The father’s repentance. A sincere monologue that makes you think

“Listen, my son. I am saying these words while you are sleeping, with your little hand under your cheek and your curly blond hair covering your forehead.

A few minutes ago, while I was sitting in the living room reading the newspaper, a heavy wave of remorse came over me. I came to your crib with the realization of my guilt. Here’s what I was thinking, son: I took out my bad mood on you. I scolded you when you were slow to get dressed. I yelled at you angrily when you threw some of your clothes on the floor.

At breakfast, I also picked on you. You spilled your tea. You swallowed your food greedily. You put your elbows on the table. You put too much butter on your bread. And then, when you went to play and I was in a hurry to get to work, you turned around, waved at me and shouted: “Goodbye, Dad!” – I furrowed my brows and replied: “Straighten your shoulders!”.

Then, at the end of the day, it all started again. On my way home, I noticed you playing with balls on your knees. Your pants were dirty. I humiliated you in front of your friends by making you walk home ahead of me. Pants cost money – and if you had to buy them with your own money, you would be more careful! Just imagine, son, that your father was saying that!

“Do you remember how you came into the living room where I was reading later, timidly, with pain in your eyes? When I glanced at you over the top of the newspaper, irritated that I had been interrupted, you stopped at the door in indecision. “What do you want?” – I asked sharply. You didn’t answer, but rushed over to me, hugged me around the neck and kissed me. Your arms squeezed me with the love that God had put in your heart and that even my dismissive attitude could not dry up. And then you went to your room. Well, my son, shortly after that, the newspaper slipped from my hands and I was seized by a terrible, sickening fear. What had my habit done to me? The habit of nitpicking and reproaching – that was my reward for being a little boy.

It’s not that I didn’t love you, it’s that I expected too much from a child and measured you by the standards of my own years. And there is so much healthy, beautiful and sincere in your character. Your little heart is as big as the dawn over the distant hills. This was manifested in your spontaneous impulse when you rushed to me to kiss me before going to sleep. Nothing else matters today, son.

I came to your crib in the dark and knelt before you in shame! This is a weak atonement. I know you would not understand these things if I told you all this when you woke up. But tomorrow I will be a real father! I will be friends with you, suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when an irritated word is ready to come out. I will constantly repeat like a spell: “He’s just a boy, a little boy!” I’m afraid that I mentally saw you as a grown man. But now, when I see you, my son, curled up in your crib, I realize that you are still a child. Only yesterday you were in your mother’s arms and your head was on her shoulder. I demanded too much, too much.”

William Livingston Larned