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Why is it that children don’t appreciate the finer things in life, the things that build character and backbone, the things that save money, the things that make an Alaskan parent proud to be an Alaskan parent?

In the case of my 9-year-old son, Logan, it’s picking blueberries.

Or should I say, his unwillingness to pick blueberries.

To put it bluntly, Logan doesn’t like blueberries. He doesn’t like to pick them and he doesn’t like to eat them, which for a kid born in Alaska on Alaska Day just doesn’t seem right. He says picking blueberries is “boring.”

It wouldn’t be so bad if my wife, Kristan, and I weren’t such blueberry Nazis. Our whole goal during the month of August is to pick as many blueberries as we can. Having a child that hates to pick blueberries is like having a Labrador that doesn’t like to retrieve.

When Logan was too little to pick blueberries, we used to dream about the day when he was old enough that he, too, would be able to contribute to the family’s blueberry harvest. We fantasized about how many more blueberries we would be able to pick as a family and how much more fun it would be doing it together.

It was a fantasy, too, because now that Logan is old enough to pick blueberries he refuses to do so. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he would be more willing to haul firewood — another Alaska tradition that he has yet to fully embrace — than pick blueberries.

He would be a fine blueberry picker, too. He has strong, nimble fingers, honed from hours of playing video games.

We used to be able to bribe him into picking at least a cup or two of blueberries each time we went out but even that doesn’t work anymore, especially since his prices seem to go up on an almost weekly basis.

For all our parenting expertise, Kristan and I don’t quite know how to deal with Logan’s aversion to blueberry picking.

So far, we have taken a hands-off approach and simply let him make his own choices. We have not forced him to pick blueberries for fear that doing so would make him even more opposed to picking them and possibly result in a lifelong hatred of blueberries. It’s the same reason we have not threatened him with physical harm or loss of privileges yet, either, for choosing not to pick blueberries.

When we tell him that blueberries are good for you and that they make you smarter, it seems to intensify his resolve against picking them.

“Duh dad,” he tells me. “I don’t want to be smart.”

Stupid me.

It would help a little bit if he at least liked to eat blueberries. That way we could tell him he couldn’t eat any blueberries if he didn’t pick any. But Logan could care less about eating blueberries. He has never tried one of my blueberry muffins. We make blueberry cakes, crunches and cobblers and he doesn’t even sample them. I finally convinced him to try some fresh blueberries on his Honey Nut Cherios the other day and he took one bite and handed the dish back to me. About the only way he’ll eat blueberries is if I make him a peanut butter and blueberry jam sandwich and don’t tell him it’s blueberry jam.

So what’s a blueberry-picking parent to do?

Well, you do the same thing you do if your kid doesn’t like camping or skiing or canoeing or hiking or fishing. You keep on doing it with the hope that someday he or she learns to like it, too, or at least appreciate it. Or maybe even just tolerate it.

You drag him along despite his protests and point out interesting things that you find along the way, like the frog we found in a puddle the other night that he picked up and thought was cool until I told him where warts come from.

You challenge him to a contest to see who can fill up their container first.

You let him carry the can of bear spray and tell him that it’s a weapon.

You put him in a pair of hip waders so he can play in the water.

You tell him that girls think boys who pick blueberries are gross.

You tell him that Batman eats blueberries.

Contact outdoors editor Tim Mowry at 459-7587.