With a different father in mind

Written by Tony Woodlief May 2, 2008 World Magazine

Lately I’ve grown ashamed of how often I discipline my children out of anger, or annoyance, rather than a genuine desire to train them up. If three year-old Isaac’s repeated thumping of a table leg penetrates my consciousness at dinner, I’ll tell him to stop it out of irritation, not because I want him to have good table manners. If eight year-old Caleb tells me I said A and not B, I’ll glower and tell him not to correct me, as if it’s a principle I’m standing on, rather than my expansive pride. If six year-old Eli mumbles, I’ll snap at him to speak up, not because I am, in that moment, concerned with the development of his elocution, but because it’s consuming mental bandwidth to discern what he’s saying.

My disciplinary actions too often have me at the center — my wants, my ego, my sense of how things ought to be in my domain. I suspect we all fall prey to that impulse from time to time, or perhaps a lot of the time, or perhaps it’s mostly just me. But maybe I’m not the only one who tells himself some subconscious story about the righteous anger of God, to justify my own anger. Maybe other parents repeat to themselves how they’ve tried and tried, in order to justify their barks when the whippersnappers forget yet again to close the back door. Maybe too many of us we pretend that, because our children have become outwardly inured to our browbeating, that our glares and raised voices don’t wound them — worse, that it’s only our anger that gets through their thick little skulls.

So I’ve been practicing patience. Emphasis on “practicing.” When Isaac launches into one of his interminable monologues, right in the middle of a discussion between me and the wife, instead of shushing him, I’m trying get down to his level, put a hand on his small shoulder, and explain that mommy’s talking, and that the polite thing to do is wait his turn. I’m also trying to listen more, to really look him in the eye and stop whatever I’m doing and just listen, so he feels less inclined to interrupt just to be heard. I’m trying to patiently, lovingly guide my children, rather than gripe at them so much.

But there’s so much work to do, isn’t there? There’s bills and laundry and the daily grind of jobs, and meals to be made and dishes to be washed, lawns to mow, and — in our case — fallen trees to cut up and rooms to paint and essays and books to write. There’s much to be done, and it’s so much easier just to shush them or glare at them or talk over them to make my point and get my way.

Yet if you were to ask me what is the most important thing I have to do here on earth, I would say it’s training up my sons. So I’m going to start trying harder to act like it. I’m praying the Lord will have mercy — on me, on them — every time I fail.