Proud Parents

The job of parent often brings with it great pain, sadness and difficulty. There is nothing quite as awful as having to see your child struggle or hurt in some way. It’s difficult to stand by and believe that a hard moment will pass. However on the other hand nothing equals the euphoria that a parent experiences in those moments of great pride and amazement at your child.

You know those moments in life when you listen to your child and you are overwhelmed with a sense of pride in them. When the words that come out of their mouth are so far beyond their “age appropriate” wisdom that you wonder, “Where on earth did that come from?” Those moments when you stand staring and amazed that the incredible person standing in front of you is in any way even slightly related to you let alone the actual embodiment of your gene pool. Those are great moments aren’t they?

I had one of those moments with Kaleb last week. We had been talking for the last few weeks about one of his friends at school who has a serious problem with profanity. This boy is 11 and has been known to use the “f” word more than once. Definitely not appropriate behavior by our standards. I had heard rumors at school that this was going on (a great benefit of being part of the faculty of your children’s school is you get the inside scoop on the kids at school), but hadn’t heard it directly from Kaleb. So Steve and I asked him and 2 of his friends if the rumors were indeed true. They all unanimously agreed yes and said that this boy’s language had been very bad on more than one occasion. We asked if any of the kids had confronted their friend and they said, “Yeah, kind of. We told him to stop doing it, but he hasn’t stopped.” Steve and I decided that we should talk to his parents because we were certain they didn’t know he was cussing.

A few days later the boy and his dad were at our house playing basketball. This other boy started to get mad and his dad said, “What are you going to do? Use bad language or find another way to deal with it?” (Steve had told the dad about his son swearing, but the dad wasn’t sure how he was going to talk to him about it so he decided this would be a good bridge to conversation.) There was a bit more conversation about it between Kaleb, the dad and the boy then the dad went home. After he left the boy said to Kaleb, “Why did you have to go and tell my dad?” Kaleb said, “Because what you’re doing is wrong and you can’t do that.” “I can do it if I want to!” said the kid. And Kaleb responded, “Well you can because you have the power and ability to do that, but you can’t because you’re a Christian and you’re supposed to make different choices and do the right thing. Saying those words is not being different than other kids who aren’t Christians”.

I listened in amazement and I was so proud of my 8 year old son! His willingness to confront his friend and speak his convictions was inspirational to me. He didn’t care if it cost him his friendship or the kid’s approval. He was more interested in saying what was right. I was happy to know that Kaleb has ownership of his faith and beliefs. What an amazing boy he is!