2013-37 Don't Criticise: Father Forgets - W Livingston Larned
When I talked about it to my father who was my first and foremost teacher, he simply said, "Haven't you read THE TOYS by Coventry Patmore?" which I shall upload in my next post!]
To quote Dale Carnegie: "Bitter criticism caused the sensitive Thomas Hardy, one of the finest novelists ever to enrich English literature, to give up forever the writing of fiction. Benjamin Franklin, tactless in his youth, became so diplomatic, so adroit at handling people, that he was made American Ambassador to France. The secret of his success? "I will speak ill of no man," he said, "and speak all the good I know of everybody."
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain -
and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding
and forgiving. Often parents are tempted to criticize their children. Before they
criticise, let them read one of the perennial classics, 'Father Forgets.' It originally appeared as an editorial in the
People's Home Journal and is reproduced here as condensed in the Reader's
Digest:"
"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 you
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, form 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 your 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."
"Father Forgets" as read by Dale Carnegie:
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