What the Garden Is Teaching Me About Raising Children

 Learning to plant, tend, wait, and trust  There is something about a garden that has a way of teaching you patience.  You can plant the seeds, water them, pull the weeds and make sure they have enough sunlight.  You can protect the tender little plants when the weather turns harsh, but you cannot make them grow.

You cannot stand over a seed and tell it that it is time to become a flower, you cannot pull on a little green stem and make it taller.  You can only tend to it, and then you wait.

The older I get, and the longer I spend in the garden, the more I realize how much gardening has to teach me about motherhood.  Especially right now.  I have a teenager and a three-year-old, talk about two completely different seasons.

One is stretching toward independence, figuring out who he is and where he might be going while the other is still very much in the season of needing me for almost everything, discovering the world one question, scraped knee, and adventure at a time.

And somehow, both are growing right before my eyes.  Yet, so am I.  Because motherhood doesn't stop teaching us simply because our children get older, I think we are all being grown together.

You Plant

Every garden begins with a seed, it looks so small compared to what you hope it will become.  And motherhood begins much the same way, we plant little things every single day.  A prayer before bed, a conversation at the kitchen table, a lesson about kindness, An apology when we get something wrong.

Teaching them to work hard and be grateful while showing them how to love people well.  Reminding them that God is good, taking them to church, reading them the Bible.  Reading a book together, letting them see us serve someone who needs help.  

Sometimes it feels like we're doing such small things, but seeds are small.  That doesn't mean they aren't important, we may not see what those little moments are becoming yet, but that doesn't mean nothing is happening beneath the surface.

You Water

A garden doesn't grow because you planted it once, it needs tending, daily.

Motherhood is much the same, there are things our children need to hear more than once, sometimes much more than once.  We tell them to be kind, then we remind them again.  We teach them responsibility, then we teach it again when they forget.  We talk about gratitude, practice forgiveness and we remind them to look for the good.  We pray with them, we pray for them and we pray over them.  And sometimes we wonder if any of it is sinking in.

But watering a garden isn't usually dramatic, it's just faithful.  A little water today, a little more tomorrow and eventually, something begins to grow.

You Pull the Weeds

This might be one of the harder lessons.

Gardens have weeds and so do children.  And, if I'm being honest, so do mothers.  There are attitudes that need correcting, habits that need changing, selfishness, impatience, pride, carelessness.  Things that can quietly take root if we don't pay attention.

Pulling weeds isn't always pleasant, neither is correcting our children.  Sometimes loving them means saying no, it means holding a boundary even when they're unhappy with us and it means having the hard conversation instead of taking the easy way out.

But pulling a weed isn't punishment for the garden, it's care for the garden.  We correct because we love, guide because we care about what is growing and we remind ourselves that correction doesn't mean something is ruined.  It means we're still tending.

You Protect Tender Things

There are certain things in a garden that need a little extra protection.  New seedlings, delicate flowers, plants that haven't quite established themselves yet.  Motherhood has taught me that children need protection too, not protection from every disappointment or every difficult thing—that wouldn't prepare them for life.  But protection from things they aren't ready to carry.

A safe place to ask questions, a home where they know they are loved, room to make mistakes without wondering whether our love for them will disappear, boundaries around what comes into our home.

And, as they grow, the protection changes, my three-year-old may need my hand to keep her safe and my teenager may need my wisdom, my prayers, and sometimes simply a listening ear.

The kind of tending changes because the child is changing, I think that's one of the hardest and most beautiful parts of motherhood.  We can't keep tending them exactly the way we did when they were little, we have to learn what this particular season requires.

You Can't Force Growth

This may be the biggest lesson the garden keeps teaching me, you cannot force growth.  You can create good conditions, you can be faithful, you can give something what it needs.  But ultimately, growth happens in its own time.

And children are the same, one child may learn something quickly while another needs years, one may be confident while another is still finding her footing, one may know exactly what she wants to do while another is still exploring.  One may suddenly surprise you with maturity, while the other is still very much three and that's okay.

I've had to remind myself that my job isn't to make my children grow on my schedule, my job is to faithfully tend what God has placed in my care.  There is a freedom in that, because sometimes we put so much pressure on ourselves as mothers.  Are they learning enough?  Are we doing enough?  Did I teach them this?  Should they be further along?  Why doesn't this seem to be clicking yet?

But perhaps we need to remember that growth is not always visible while it is happening.  A seed can be doing important work long before we see anything above the soil.

Sometimes Things Don't Grow the Way You Expected

Every gardener knows this, you plant something with a picture in your head of exactly what it will become.  And then it doesn't, maybe the weather changes, maybe the bugs get to it, maybe the soil wasn't quite right or maybe you simply chose the wrong spot.

Sometimes the plant struggles and doesn't make it at all.  Motherhood can surprise us in much the same way.  We have hopes for our children, dreams, ideas about who they might become and then they grow into themselves.  They have their own personalities, gifts, interests, strengths, weaknesses, and dreams.

And sometimes God's plan for them looks different from the picture we had in our heads, that can be hard.  But perhaps part of trusting God as a mother is learning to release our picture of what their lives should look like and trust Him with who He created them to be.

We are not raising little versions of ourselves, we are tending souls that ultimately belong to Him.

The Seasons Change

One of the things I love most about gardening is that nothing stays the same, the garden looks different in spring than it does in summer.  Different again in fall and eventually there is a season of rest.

I've learned that motherhood has seasons too.  Some seasons are full of little hands and constant questions, some are full of lessons and laundry and busy days, some are full of independence and some are full of watching from a little farther away.  Some seasons ask us to let go of something we once held very tightly.

The temptation is to wish ourselves into another season, to rush through the difficult parts, to wish our children were a little older or sometimes to wish they were little again.  But the garden reminds me to pay attention to the season I'm actually in, there is something to be loved here, something to learn here and something to tend here.

Keep Tending

Maybe that's what I need to remember most, I don't have to have motherhood figured out.  I don't have to know exactly what my children will become.  I don't have to be able to see the whole path ahead.  I just need to keep tending.  Keep praying, teaching, loving, correcting, listening and keep showing up.  Keep planting good things and keep trusting the One who created the garden in the first place.

Because ultimately, these children aren't mine to control, they are gifts I've been entrusted to care for.  And just like a gardener trusts that something is happening beneath the soil even when she can't see it, I have to trust that God is working in the hearts of my children even when I can't see the whole picture.

Especially when I can't see it.  So I'll keep planting, I'll keep watering, I'll pull the weeds when I need to.  I'll protect what is tender, I'll celebrate every little bit of growth, I'll accept that some things will look different than I imagined and I'll try to be present for the season I'm in.

Because we can't force growth, we can only faithfully tend what God has placed in our care.  And perhaps that is enough, perhaps more than enough.  Perhaps the beautiful work of motherhood was never about making our children grow exactly the way we planned.  Perhaps it has always been about faithfully tending the little lives God placed in our hands—and trusting Him with what they become.

🌿 Plant. Water. Tend. Wait. Trust.

And then, in His perfect timing, let them grow.

Until next time, may your coffee stay warm and your children stay little just a little longer.

-Maggie