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Raising children to the best of your ability can be extremely tough! It’s hard man! Hard! Your children will test your limits, do some boneheaded things, make you cry, make you think you’re talking to a wall, frustrate you…the list goes on and on. If you think you will get out of parenting free from all the emotions you could ever think you could have…well, good luck with that!
However, if you hang on in the journey long enough as a parent, they will also do things to make you laugh…and you’ll never forget it! This is one of those stories…I hope you enjoy it! Living it was quite the experience!
In my home, I prided myself in being a loving, yet tough parent. It was never lost on me how significant my responsibility as a father was. My children I was responsible for would expose me as a parent one way or the other. I would either do it right just enough to have great kids grow up to be great adults, or I would fail miserably and have kids live out their adult lives putting a spotlight on how bad I blew it. I love my children deeply. So much so, that I simply had to refuse to do things convenient for “me”. Instead, there were times when I would have to do things very inconvenient, even downright excruciatingly hard, to teach them a life lesson that they needed to learn…of course, I am talking about disciplining them.
So, I was dad…the hammer when needed… the father who learned from his father, the one that had to dish out discipline when discipline was not just needed, but required. On this day, it would be no different. Discipline would be called for once again…would I be up to the task…could I answer the call? This stuff is hard man!
My son at this time was in elementary school somewhere around the 2nd or 3rd grade. I walked in from a long day’s work and my wife came to me and said, “You need to talk to your son, he lied to you”…and she was laughing.
Now, in our home, lying was not tolerated. It was one of the cardinal sins! At first, I am not sure what got me more upset, that my son had lied or that my wife was laughing about it! I said to her, “What did he lie to me about? And why are you laughing about it?” My wife just couldn’t stop laughing. She replied, “You just need to go talk to him.” Again, a smile on her face a mile long. She was getting a kick out of this. On the other hand, I have to be honest, I wasn’t finding lying funny at all. I need to get to the bottom of this. I need to get to the bottom of this in a hurry!
I called my son down from his room. I went into my home office and sat at my office desk which faced out into our playroom. I couldn’t help but wonder what this was all about. My son came down the stairs and into our playroom and walked toward my office. I could see him coming and he started to get emotional. My wife was right behind him, clearly out of his sight, with her hand over her mouth trying not to openly laugh. She was still clearly amused by what was about to go down. I could see her up over my son’s head as he approached me.
“So,” I started. “Mom tells me you lied to me?” I looked at him with a stern, yet bewildered look only because I couldn’t help but deal with my wife behind him simply doing everything in her power not lose it.
“Yeah, Dad.” My son said as his voice started to crack. He wasn’t yet crying, but I could sense the tears were coming.
“Well, what did you lie to me about?” I asked with a very inquiring, if not intimidating, look.
“Well, do you remember last year when I told you I didn’t like any girls in my class? Well, I like Jenny Smith!” Tears finally started to seep from his eyes as he wiped them.
With that, my wife couldn’t keep it in any longer and she busted out laughing.
What was I to do with that one? I cracked a smile trying to hold in my full-out laughter. I was doing all I could to keep it together. I had to hurry to let my son know he was off the hook on this one!
“Well, son, you are right, we don’t like lying and don’t allow it in this house, but this time I think it might just be ok. I don’t know that I would call it lying more than maybe you didn’t know how to tell your dad that you liked a girl. It’s ok buddy. You’re not in trouble.” I quickly grabbed my son and hugged him. I looked at my wife and we were both now enjoying this incredibly funny moment. What was even more funny is I couldn’t even remember a conversation we had a year ago about whether or not he liked girls in his class. How dumb of me to forget such an important conversation that we had only a year ago!
To this day, this story is one of the highlights of raising my kids. I have told this story probably a thousand times and will probably tell it a thousand more.
Today, my son, now 23, and I are the best of friends. Thank you, son, for one of the funniest moments in my life. This story made all the blood, sweat, and tears of giving it all I got in raising you well worth it! I will never forget it! I love you!
Have Character!
J. Noah Russell
HAVE CHARACTER™
