Rearing humans and plants

Thursday last week, I had a disciplining session with my teenage niece. Last Sunday it was with my tomotoes!

I have not been able to see my tomotoes for several days so I checked them last Sunday. All I wanted to do was to give them a peek. To my surprise I saw weeds have grown big, almost choking them already! Their stems had gone crooked too!

This was the same plan a had with my niece. I went into her room just to look at what she was busy with at that time. But I discovered something was wrong. I sensed a bit of dishonesty! The "weeds" were choking her again! She was going "crooked" again. So like what I did with my tomatoes, I tried to straighten her up and do some weeding.

With my tomotoes, it was easy. I just pulled out the weeds, put support (wooden sticks) on their stems to straighten them up again. There was a bit of resistance so I had to use force. I confined them by tying them onto the wooden sticks.

With my niece though, there was drama. It was difficult. She gave a lot of excuses justifying her dishonesty. She raised her voice on me. She didn't want to listen. Removing the weeds in her mind meant hours of tirade. "Dishonesty" no matter how small is still dishonesty. If not rectified once and for all, it will distort one's values. So to straighten her up, I had to to re-impose the house-rules on "dishonesty".

But you see, the logic is the same. Both plants and humans require appropriate guidance, proper care and disciplining!