My Son, The Tomato

The other night I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of the pouring down rain. My first immediate thought was, “my poor tomatoes.” Mackenzie and I have been growing tomatoes from seed since the beginning of March. We finally planted them in the garden outside (waiting of course, until after Mother’s Day, the supposed trick to growing strong tomatoes). And here it was pouring down rain, probably beating our tomatoes down to nothing. Sure, there’s a little framework covering them, that will at some point, hopefully, act as a stake for the larger tomato plants I’m hoping we’ll get. I laid there in bed, literally, forcing myself not to go out in the middle of that rain and pluck up the tomatoes and bring them back inside to safety. But here’s the thing, their planted. It’s a done deal. And I have to trust that Mackenzie and I grew strong enough starts to get through not only this rainfall, but the next, and the next….

I laid there for a long time, and my thoughts turned to Mackenzie. He’s much like the tomatoes out in the garden, although right now, he’s more like the little seedlings that we had growing in the house, in a container, protected and nurtured. Thing is, Nick and I are doing the same thing with Mackenzie that Mack and I had done with the tomatoes. We are caring for him, holding him up, literally acting just as the stakes for the tomatoes. And at some point, we are going to plant him outside, of course I mean to say that at some point, he’ll be on his own. At first, we’ll put him in the ground with a little stick to prop him up. This is probably elementary school, when there are teachers and we’re still very involved in his life, choosing his afterschool activities etc. Next, he won’t need those stakes, but he’ll still have the larger support, high school, he’ll have a lot more freedom to grow and reach out, but still within the general confines of that A-frame (high school) trellis. He will have his own personality, which may at times become unruly and need to be trimmed back, that trellis acting as a guideline for both him and for us as parents to gage his growth by.

Next, he won’t need that trellis anymore, he will have strong roots, a strong stalk and lots and lots of branches to support his own weight. Of course, just like Mackenzie will, a tomato can never really be without a support, but it gets lesser as the season goes on, and much often is just there and not really carrying the weight.
But here’s the real similarity. Just like I had to trust that my tomatoes would make it through that storm, we’re going to have to trust that Mack will make it through his, and not just when he moves out, but all along, and really as soon as he starts school. We can’t be plucking him out of his dirt every time the rain comes, to bring him back inside to safety. The stake, that final stake is always there to support him, but even so, that doesn’t make the rain stop, it doesn’t keep the storms from coming. That’s the biggest thing that I learned from my midnight tomato soliloquy; everything that Nick and I are doing now, is the caring, the nurturing, the preparation of strong and healthy roots, so that once he is out in the world and growing on his own we can trust him to remain strong in his roots. Even though the rain will come, and sometimes not enough rain, that he will still survive and succeed, and just like a tomato produce (not children necessarily, but have a life which brings forth). The key is that his roots are strong, who he becomes above those roots is up to him and what path life takes him down….I don’t get to decide what my tomato plant grows to be. I know it will bear tomatoes, and not apples, but I don’t know how many leaves it will have, how far it will spread, the exact point it will decide to fruit….

I think sometimes parents, and I’m not speaking as a parent now, but as a child and an individual, I think sometimes they get so caught up in supporting their child, that they keep the seedling inside for too long, the tomato never really grows beyond that original planter because it’s never given the opportunity to do so. Its potential is never fully realized, never becomes self sufficient, because it has had its water and nutrients brought to it for so long that it doesn’t know how to glean from the soil, to establish roots to reach out and obtain the things that it needs. Just waits for someone to come along with a hose, or a water bucket and provide for it. You see this with people all the time. Grown adults who rely on anyone and everyone but themselves.

Of course there are kids who are raised the hard way, their seeds are put directly into the bare soil. There is no incubation period where the seed can emerge in safety and security of a greenhouse container. Some, if not most, of these seeds die of very quickly. Anyone who has planted seeds outside has seen this. But do we recognize it in people, sure. We say, they had a hard up-bringing; they were left to fend for themselves, etc. We almost apologize for their behavior because of the challenges they faced at the start. The interesting thing is that the seeds who are planted in the bare soil, and who manage to stay alive, are often the strongest, because they have survived through so much. We see this all the time, saying “he’s a self made man” and the like. So the opportunity to fail then, and the rising above that, is a key to success.

So, while I intend to grow my kid with the best support system that we can give him, I’m also expecting that any mistakes we make (and god knows we will), or areas we fail him in, that he can overcome. The only thing I know is that I need to let him have to opportunity to fail. The weakest plants are the ones who have everything given to them, then when that giving is no longer available (with the plant, someone goes on vacation or forgets to water it…) (With a child, adolescent, adult….the provider can no longer provide, or some other change of course..). These are the plants, and the people, that fail immediately, because they don’t know how to be on their own, don’t know how to provide for themselves, hold themselves up. They’ve never been given the option and so, those muscles have never been flexed.

In my counseling training with DVS, “advocacy based,” we learned that doing something for someone is the same as telling them “you can’t do this yourself.”

Of everything else, I need to make sure that Mackenzie knows “he can do this himself.” Even if that means he has to go through hardships, sometimes unnecessary, I need him to know that he can do it alone (he will always have our support, but we won’t always be there for support) I hope you can see what I am saying…and what the difference is here.

And while most of you don’t have kids; the idea still applies, think of the people we do this for, its our friends, its our family… who do you need to give the opportunity to fail? I honestly think that giving the space for that is one of the greatest acts of love….

Just think about it.