"Listen, I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blonde hair, sticky wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me. Guiltily, I came to your bedside.

These are the things I was thinking...I had been cross with you. I scolded you as you were getting ready for school, because you gave your face, merely a dab with the towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out, in anger, 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 to leave, you turned and waved a hand and called..."Good-bye,Dad", and I frowned and in reply said."Hold your shoulders back!"

Then, it began all over again, in late afternoon. As I came up the walk, I spied you down on your knees playing marbles. There were holes in the knees of your pants. I humiluated you in front of your friends, by marching you ahead of me into the house. I told you clothes were expensive, and if you had to pay for them yourself, you'd be more careful!

Do you remember later, when I was reading, how you came, timid, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes? When I glanced up over my book, impatiant at the interruption, you hesitated at the door. "What do you want?" I snapped! You said nothing, but ran across the room in one great plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and then your small arms tightened with an affection that God has set blooming in your heart, and which, even neglect could not wither....and then you were gone; pattering down the hall.

Well, it was shortly after that my book slipped from my hands and a terrible, sickening fear came over me. This habit of finding fault, of reprimanding, this is my reward to you..for being a child? It was not that I did not love you, it was that I expected to 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 in you was as big as the dawn itself over the hils. This was shown by your spontaneous impluse to run in and kiss me.

Nothing else matters tonight, Son. I have come to your bedside in the darkness, and I have knelt here ashamed. It is a feeble atonement. I know you would not understand these things if I told them to you in your waking hours. But, tomorrow, I will be a real parent. I will play with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatiant words come. I will keep saying, as if it were a ritual..."He's nothing but a child..a little child."

I'm afraid I visualized you as an adult, yet, as I see you now, crumpled in your bed..I see you are still a baby. Yesterday you were in my arms, your head on my shoulder. I have asked too much...........
WAY TOO MUCH!!

Found at "Aspiring to Greatness"