Hardship Reveals Character

Tracy Lamperti

Every time you see “garden,” substitute it with COVID-19, cancer, an affair, car accident, death.


We all get thrown for a loop at times. Some of us more than other, some of us harder than others, some of us may not truly have experienced this kind of life disruption in any kind of significant way.


While my gardening issues are nothing compared to a cancer diagnosis or the other things just mentioned, it’s a good metaphor.



Whether your radar caught the magnitude of the pandemic when the word was first mentioned from China in January, or it was in February when our children were coming home because of schools closing, or maybe it was March when Americans being told to stay at home, globally, we all have been impacted.

Character Revealed

During times of unexpected or unplanned events, our character is revealed. Coping skills, defense mechanisms, styles of relating with others…it all comes to the surface.

  • Did you close your eyes, put your fingers in your ears and start singing la la la la la?
  • Did you get to work making a list of the things you might need over the next couple of months?
  • Did you go to the internet and scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll to see what everyone was saying?
  • Did you start getting snappy at people?
  • Did you go quiet and want to hide away from it all?
  • Did you call your 25 best friends and see if they were all ok?
  • Did you start sanitizing everything?
  • Did you find someone to point your finger at and blame?
  • Did you sit down with your children and focus on their health and well-being, resolving to keep them happy though it all?

Our 2020 Garden

You may have done a variety of these things, as did we. One of the things we did was start thinking ahead.


I was an avid vegetable garden hobbyist for years, until around 2014ish when we agreed that I/we were just too busy to care for a garden and the local Farmer’s Market was a better option. We dismantled the garden, expanded our lawn and an above ground pool took it’s place.


This meant that now, present day, we had to identify a new location for the garden and build a new structure, as in the past, the rabbits and crows had their way with us, chewing our plants off at the stem and dive bombing our fruits and vegetables just before they were ready to be harvested.


We purchased our seeds and supplies for the garden structure and got right to work clearing, building and seed starting!



Thankfully, our wonderful neighbors (my husband’s parents), were on board with the garden going in their backyard!

Meanwhile, seedlings were thriving!

Now let me just say, anyone who has planted like this knows, you check your plants EVERY day! You check your plants maybe 5x/day! They were truly thriving…until…one day they appeared pale and yellowish.

That’s when, BAM! “Your plants are sick!“ set in. Within 24 hours they were even more pale, spotted and drooping.


As I said, I’m not new at vegetable gardening. This has never happened to me before, and how sudden and rapid it was, that was even worse!


This was yet another time for the battle of my character to be played out. Panic? Disappointment? What am I going to do? How do I fix it? How do I start over and now be 6 weeks behind, in an already short Cape Cod growing season??? Can you even buy starts at the garden centers?


A poor comparison, but when you get the call that your loved one has cancer, do you move into action mode or is this the beginning of giving up strength and hope?



When a global pandemic is announced and you can’t easily get your shopping done, lose your job and everything becomes more difficult and uncertain, do you say, “I’ll just sit here and wait for news that help is coming.” Or do you start thinking about what you need, what your options are and how you can be resourceful?

And What About Faith?

Who is on the throne in your life? Is it you? Your spouse? Is it the government? Is it the government that is somehow going to make it all better for you? Is it your parents or grandparents, no matter what your age? Can they fix it? Or is it your faith?

Work like everything depends on you and pray like everything depends on God.

Saint Ausustine

The Dopifying of Men and Boys These Days

By Tracy Lamperti • March 30, 2025
Do you get it that every time we seem to turn on the tv, news or in the movies these days the boys and men are getting terrible representation? Whether they are kowtowing to a bossy woman, making obscene gestures or noises, getting drunk or on drugs, committing some stupid crime, espousing the effeminate or acting like a pompus a__, or the countless other ways that they are being portrayed. What was wrong with Davy Crockett, or Huck Finn, Andy Griffith, Superman? Why have Sponge Bob and Homer Simpson and the many other “men” of today been selling by being so stupid? I am not up on any of today’s shows, but I get the point from the stories I hear, that it is not good. Even when an olympic star comes into the spotlight, all too often the story is tainted by some remark or behavior he made, not realizing everyone was watching. Where are the boys supposed to get their education? And what about the girls? Where are they supposed to learn who would make a good husband and father?  What brought this on was my prepping for morning meeting tomorrow at the Lamperti Homeschool. I was looking for something good in The Children’s Book of Virtues , Edited by William J. Bennett, Illustrated by Michael Hague. I just happened to open to page 38, Boy Wanted , by Frank Crane. I won’t put the whole story here, but here is a sample.

Before You Seek Therapy For Your Child

By Tracy Lamperti • March 30, 2025
Photo by Michelle Kaye

Talking Beans

By Tracy Lamperti • March 30, 2025
What are those? Are those beans? What are they for? Can I touch them? One can learn a lot about a child by watching them play. Play gives us a glimpse into the thought process, emotions, relationships and the way they organise and put things together. With beans, even a teenager or adult can “sort things out” with beans, sand and other materials. Beans make a good medium for tea parties, hide and seek, play ground play, imaginative water, etc. In fact, beans can bring comfort to all ages. Children who don’t feel like they have a voice or have trouble sharing their thoughts and feelings often find themselves running their hands through the field of beans. The same goes for teenagers. Little ones, of course want to play with the beans, which provides a great opportunity to evaluate self-control, adherance to limits and their depth of imagination or level of organization. Beans are awesome! The video shown here represents a variety of bean benefits! An older adolescent, actually, a young adult, worked out many complicated issues in her sessions week after week while sorting beans. This person successfully sorted out ALL of the kidney beans, sorting on many levels! It is so curious to children to come to their therapy session and notice that something has happened involving the beans. It gives children and teens a real sense of commonality with others as well as insight. They come to learn that some people think like they do and some think differently, and it’s all ok. They learn that, while I may share something about the “beans,” I won’t “spill the beans.” They can trust that I will keep their confidence, just like I keep the confidence of the last “bean worker.” As you see in the video, a young person is re-mixing the kidney beans. This young person, being someone who really struggles with self-control and had been held back for weeks from mixing the beans that had been sorted out. We shared such a delightful moment when she was finally permitted to “mix!” Timing is so important, but relationship is more! So the cycle will continue when many young people come in this week and discover the new state of the beans!  Tracy Lamperti, Psychotherapist, Educator, Consultant
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