Don’t just give them all the things you wish you had. Instead, teach them all the things you wish you’d known. – author unknown
Some people have quite a green thumb for gardening while others could kill a cactus. I fall somewhere in the middle. Gardening really only consists of attention, water, and fertilizer.
Like my mother and Grandma, I love gardening and planting flowers. Now, Eva enjoys all the flowers and vegetables growing. She likes to plant and watch her once-tiny seed grow into a beautiful flower. She keeps asking when her vegetables will be ready to eat.
When I was growing up, we often planted a garden. I remember my dad tilling up the dirt to get it ready for the seeds; turning it over and over until it was soft and uniform. One year, he even plowed the garden with a team of horses just to say he did it.
Heirloom seeds are some of my favorites to plant. Heirloom seeds are created by centuries of open pollination by birds, insects, wind, or other natural means. These seeds are often passed down by families, but you can also purchase from a store or local farmers.
No matter how far the seed dates back, the growing power of the original is still in the DNA. It reminds me of how our children can take on our characteristics or have features that look like generations before.
When starting baby seedlings in trays, a safe, well-tempered environment must be monitored for them to grow into mighty plants. If you over water, the seeds will become waterlogged and will never sprout, but too little water and they will die from thirst.
Eva is learning to put her clothes on all by herself, she has done this for a long time but as she grows, we require more out of her. Now that she has gotten bigger, it is not only the easy clothing articles she has to put on but the harder ones as well, including socks. It doesn’t take long before the whining and the “I cant’s” start rolling in as she tries to do it all by herself. Her complaints are rarely legitimate. It is usually that she wants us to continue to do it for her. Her protected, safe environment quickly becomes a place that she uses as a catalyst to get her own way.
It can be so frustrating and the temptation to bail her out is always lingering on the surface, sometimes I fall short and give in to the plea. Then I realize I am not doing her any favors and I find the next time she tries to put on her clothes, the fight is worse. Gardening 101 comes rushing back. If I over-water the roots will become shallow and the plants will always rely on me for their water instead of that which is reached by allowing their roots to run deep into a natural water source they find on their own. The amount of water we pour on the roots of our children matters and the measurement is precise.
Once Eva finally accomplishes the task given to her, she feels very successful! It is at this point that we step in to make any adjustments to the malfunctions that might have occurred and of course praise her for the good job she has done. She beams with pride as she learns to be a big girl.
Fertilizer works for plants along the same way as praise works on our children. It helps the plants to grow sizeable and sturdy. Fertilizer helps them to have plenty of backbone to stand against pesky pests that are unavoidable. Even so, there is an interesting phenomenon that occurs when over-fertilizing takes place. Once again, the plant is left in constant need of nourishment from its fertilizing source.
Our role as parents is not to leave our children craving attention or affirmation but to balance them between, knowing who they are and being self-reliant to get the job done, with or without notoriety.
I do not need for Eva to set out on her own one day and return home because she finds the inescapable pressures of life have made it impossible for her to adjust her own clothing. Our desire to give her what she needs to become self-contained in the garden of life; to see the heirloom seeds in our family tree take root in her. I want her to recognize the fight and have the backbone to stand; the resilience to tie her own shoes and walk on.
As a runner we are taught, on windy days, to tuck our heads and run into the wind. I cannot say windy days are my favorite, they are quite frankly a bit annoying, but…I love to fly a kite. The wind has its purpose; learning to tuck into it and run anyway will develop champions and unfortunately expose those who are not.
God was a gardener himself. My mother always says, “He loves to get his hands dirty.” God told Adam to tend to the garden. We all have gardens of our own that need our attention. Spend some time on the basics; pull out the weeds, water often, and fertilize regularly. If you do these things, I assure you, what you plant will grow. Besides, there is a lot to be said for dirt under the fingernails.
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“The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.” Genesis 2:15
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