Unpredictability of Parenting

Parenting. It’s the process of taking care of your own children until they are old enough to take care of themselves, and is arguably the most difficult job one could have. In the play, The Fantasticks, two fathers with a knack for gardening sing the song, “Plant a Radish,” in which they compare the unpredictability of raising kids to the certainty of planting vegetables. The Fathers had created an elaborate scheme to make their children fall in love, yet their children’s unpredictable behavior forced the plan to backfire, leaving the fathers to question the task of raising kids. Similarly, I have witnessed my own parents struggle with the uncertainty of parenting and how it affects more than just the direct parent-child relationship.

When a child is born new life is brought into the world. Not a radish or carrot or beanstalk, but a baby. I was born on the twenty-first of December 1994, just two years after my parents had been married. It was a new experience for the two of them, and something I’m sure they were both nervous and excited for. Just two years later my brother was born, and two years after that my sister. Three new lives put into their hands to mold into productive people who could help society. However, much like the fathers in the The Fantasticks, I’m sure my parents were questioning the certainty of the children they were raising. In The Fantasticks the two kids, Matt and Luisa, compulsively change

their mind about the love they share for each other. They begin to notice each other’s flaws and end up creating a feud, leaving each other’s fathers in complete and utter disbelief. The fathers question the entire role of parenting. They begin to wonder why kids aren’t reliable like a vegetable and why they have ...

... middle of paper ...

...o some form of change. It is then up to us to accept that change and deal with it, rather than act out in an unpredictable manner, as Matt and Luisa did. That’s not to say that we should all turn into vegetables and grow in such a predictable manner that every parent is going to know exactly what they’re going to get all the time. We would be a bunch of boring people without any sort of individuality. The individuality that Matt and Luisa had is what made them unique and fall in love with each other. Their issue was the handling of their situation. I say we all become unique; I say we all grow in our own way,

but in a predictable way. A way in which we can be ourselves, yet be understood. We just want to be ourselves without having to explain who we are. Matt and Luisa discovered who they were at the end of the play. If those two kids can do it, then anyone can.