Saturday, May 17, 2014

If Parenting Is Like Gardening, I'm Screwed

A few weeks ago, we bought some outdoor plants to begin our spring planting—it’s mostly decorative, although I do have herbs on the back deck.

I always say that I’d like a vegetable garden, but the truth is that I don’t think I would make a very good gardener. I’ve gotten better at keeping the plants from dying, but when we first moved in together and started planting green things in the ground and in pots, I needed frequent reminders about watering them during the day. I still need reminders, but not as frequently, and mostly, what we plant does fine, and it’s very satisfying to see those little green things growing and flowering.

Indoor plants, sadly, are another story. You would think it would be easier to remember to water those, since, you know, they live in the house with me, but no. Not even a terrarium, which is supposed to water and sustain itself, survived under my care. We had this hardy little rubber plant, though, that did survive for a long time, trooper that it was.

But a week or two ago, I had a glass of water that been on my nightstand overnight, and I thought, hey, I should water the plant with this! And I went over to the back door where the plant lived, and it was gone. That is how much I had neglected the poor thing—it just disappeared without my noticing it at all. I asked my husband about it, and he said he had tossed it on the compost pile weeks ago.

Alas, poor rubber plant, we barely knew you.

Our butterfly plant. 
It makes me really happy, though, when I manage not to kill them off. We haven’t planted our impatiens yet
this year, but we usually have a bed of them next to the sidewalk, and they’re such cheerful little flowers. There’s a perennial butterfly plant in a pot out front, too, and I love seeing it return every spring, with its purple leaves and delicate white flowers.

None of these would have survived if it had been up to me, but I’m glad I married someone who wasn’t scared to plant just because his wife had a black thumb.

I’ve heard lots of analogies over the years about how parenting is like gardening, and while I can understand the analogy on an academic level, I’m glad it’s not the case that being bad at one means you’ll be bad at the other. When I was pregnant with my son, apparently I was afraid that it did mean that, because I had a dream during my pregnancy that my baby was born, and I left him in a windowsill and forgot to feed him. It didn’t take a lot of dream analysis to figure that one out!

So as much as I tend to disregard those gardening/parenting analogies, I surprised myself by having something of a parenting epiphany the other day while looking at the plants we bought for the planter boxes on the front porch.

They’re some kind of lilies—I don’t know. I tossed out the little card that was in the tray of plants once I got the little guys tucked into their beds, but the picture showed that there would eventually be flowers on these cute little plants that really looked like we had stuck pineapples in the ground and buried them up to their necks. No sign of flowers or buds or anything at all. But awfully cute little plants.

Several weeks have passed now, and the plants have gotten taller. Basically the same as when we got them, but
elongated. Gangly, like teenagers. When the tiniest buds started to appear in the tops of these tall, gangly teenage plants, I thought, oh, goody! We’ll have flowers soon!

But now those buds have just gotten bigger and they are just tantalizing me. It seems like it’s been a week that they’ve looked like any day now they’ll be flowers, but no. The buds stay stubbornly closed, even though to me they look like surely they’re ready to open up.

As I was looking at the buds yesterday, willing them to open, it occurred to me just how much those gangly plants are like my boy. A cute little thing when I brought him home, there was only the vaguest suggestion, based on his anatomy, that he would one day be a man. And he’s grown the same way these plants have grown—mostly just up. As with the outdoor plants, too, there have been influences other than me that have shaped him and aided in his growth.

I’ve enjoyed all of the stages of his growing-up years and noted with satisfaction when the first signs started showing that, indeed, he was going to turn into a grown man one day.

Now he’s 20, and it seems like, really, those buds of adulthood should be opening faster than they are. Now that adulthood is so close, it feels like it’s never going to happen. I keep watching for it, encouraging, doing what I can, but there is no forcing that bud to open. I know, though, that just like that bud will open into a flower, my boy will  be a man.

But whereas I had a picture of the plant to show me how it would turn out, I don’t really have anything like that for my boy. He has always been his own person, doing things at his own pace and in his own way, and he’ll be his own man, too.


And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. 




9 comments:

  1. It took me till my late twenties to accept the fact that I had grown up. Some may even argue that the transformation took longer. I still have a losing record with flaura but a winner with fauna so am happy with that.

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    1. Yes, I've decided I'm much better with fauna. The problem with flora is it doesn't yell at you to get your attention!

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  2. Sharon, you're really only screwed if they turn out to be Triffids. Anyway, boys arrive at maturity about 6 months before senility so lots of time yet

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  3. I think it's a little 'shocking' to realize that a certain period of our lives is ended. We tend to spend our days thinking that nothing particular is happening, but instead our environment is continuously changing!

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  4. I was in my early 20's and still thought I was a teenager still. It wasn't till I got in my late 20's that I realized that I was grown up. lol I have always worked but I guess it didn't resonate with me until then. Life is funny how it creeps up on you sometimes.

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  5. As with children and plants they need love and tender care. They each take their own time to mature but when they do, they are beautiful. Enjoy the process and I'm sure you have done a wonderful job!!!

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  6. I'm sure your lilies and your son are both wonderful.

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  7. I had to laugh at the analogy. Clearly for people who have always been master gardeners or who don't have kids. I am a gardener now, but many plants were sacrificed in the making of this gardener, I'd like to think my kids won't have to go through any near death experiences as I continue to learn. :)

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    1. Oh, I'm so glad I'm not the only one! It's really not the greatest analogy since you don't get to sort of try it out with kids.

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