I came across the following piece of famous text, written by W. Livingston Larned, this morning, and it got me thinking about my role as a Father. Children can try the patience of any adult at times, but it is important to remember that they are just "children", which is why they do what they do. Their love is unconditional.
Listen, son; I am saying this as you lie asleep,
one little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond
curls stickily wet on your damp forehead. I have
stolen into your room alone. Just a few minutes ago,
as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling
wave of remorse swept over me. Guiltily I came to your
bedside.
There are things I was thinking, son: I had been
cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for
school because you gave your face merely a dab with a
towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes.
I called out angrily when you threw some of your
things on the floor.
At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled
things. You gulped down your food. You put your
elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on
your bread. And as you started off to play and I made
for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called,
"Goodbye, Daddy!" and I frowned, and said in reply,
"Hold your shoulders back!"
Then it began all over again in the late
afternoon. As I came Up the road, I spied you, down on
your knees, playing marbles. There were holes in your
stockings. I humiliated you before your boyfriends by
marching you ahead of me to the house. Stockings were
expensive - and if you had to buy them you would be
more careful! Imagine that, son, from a father!
Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the
library, how you came in timidly, with a sort of hurt
look in your eyes? When I glanced up over my paper,
impatient at the interruption, you hesitated at the
door. "What is it you want?" I snapped.
You said nothing, but ran across in one
tempestuous plunge, and threw your arms around my neck
and kissed me, and your small arms tightened with an
affection that God had set blooming in your heart and
which even neglect could not wither. And then you were
gone, pattering up the stairs.
Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper
slipped from my hands and a terrible sickening fear
came over me. What has habit been doing to me? The
habit of finding fault, of reprimanding - this was my
reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did
not love you; it was that I expected too much of youth.
I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years.
And there was so much that was good and fine and
true in your character. The little heart of you was as
big as the dawn itself over the wide hills. This was
shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss
me good night. Nothing else matters tonight, son. I
have come to your bedside in the darkness, and I have
knelt there, ashamed!
It is a feeble atonement; I know you would not
understand these things if I told them to you during
your waking hours. But tomorrow I will be a real
daddy! I will chum with you, and suffer when you
suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my
tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying
as if it were a ritual: "He is nothing buy a boy - a
little boy!"
I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet
as I see you now, son, crumpled and weary in your cot,
I see that you are still a baby. Yesterday you were in
your mother's arms, your head on her shoulder. I have
asked too much, too much.
W. Livingston Larned.