“How to be a good plant parent,” the headline equated plant care to child care.
The article from Boston.com advised carefully choosing the plant. Dark apartment? Choose plants that thrive in shadows. Busy schedule? Pick one that only needs a bit of water now and then.
Exactly like parenting a child? Prospective parents can shop around for a baby that fits into the parents’ personal and household schedule. Or so thought one inexperienced, first-time expectant mother who volunteered to do a major wedding event a month after the projected birth. “I will have time.” More experienced parents said, “No, thanks.” They knew she did not know. Babies do not silently sit quietly in a corner while mom goes about her life as she did before the baby came home. Parents adjust their schedules around babies.
So, adding a plant to the household might be a bit different than adding a baby.
The article also touches on the physical care of plants: watering, trimming dead leaves, feeding it plant food and when to repot. That summarizes most plant needs.
The details for caring for a baby from birth to high school graduation fill hundreds of books. To nurse or not to nurse, finding the right formula, dealing with the trauma of the terrible twos. Plants do not have tantrums, so that cuts out a couple hundred pages from any book about plant parenting. Plants also do not have anything like a child’s first day of school, first lost tooth, first boyfriend or first day of driving. All events during which the parent will celebrate, soothe the tears, talk through the shock or celebrate the success.
Some parents take pictures of each milestone to post on Facebook. Plant parents celebrate the unfurling of a new leaf or a beautiful flower.
For parents of human children, the first day of school begins years of education (and more first day pictures), new ideas and learning to read. The first boyfriend becomes dating, a fiancé and marriage. The first day of driving signals a major move toward independence. Children offer many opportunities for pictures and comments. They also insure plenty of days and weeks of parents’ holding their breath, hoping everything goes smoothly. Joy when it does. Sorrow when it doesn’t.
Parenting involves years of training. Training a plant requires a stick or rod to guide the plant’s growth upward. Takes a few minutes to put a stake in the ground, tie the plant to it and then check on it occasionally.
Training a child involves hours and years of repetition. Training a child involves so much: learning to use a spoon, potty training, shoe tying, driver’s education, music, sports or so forth. The only part of parenting that takes a mere 15 minutes is training a child to tell a bad joke. Parents invest years in training children between birth and graduation.
Care taking requires understanding the plant or the child’s needs. Plant caretakers (gardeners?) must observe, “does the African violet thrive with this plant food? have enough water? Need to move to a bigger pot?”
If only it were so easy with children. About the time a parent realizes the child has entered a new phase and figures out how to respond, the child enters another phase and hates everything they liked last week. Plants never express an opinion, never move, never demand anything.
And yet, someone decided to trim a few more words out of our vocabulary and call folks with green thumb a plant parent. Not buying it. Not one bit. Not even if it thrives in a shadowy apartment. It’s still a plant and needs a gardener, not a parent.