By Peter Hechtman
The Book Maven
Thomas Boyce, The Orchid and the Dandelion, Alfred Knopf, 2019
Peter Hechtman.
“There has not been a single instance,” according to the author, “in which a parent said of a second child ‘Oh, this one’s just like the last one.’” And what parents always seem to remember most vividly is that children differ greatly in their susceptibility to illness, childhood traumas and social challenges.
Boyce has made a systematic study of such differences. His findings can be summarized as follows: 1) Most of the problems of childhood and adolescence are distributed non-randomly and appear to be concentrated within 20 percent of children. The remaining 80 percent are far less vulnerable. The vulnerability embraces a wide arc which includes respiratory illness, teenage pregnancy, drug addiction, incarceration, schizophrenia – the list is virtually endless. 2) By lab measurements under conditions of mild stress, he claims to have shown that the differences between these two groups correlates with performance of the body’s main stress-response pathways, which includes release by the adrenal gland of cortisol. The vulnerable children, whom he calls “orchids,” respond to stress by massively releasing cortisol, whereas the less vulnerable “dandelions,” appear to both take the stress in their stride and show barely any changes in levels of cortisol.
And now “the good news.” Orchids show higher biological response to the stresses of life, but with good parenting, based on nurturing, encouragement and TLC, the cortisol levels of these “orchids” can be brought down even below the levels found in dandelion children. Such children are uniquely capable of going on not merely to high levels of achievement in adulthood but also to becoming fully aware, sensitive and caring people. Sound good?
I have much trouble with the ideas in this book, but that does not mean they aren’t challenging and thought-provoking. In the first instance, common sense defies the notion that Boyce’s extraordinary list of medical and social pathologies could be clustered in the same group of children/adolescents. And common sense rebels at the idea that all of these vulnerabilities could have a single unifying explanation. But common sense can be wrong. Remember Galileo?
A second problem is that this book, although cloaked in the robes of science, is one of many that locate parental guilt at the heart of childhood storm and stress. Some problems are intractable and unresolvable. Some adolescents and young adults will not be reclaimed from self-destructive behavior or disease no matter how valiant parental efforts are.
The book’s title is not the only occasion in which the botanical metaphor is employed. Indeed, the orchid-dandelion binary appears to define Boyce’s entire view of childhood. The orchid term is well-chosen. Orchids are prized, above all, for their individuality and variety. These are admired, even adored plants, but they thrive only under hothouse conditions. By contrast, what is the fate of a dandelion? One pass of the lawnmower and hundreds of them are destroyed. If I were a child, I know which flower I would sign up to be.