Australia. We can share knowledge and learn from each other, me with a more formal education and access to internet resources like iNat, and them with far more practical knowledge and a hefty stack of outdated field guides. I often end up learning more from them than the reverse. My grandfather’s side of the family all lobster fish still, and sometimes my cousins will ask me about strange things they see because they know I’m interested, which has led to fun experiences like delivering bottles of sea slugs to the fisheries department.

My fiance’s parents live adjacent to this stunning and sadly rapidly shrinking piece of swampy bushland in NSW, although they don’t understand how lucky they are. When we last visited them for a few weeks, I spent everyday wandering around the bush and taking photos. My FIL is a novice gardener, and he showed me pics of all the reptiles and birds that he’s seen in the garden. My MIL took us whale-spotting on the coast and was super excited about it, and wants us to take a boat tour the next time we’re up. They had to move around a ton with the military until recently, so I think now that they have their own place it’s a good time to start appreciating the local wildlife. They aren’t big nature people, but it was a way for me to connect with them, because everyone has a certain aspect of nature that can get them excited. Often they’ll ask me about new birds that visit their garden. In-laws are always a bit of an unknown, and my naturalist hobby has fortunately been a winner for getting to know each other :)

Very long response, sorry (clearly I’m procrastinating a report for work…)! I think I’m quite fortunate to have supportive family on all sides, and to have grown up in an environment where nature connection is the norm. I know not everyone is as lucky, and when my fiance was a child, my in-laws didn’t have much capacity to be curious and exploratory. For anyone that doesn’t get as much support from their family in their hobbies, I hope that this changes when their stressors and circumstances become different :)

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My family is pretty supportive of my love for iNat. They definitely don’t have the same kind of love for nature as me but are interested in it.
One of my siblings has an account but doesn’t use it a lot.
When we are out on the beach or hiking, everyone helps look for things and I’m usually called over dozens of times to see something “super weird” that usually turns out to be something I’ve seen a hundred times. I don’t mind, though. Every once in a while, they’ll stumble onto something really cool.
No one ever tells me I walk too slow. I’m in a family of nine, so we move slow anyway. Typically, I like to run ahead and then stay and inspect a general area while I wait for everyone to catch up.

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We are iNat tragics

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My partner will rescue critters from the garden and is always calling out to come look at some critter. Most nights we do a stroll around the garden to see what is there.

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@riainnature Your whole comment was a series of way cool things, and it seems you know to appreciate it. :green_heart:

My wife is happy I’m having something I enjoy doing besides sitting at the computer, and also doesn’t squash crawlies she finds in the house anymore, but puts a glass over them and calls me to make an obs and release it out. Side note: Being pretty aware of the happenings in our apt. complex, the variations in amount and kind of small beetle species have been surprisingly well tied into certain people moving in or out, and long-term injuries and illnesses among the tenants.

My two older kids (10 and 8) generally support me with iNatting by drawing my attention to things when we’re outside. They do complain about me being a slowpoke occasionally when they want to move on already. :laughing: I have to brag a bit, that they do better in a lot of outdoor knowledge than their teachers. Good to know some of the stuff I teach sticks.

Most of my side’s close kin had already passed on by the time I started iNatting. My brother is more interested in trivia I find than anything else. My aunt, who’s in her late 60’s, is very interested in my iNatting as she’s also spent a lot of time outside during her life, and been interested in all forms of life. While she doesn’t have a lot of problems with tech, she hasn’t integrated it into her life so much that she would consider iNatting herself.

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My mom becomes more and more interested.
Since I started telling her things like “did you know we have more than 60 ladybug species, and not just one?” or the more I randomly point at things telling her what it is - and sometimes why - she becomes more and more curious.
She would never use iNat, but she walks with me and keeps asking “whats this and that”.
Luckily she walks pretty slow and thats her chance to for once outrun me on walks :D
She once said “I can’t believe we spend almost 2 hours here and didn’t make it more than 200 meters away from the car”

My boyfriend is super supportive. Thank god. He hunts bugs with me, takes photos with and for me and loves animals.

None of them would ever use iNat, and I don’t see them doing or enjoying it either. My family wouldn’t mind if I went out for hours, tho. I do it all the time. Sometimes, I visit my parents just to leave and explore the outdoors again, and thats cool for them, too.

I think, a relationship with an anti-naturalist wouldn’t work for me, at all. If interests starts to shift and divide..

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It’s all my family’s fault really. In 2006 one of my sisters made fun of me for not knowing the name of a rather non-descriptive plant on my property. This spurred me to start identifying and listing every organism on my property. Well, actually, everything I see anywhere. My introduction to iNat by a botanist friend helped me tremendously in my identification endeavors. My husband never hikes with me unless we are on a hiking vacation together. He complains I walk slower than a little old lady with a walker. In one national park he was actually proven correct, as a little old lady with a walker passed us by as I was crouched down taking a photo. We never caught up with her.

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i don’t interact with my family much, and they’ve never really been interested in my hobbies. one sister is a moderate nature-lover and i’ve tried to encourage her to use iNat to catalogue the birds at her feeder and the plants in the yard etc., but nothing yet.
my dad thinks climate change is a hoax and is difficult to talk to - it’s frustrating, so i avoid any topics i give a shit about when talking to him.

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I’m retired and my wife is happy that I have a hobby.

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Plus I seem to remember that your grandmother got you a specimen container for Christmas once… that’s pretty darn supportive!

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I have a brother-in-law like that. My kids won’t even be in the same room with him.

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I have told the story before of why my husband actually found iNaturalist for me in the first place.

My family knows if we visit ruins or anywhere, I am likely to slow them down by taking photos of plants and what have you, so we set meeting places for “in case we get separated”s.

On a regular basis, they will point out things they spot that are exciting, sometimes out of doors sometimes in, sometimes new to me sometimes not. They beam at any info I can give. My husband is especially proud of my stingless bee knowledge. A few nights ago my daughter in law called to say my son was quite ill and she felt he needed to be seen so we took them to Urgencias at a hospital (this is much easier I think here than it might be elsewhere). Here the whole family typically attends, and so we were all waiting for the doctor to come back with discharge paperwork in an area close to the automatically opening door when we noticed a little friend marching across the floor. I of course photographed it and then my husband scooped it up with the prescriptions my son had been given to take it outside to release. (He’s fine, just a bad virus with high fever and he got dehydrated.) My family was quite tickled that I recognized instantly it was a type of scorpion and not a small spider as they first pointed it out to me, though at the time the specific “whiptail” escaped me. I only remembered I had seen a larger one that was similar before in the laundry casita of the old house.

My family are extremely supportive of one another, for which I am grateful. My heart goes out to those in less supportive situations.

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I’ve been trying to learn to identify different asters and goldenrods for about two years, but they’re just so difficult. My husband makes fun of me. “Hey look - Goldenrods… What type is it?” That’s the point when I either swear at him or throw something at him. lol.

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Decades ago I had the foresight (?) to marry a Nature-nerd (@mksexton). Our one child is supportive of us and appreciates nature even though she doesn’t nerd out like us. I’m just happy she learned (through proximity to us) what a Golden-cheeked Warbler is!

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May I make a suggestion? If you do not already, follow Oscar C. González Martínez who is incredibly generous with his knowledge. I don’t know if this allows you to “see” all his comments but if I were on a mission to learn Asters I would try to soak those up like a sponge.

You might need to translate it, but here’s an example of his gracious sharing on a humble Tridax observation.

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My family thinks it’s weird. In fact, they get annoyed with me even though I don’t take them out with me on walks or hikes. I don’t talk about it to them. A few of them are actually hurtful about it. My brother is tolerant and sometimes helpful since he likes animals. The rest think I need a different hobby. But, I learn new things, get a lot of exercise, de-stress in nature, improve my photography skills, spend very little money, remember my dad’s love of nature, and maybe give back a little to the world around me, so I think the positives outweigh the negative reactions.

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My wife has a pair of binoculars, and when she has time, she sometimes joins me on my observations. There are occasions when I go on very demanding trips — high elevations, harsh climates — and in those cases she does not come. But she does accompany me on lighter outings.

My daughter is also interested in nature. She once had a camera, but she lost it, and she also lost her binoculars. As you know, children are not always good at taking care of such things. Still, she continues to draw birds, flowers, and insects. When she observes something new, she gets excited. Both she and my wife have their own iNaturalist accounts.

At work, the situation is a bit different. Some colleagues find this hobby amusing, others find it dangerous. When I go alone into remote places, they worry. Some are afraid that I might be attacked by wild animals. Over time, however, these initial reactions have turned into familiarity. At the beginning of the week, they now ask where I went over the weekend and whether I found any new birds, butterflies, or fungi.

Sometimes my wife’s family considers this hobby unnecessary and expensive. Driving five hours on weekends to reach distant locations seems costly and risky to them. There have been a few occasions when I got stuck in mud or had a flat tire in very remote places. But in general, they do not strongly insist that I should stop going — they mostly just complain.

In the end, the most important thing for me is my wife’s support. That support is enough for me.

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