Tend to the Soil, Don’t Blame the Plant
When a child struggles inside a dysfunctional family, the child is often blamed while the environment goes unnamed. Using a gardening metaphor, this essay considers how adaptation makes sense in difficult soil and how adulthood can make room for healthier relationships, boundaries, support, and self-tending.
“A garden requires patient labor and attention. Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intentions. They thrive because someone expended effort on them.”
Liberty Hyde Bailey, horticulturist and author
My husband is a patient gardener.
He has a habit of saving, tending to, and bringing back to life little scraps of plants and struggling flora in and around our home in a way that I just can’t be bothered to.
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The wax-enclosed Trader Joe’s amaryllis bulb someone gifted us around Christmas? He’ll take the wax off, water the bulb, and place it in its own pot in our garden until next season (whereas I would have composted it once the blossoms were gone).
The failing kale plants in the raised bed? He’ll go to the store and buy bat guano and who knows what else to make a concoction to nourish the soil to make the kale more hearty (whereas I would just consider it a loss and add a few bunches to the grocery list that week).
The random houseguest gift orchid that lost all its blossoms sitting in our too sunny living room? He’ll move it to the bathroom, take it out of its pot and water and drain it in our sink until it’s healthy again (whereas I… well, you get the picture).
I admire this quality of my husband. Even though and maybe especially because I don’t possess it myself (let’s face it: my thumb is brown, not green).
And, with most things I observe, this habit of his , taking care of the environment of struggling plants so that they thrive again , makes me think about parallels with therapy and with psychological development principles, particularly how antithetical this way of patient tending can be in dysfunctional family systems when one member is struggling.
In my work with clients who come from complex relational trauma backgrounds, they , the proverbial plant in the garden , are often viewed as the problem of the family system versus a natural product of the context of the family system.
They’re given the message over and over that they’re not okay and it’s not often (or ever) considered that the proverbial soil itself might be the problem.
And, more often than not, both the struggling plant and the soil it’s rooted in receive little to no patient tending to help bring it back to life as it were.
To learn more about this parallel and how it may apply to you if you came from a complex relational trauma background, keep reading.
Tend to the soil; don’t blame the plant.
All children need certain elements to grow and thrive physically and psychologically.
This includes (but isn’t limited to) a sense of safety and stability in their external environment (especially with their caregivers); adequate food, clothing, and medical care; a deep regard and appreciation for their personhood; and, more abstractly, love, time, attention, and consistent care from their guardians.
In such an environment, the conditions are in place to help a child grow and develop and to venture out into the world and face the challenges and complexities that childhood, adolescence, and life inherently holds.
To use the gardening metaphor, in this kind of environment, the soil is rich and healthy for whatever plants may take root in it.
But in dysfunctional, chaotic, neglectful, or abusive family systems, these conditions may be partially or sorely lacking.
Instead of safety, there may be financial insecurity, sexual abuse, addiction, mood or personality disorders.
Instead of a deep regard for the personhood of the child, there may be gaslighting, derision, shaming, projection, and molding of the child into what the parent wishes them to be instead of who the child authentically is.
Instead of love, there may be control masked as love.
Instead of time and attention, there may be none or it may be outsourced (to the TV, to the nanny, etc).
And instead of consistency, there may be erraticness. A sense of Jekyll and Hyde in their parents’ moods or personalities. A constant feeling of walking on eggshells.
In such environments, what do you think happens to the child?
If a garden bed was laced with acid, shielded from the sun, and denied water, would the plant in it grow and thrive and blossom as well as it might optimally?
No. Of course not.
But still, it might survive.
How Children Adapt
A child, much like a tender little budding plant even in such an inadequate garden bed, will likely find a way to persist.
In that way, children, to my mind, are the ultimate survivalists and greatest adaptors.
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Children will do whatever it takes to survive the powerless chapter of childhood.
Sometimes this may mean contorting themselves in ways that are pleasing to their parents.
Sometimes this may mean cutting off and splitting away certain parts of themselves that are “displeasing” to their caretakers.
Sometimes this may mean seeking comfort and care from whatever sources or substances they can.
And sometimes this may mean wearing personality masks, adapting behaviors, and moving themselves into and out of environments to try to manage their feelings and comfort themselves somehow.
The child adapts to the environment he or she is in and grows in response to variables he or she is exposed to.
Like a bent, warped branch that does not grow straight and strong but instead arches severely to the side, turning its leaves toward the one patch of sunlight in the untended garden, so too will a child not necessarily grow as “straight and strong” as they might have if the conditions had been more optimal.
But sometimes, the family may point a finger at the child and shame and blame them for how they have developed, coped, and adapted.
“You’re getting too overweight. You need to exercise daily like your mom and I do.”
“You’re too angry! Why can’t you be nice like your sister?”
“Why don’t you spend time with friends instead of alone in your room with books?”
“Why are you so sensitive? It was just a joke!”
Perhaps the child was overweight because they were trying to hide and protect themselves from a painful home life, showing themselves “love” with food because “nourishment” lacked in their house.
Perhaps the child was angry because they grew up with an alcoholic, narcissistic father and their “bad mood” was an appropriate response to knowing their needs as a child were not being met.
Perhaps the child spent time with books and disappeared into stories because real life relationships felt too painful, too confusing, too overwhelming and unsafe based on what they had been shown and modeled at home or at school.
Perhaps the child was a highly sensitive, empathic and deep little soul who, even at a very young age, knew that “jokes” that made fun of or bullied others weren’t kind and appropriate. The child’s sensitivity was a gift but in their family it also may have been a liability.
This child, this adolescent, coping with their environment as best they can, often becomes the identified patient, the scapegoat, the black sheep of the family when blamed and shamed in this way by others in the family.
The essay uses identified patient for the family member singled out as the problem, even when their symptoms or coping reflect a wider family system.
In plain terms: If you were blamed for struggling, it may be worth asking what the environment required you to adapt to.
They’re seen as the problem but in reality they are only a product of the system.
A family system is the relational environment in which each member affects and is affected by the others; the essay uses soil as its central metaphor.
In plain terms: The soil matters. What looks like a personal flaw can be an understandable response to chaos, neglect, control, or instability.
The “soil” has yielded this particular proverbial plants growth of lackthereof.
It’s not the plant’s fault. It’s a product of the environment. It’s a result of the soil.
You've been holding everything together. You're allowed to put some down.
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So how do we tend to the soil?
In an ideal world, hopefully the family system , the soil , goes to family counseling or undertakes a journey to address the elements that may be dysfunctional, chaotic, or unhealthy among them.
But, sadly, I don’t think this happens nearly as often as it should.
So what’s the outcome?
Well, again, children become adolescents, coping with their reality as best they can.
And someday, adolescents become young adults who will hopefully have more agency, power, and resources to leave, alter, address or heal from the environment they grew up in.
“If you have attempted to fit whatever mold and failed to do so, you are probably lucky. You may be an exile of some sort, but you have sheltered your soul.” ― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, PhD
Transplanting to Better Soil
Their task as adults , should they have grown up in less than ideal soil environments , becomes seeking out and transplanting themselves to better proverbial soil environments.
This can look like a literal leaving of home, not only of their parent’s house but the town or city they grew up in.
This can also look like a leaving of the church or religious system they were raised in.
This can look like seeking out and cultivating healthier, more functional relationships.
This can look like learning about boundaries and asserting them appropriately.
This can look like creating the external safety and stability their childhood lacked.
This can look like treating themselves with deep regard and only allowing others into their life who do the same.
This can look like going to therapy.
This can look like working on their foundational self-care, grieving the losses and pain of their childhood, and becoming their own good-enough inner parent.
Transplanting oneself to a healthier, better soil environment can look many, many different ways.
And hopefully, no one does this alone.
Hopefully, each of us who were raised in unhealthy, dysfunctional or chaotic environments will encounter real-life or pen and paper mentors and guides who can help us better grow.
“You are born to one mother, but if you are lucky, you will have more than one. And among them all you will find most of what you need.” ― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, PhD
Hopefully, we will all encounter patient, tender gardeners along our path who will help us heal, grow and thrive.
And hopefully, along the way, we learn how to be our own patient gardeners to ourselves, tending to ourselves with curiosity and deep regard when we are struggling or in need.
And, in turn, doing this for others in our life when and if they need it, too. Our partners, our children, our best friends…
“You have inherited a lifetime of tribulation. Everybody has inherited it. Take it over, make the most of it and when you have decided you know the right way, do the best you can with it.” ― Murray Bowen, MD
When we do this, when we learn to be our own patient gardeners and surround ourselves with people who can likewise embody this archetype and treat us lovingly and helpfully, we help undo the pain of our complex trauma past and move forward in creating a more whole, enlivened life for ourselves.
Q: What does it mean to tend to the soil?
A: It means looking at the environment around a struggling person rather than treating that person as the whole problem.
Q: Why are children compared to plants in this essay?
A: Both develop in response to conditions. A child can adapt and survive in harmful conditions without those conditions being good for them.
Q: What is an identified patient?
A: It is the person a family blames or pathologizes, even though their behavior may reflect what is happening throughout the system.
Q: What can better soil look like in adulthood?
A: It can include leaving harmful environments, cultivating healthy relationships, practicing boundaries, creating safety, and seeking therapy.
Q: Can I be my own patient gardener?
A: Yes. The essay invites curiosity and deep regard toward yourself, along with support from people who help you grow.
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Annie Wright, LMFT
Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist · Relational Trauma Specialist · W.W. Norton Author
“Helping driven women finally feel as good as their résumé looks.”
Annie Wright is a licensed psychotherapist with 15,000+ clinical hours since 2013 and an EMDRIA Certified Therapist. She’s the founder and former CEO of Evergreen Counseling, a multimillion-dollar trauma-informed therapy center she successfully exited. She’s currently writing her first book, The Everything Years: Navigating the Pressure and Promise of Your Thirties, with W.W. Norton (2027). Her expert commentary has appeared in Psychology Today, Forbes, Business Insider, NBC News, and The Information.
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Annie Wright, LMFT
LMFT · Relational Trauma Specialist · W.W. Norton Author
Helping driven women finally feel as good as their résumé looks.
Annie Wright is an EMDR-certified licensed psychotherapist and relational trauma specialist with over 15,000 clinical hours, and she's been in practice since 2013. Trained in EMDR, psychodynamic, and somatic modalities, she is licensed in 14 U.S. jurisdictions and registered to provide telehealth in Florida (California, Colorado (telehealth only), Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Florida, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Washington). Annie works with driven and ambitious women from relational trauma backgrounds, and everything she writes about is field-tested across thousands of clinical sessions. She is the founder and former CEO of Evergreen Counseling, a multimillion-dollar trauma-informed therapy center she built, scaled, and successfully exited, and is currently writing her first book, The Everything Years: Navigating the Pressure and Promise of Your Thirties, with W.W. Norton (2027). A regular contributor to Psychology Today, her expert commentary has appeared in USA Today, Forbes, Business Insider, Inc., NBC, and The Information.
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