The Cost of Taming the Jungle
Tuesday, December 6th 2011 @ 5:26 PM
A few years ago, we lived in a rented house with a yard that was overgrown and wild with plant life. The front yard was not a grassy lawn, but some kind of natural ground cover that looked like a forest floor. The backyard was theoretically grass but over time had become a mixture of mostly weeds and mud. There were bushes all around the house, untrimmed, reaching into the walking paths. We called our yard “the jungle.”
When we had moved into the house, the yard was something we tolerated. I remember being surprised when a friend said to me, “That is my favorite house in town!” It was a very humble house, but apparently she loved the trees all around and the plant life overflowing everywhere.
I couldn’t really agree with her at first, but as the seasons passed, I noticed something unexpected. Each new month brought an ever-changing display of color as the various plants and bushes burst into bloom. Flowers pushed out of the mud—wild, weeds, perennials placed there by those who had gone before. It seemed our little patch of untended earth just couldn’t resist the creative energy Hashem constantly infused into every inch of it.
I began photographing everything. And what I discovered was incredible beauty. (See the photos accompanying this post for just a few examples.)
When we moved out of the house and new tenants moved in, they brought in bulldozers. When I saw the family out front one day, pulling up flowers along with the weeds, I mentioned to them that the house was actually surrounded with gorgeous flowering plants in and among the wildness. Their response was, “Oh, we’re going to plant.” It actually broke my heart.
They did plant. They planted grass on much of the front lawn—as much as the lawn could tolerate, I guess, or they would have planted more. They planted a few nice shrubs by the front door. They landscaped the backyard beautifully with new grass, and cut down trees to make room for mulch and big rocks and a swingset. The property looks neat and well cared for now, and fits in with the rest of the nicely tended houses on the street. I’m sure the family is happy, and truth be told, the property value has probably gone up.
But when I drive by that house, I just feel sad, because I know that in the process of making the yard neat and respectable, a whole lot of beauty and individuality was lost. And what was lost was unique in all the world—perfect specimens of nature, fingerprints of the infinitely creative Hand of Hashem.
Today I walked by the house and realized what else this all reminds me of: raising children. A child comes to us full of his or her own unique wildness. We can try to pull out the weeds and leave the flowers, and that’s certainly part of our job as parents. But if we come in with bulldozers, and try to make our child fit in with the perceived expectations of everyone else, a lot of beauty is going to be lost. Individuality and personality will be lost.
I’ve had plenty of moments when I’ve fought the “jungle” of a child’s self in the pursuit of peace and quiet, or (perhaps) less selfishly, to help the child fit in, succeed, and be respected and approved of. But even if in taming our children’s wildness we increase their “property value,” in doing so we also lose so much beauty, so much of what makes them who they are and were born to be.
