I am on my second year of a cut flower garden. I can easily say it’s a process of trial and error. Last year many of the flower varieties I planted were new for me to grow. Dahlias, cosmos, and globe amaranth among others.
Starting seedlings came with more challenges than I thought. The cosmos got tall and leggy really fast, they almost died when I forgot to water them for two days, the heat mat had to be turned off after sprouting or you end up with the aforementioned leggy flowers, and the general protection they need from a roving toddler.
Perhaps it is unsurprising, but it’s much easier once you get the flowers planted outside and in the ground. Keep them weeded (or not, in my case), give them plenty of water (essential in a droughty year as last year was), keep the blooms deadheaded, and watch them grow! Of course there’s the occasional bout of pests to worry about, but most problems can be solved.
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This year has been harder. Some of my cosmos just simply aren’t blooming. I tried planting a few new flower varieties with little success. Of my many strawflower seedlings, only one survived. I directed seeded some more in the garden and none bloomed. I have ideas on how to fix this problem next year. But we’ve gotten tons of rain, heavy rain, coming in frequent torrential spurts. I was expecting this extra rain to make my garden flourish - but perhaps it’s been too much rain and not enough sun.
But gardening isn’t an exact science. There are environmental factors out of your control to deal with, there are bad seeds, pests, and even soil health to think about. Every year is different. Try something new, assess, regroup, and try again.
Is all this very different from parenting?
Parenting and Gardening
Jonathan Haidt starts the final chapter of The Anxious Generation with this analogy. Parenting should be more like gardening and less like being a carpenter. He says , “You job is to ‘create a protected and nurturing space for plants of flourish.’”1 Keep the garden free of weeds (unhealthy consumption of screens and social media/video games), and nourished properly with sun and water. The results can be oh-so-beautiful and extremely surprising!
We are not carpenters trying to create something exact or specific, something with precision that we “measure twice, cut once”.2 That will create the overprotected, uncreative, dull world that we are trying to avoid.
“Many of us have adopted an over controlling carpenter mentality, which prevents our children from flourishing. At the same time, we have underprotected our children in the virtual world by leaving them to their own devices and failing to do much weeding.”3
In the following pages, he goes on to give us very tangible ways to roll back this phone-based childhood. More play in the real world, more unsupervised play with various ages together, less screen time. He offers these suggestions tailored to every age group, which is extremely helpful. Walking to school in groups, free play after school, camping, giving our kids real responsibilities and independence (in age appropriate ways, which he outlines), such that they are actually needed and feel important.
Collective Action is Needed
Of course, part of the struggle is that this is a collective action problem. We need the government (federal, state and local), tech companies, schools, and parents on board to shift the culture together. It feels like an insurmountable problem, especially when it involves needed change at a governmental level. But it called to mind a quote of St. Teresa of Kolkata, “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.”
She has several such quotes about how love starts at home and we can’t feed the world but we can feed our neighbor. The short of it: we have control over our own spheres, we can impact our own children and families. And if we are able to make these changes, perhaps those around us will feel less alone and supported in these decisions to allow our children the freedom of a play-based childhood. The decisions we make in our own home is like casting a stone out on the water. The ripples will continue to extend outward. Perhaps some will welcome the change and others might resist it, but change today starts with me and my own family.
TL;DR
In the end, Haidt is making a point that more and more are making these days. Our children desperately need a change. They need to return to the play-based childhood of the past. The technologies that rewired them have deeply impacted their mental health and overall quality of life, and not for the better.
Girls are severely impacted by having social media in their pockets all the time, including increases in anxiety, depression, loneliness, and more. The studies clearly evidence the shift between 2010-2015.
Boys were more directly impact by the reduction of play-based childhood starting in the 1990’s, though the negative impacts became more pronounced with the advent of smart phones and easy video game access which were accelerated during COVID.
In the End…
There’s so much in this book that you need to read. I feel like I can barely brush the surface of all the good information. After explaining how a whole generation has been “rewired”, he offers tangible steps for parents to take, but also doesn’t get down on parents because he understands that being a parent today is so very hard. I didn’t feel guilty reading this book, but did come away with ideas to implement in my own home both now and as our children get older and more independent.
So, plant the seeds, do a better job of weeding the garden than I have, water them well, and see the great and beautiful things that will become of them! Gardens really are full of beautiful surprises if you give them the care and attention they need.
Why should our children be any different?
Jonathan Haidt. The Anxious Generation. (New York, NY: Penguin Press, 2024), 268.
Ibid.
Ibid.