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I’m a parent. I love being a parent. I grow basil. I love making pesto.
Every year around March or so, when winter starts to fade and spring peeks around the corner, I plant a new batch of basil. I don’t have the patience to grow it from seed, so I start with baby plants. I have a big pot I plant three or four plants in. I drag the pot to a spot where the basil gets sun, and I enjoy watering it.
In fact, I really enjoy watering my basil. I keep a watering can on the patio and water the basil in the morning. I have a plastic spray bottle, too. I like to spritz water on the basil leaves in the afternoon. The water beads up on the leaves, they glisten in the sun, and I like the sound of the spritzer.
It’s a meditative moment for me. My mind loses track of whatever work stuff is going on and I just take a moment to focus on the basil. Putting the pot in the sun gives it the light it needs to grow, but that’s sort of passive. Watering it is something I can actively do, and I know it needs water to thrive.
This year my basil didn’t do very well. It seemed weak and frail. Bright green leaves turned yellowish. Stalks wilted. I moved the pot to get more sun. I gave it more water in the morning. I began to spritz the leaves more often, a couple of times each afternoon. But nothing helped. White moldy growth started to appear on the base of each plant. So I did what any gardener would do in this situation. I Googled “why is white moldy stuff growing on my basil plant.” And I learned that I had been over-watering my basil.
I felt bad. I was just trying to help my basil grow. I wanted to nurture it. I was the only person it could rely on for this support. But it turns out I was doing too much. I was trying too hard. I needed to take a step back.
So I started watering it less. Just once each morning at first, and one spritzing in the afternoon. But soon I realized I was still doing too much. I needed to take a bigger step back. So I put away the spritzer and watered it only in the morning.
And then I realized I needed to take an even bigger step back. So one morning I watered it and waited. I waited for the soil to feel dry. This would take days. Which was scary for me. If the soil was dry it would mean there was not enough water in there for the basil. Would my basil die of thirst? I was experiencing herbal anxiety.
Once the soil was dry three days later, I felt safe watering it again. And during the interim, the basil had responded well. It started to stand up straight again. Leaves that had looked weak and frail before now looked like they were getting their mojo back. Instead of dying of thirst, the basil seemed to be thriving.
So I waited another three days, until the soil felt dry again. And it kept working. I thought I was starving it but it was actually growing stronger. Eventually my basil was hale and hearty again, once I found a watering schedule that gave it what it needed in the amount it needed it. And it turns out, the basil needed to work for the water. It needed the stress of having to reach deep down into the pot for those last bits of water instead of always having it poured right on top of it.
It was through the stress and effort the plant was able to grow. If I just gave it everything it needed, it didn’t have to work for it.
That’s what parenting is like. Your kids need your water, in the form of guidance and support. But if you water them too much, they will never have to learn to support themselves.
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The irony is that we want to give them all the guidance and support we can, but this is usually more than they need. It’s hard to step back and withhold the water that we think will allow them to thrive, but it is through working to get the water already available to them that they become able to grow straight and strong.
