Benign Neglect

A.,

“Benign neglect” is a parenting technique Partner and I do not typically employ.  Experience has taught us that the results are anything but benign.  You know what I’m talking about: the kids are playing, quietly (this is key), in some remote corner of the house, and you think to yourself: I should probably check on them.  Then you think …but maybe I’ll wait until I finish this magazine article, because they’re quiet, and I haven’t sat down for more than 5 minutes all day except when I was on the toilet, and even then I had to carry on a conversation through a locked door about when we might be able to see the Captain Underpants movie.  By the time you actually do go investigate, there are indelible marks on the walls, hundreds of dollars of damage has been done to expensive stereo equipment, and a hellmouth has opened up in the basement and the kids are about to jump in.  True story.

Benign neglect is not a common strategy of mine in any situation*, in fact, but I was forced to try it recently with the tomato plants you may remember from an earlier post.  They were looking pretty spindly at that point (March 20), and trust me when I say that two more months indoors in the anemic early-spring sunlight did not do them a lot of good.  Shortly after re-potting them outside, I realized that they were not going to make it until summer (August 20-26).  The forecast called for two weeks of rain, however, and so I decided to wait until the Biblical flood was over before spending more money on sturdier seedlings at the garden center.  So, in the most benign way possible, I neglected them.  And look:

It’s amazing what a little sun and a lot of water can do.

Somehow, we are going to have completely homegrown tomatoes, in northern New England, in June!  Granted, we are only going to have about five of them, but productivity has never been a metric for success in my gardening pursuits.

By the way, I realize you guys are busy caring for babies, and no one cares about my tomato plants.  But it’s my blog now (apparently)!  Stay tuned for next week’s update on organizing my sock drawer.

-K.

*With the possible exception of housekeeping.  And this blog.

p.s. Since this is supposed to be a “mommy blog” (that’s so 2008, isn’t it?), here is a picture of the kids:

I hope you guys are hungry for tomatoes!