Parenting is A LOT like Gardening

Parenting is A LOT like Gardening 

I do not know much about gardening, Actually, I don’t know that much about many things for that matter, however I have discovered that parenting is so much like gardening!

You walk into the garden shop and you stand in awe, inhale the bliss of fragment aroma and the sight of  bold colors overwhelm your nervous system. Your eyes move across the small flowers, shrubs, vines and they pass an array of different shape leaves. A rainbow of contrasting shades of greens. Just a magnificent display similar to a middle school lunch room!

Swaying through the garden shop you will find soil for orchards, soil for roses, soil for vegetables and on it goes..... plant food specific for bulbs and all kinds of plants that like sun versus shade.

The staff are experts, I ask a question and they give me a book full of ways to help me be successful at gardening. That doesn’t necessarily guarantee I will be successful at first and I’m sure they know I will be back with more questions.

Inside the shop we have a whole new options for plants. These in my mind are more delicate because the harsh outside life is not suitable for them and they could die. They give so much oxygen and life to everything inside with it and are so valuable when taken care of properly. 

The most amazing this is the bugs. Each bug likes a different plant. I ask why one of my plants has holes in it and the incredibly smart employee says “oh the blah blah blah Bug loves those plants” so I buy the spray to keep the bugs away. Now that spray doesn’t work on the other plants because they have a different enemy that enjoys feeding off them.

See where I am going, so incredible how each child requires special soil, sun or no sun, she/he may be a bright flower blooming or a year round green shrub and the things that get to my child may not get to yours. Your plant may be considered a high maintenance flower like an orchid or an easy, hard to hurt plant like a cactus, both are so exquisitely beautiful when they bloom!

You bring home this little bundle of baby miracle and your job is like trial and error. You ask the experts questions, you read books, you take home your plant and try a variety of things and when the leaves are dry you water it and when the leaves are wilting you stop watering, back away and let the sun shine in. 

How do they absorb nutrients? Do they grow faster verbally, tactility or physically with or without sun light? How do they emotionally mature with indoor environment or outdoor? Does the flower bloom once a year or all year? What do they need when the leaves wilt or fall
off?

When you see THE smile or hear “Thank you mom”  you know the soil is rich and the sun as been there. When the tone turns sour and the heart is in despair you have to stop and check the soil, maybe re-pot or maybe move to another ledge that gets more sun.

Changing locations can look so different, it could be changing schools, changing our jobs, changing a friend group, changing rooms, change meds, change clothes choices, change teachers, ..... your job is to keep trying until you see the color shine bright on the window ledge.

 

This post is not advocating that we always are trying to make our kids happy or tirelessly working to make our kids blossom it’s a reminder to me that like gardening, it’s a learning curve, sometimes a very slow process and we will end up with some dead leaves falling onto the floor and we may get dry roots and we may have to ask for help ALLOT and that’s OK!

The very best part is even when we don’t get it ALL right, which is daily over here, they learn to adapt which is growth in the right direction.  Similar to a bush that needs pruning to keep the limbs from getting to heavy we loving prune back our kids when we see the off growth in a directions we know can be

too much for them. 

My garden is dead just so you know, my back yard looks like a desert so I am no expert in gardening however I have enjoyed learning along the way and when that first bloom spouted up I felt like a real gardener. 


Keep tending the soil, keep changing the ledge and keep the bugs away so when the flower sprouts up you can enjoy the fragment glory of the unique gift that has been given. Our children are unique, each one needing a combination of different things to grow and what a joy it has been to find the right perch to let the sun shine in just enough to bring life to my kids. I can provide the nutrients that pave the way for growth physically, mentally and spiritually but God provides the gifts and with his love and unfailing Grace they grow healthy and strong.