It isn’t giving children what they want that counts, it is giving them what
they need. Too often what is given to children is what the parents want to give,
rather than what children need.
I remember a young child I watched grow up some years ago in a distant
town.
Harvey
’s mother gave him every thing he wanted. In short,
Harvey
was spoiled at a young age. His mother constantly told everyone how much she
cared for
Harvey
. So much so that whenever Harvey got into any trouble she made sure he was
never pulled up short.
Harvey
wasn’t all that bad, just rambunctious and smart-mouthed. Overall I liked him
despite his mother and his mouth. Year after year his mother made sure he could
do whatever he wanted without having to pay for it until one night shortly after
Harvey became an adult.
It was a quiet night at a local bar. I was playing pool with Benny the
Bartender. We were the only ones in the bar. The door opened and a large burly
man came in. He ordered a beer and went over to the pay phone.
“He’s a trucker,” Benny said as I watched the man talk on the
phone. We played a while and then I noticed the man become agitated. Finally he
said loudly, “What do you mean divorce?”
A minute later he slammed the phone down and returned to his beer at the
bar. He stared off into space trying to put his life back together. We played
quietly so as to not disturb him.
At that point
Harvey
came in and shouted, “Beer for me, water for my horse.” Benny went over and
poured him a beer. There was a second pool table and Harvey wanted to play so he
walked over to the trucker, “Hey old man, bet I can beat you at pool.”
The trucker looked up and shook his head no. That subtly was lost on
Harvey
. “What’s a matter, scared of losing,”
Harvey
sneered.
In a low voice the trucker said, “Go away, boy.”
Harvey puffed up and said, “Calling me a boy is like calling an
alligator a lizard.”
Harvey
enjoyed being obnoxious. He stepped up to the man to smart off again when the
man hit him once in the mouth, but that was all it took. For Harvey it was like
flying into a mountain, one moment he was A-OK, the next, a total wreck.
The man looked to see if we were on
Harvey
’s side. We shrugged and continued our game. The trucker stood up and said to
the unconscious
Harvey
, “Next time when I say to go away you’d best do it.” Then he picked up
his change and went out the door. The punch allowed him to vent his anger. We
heard his diesel start and he went on his way to a new life.
Harvey, on the other hand, came back to life feeling pretty sick. “What happened,”
he moaned. Benny told him, “Your alligator mouth just got your lizard body
into a heap of trouble.”
We helped
Harvey
up and collected in a paper bag his teeth which were cluttering the floor so he
could put them under his pillow. He stumbled out of the bar with the bag of his
teeth.
A little later his mother came in to yell at us because we didn’t come
to
Harvey
’s aid but Benny cut her off short saying that she was the problem since
Harvey
had started the fight. She wouldn’t listen, but Benny was right, Harvey was
set up to take that rap in the mouth by his mother constantly spoiling him.
After that, though,
Harvey
was much more pleasant. It only took one punch in the mouth to teach him some
manners. It is too bad it came to that instead of more appropriate correction
when he was much younger and being obnoxious.
His mother said she cared about him yet did those things which caused him
to come to grief. In reality she did what she wanted to do, and did so for
herself. In the end
Harvey
got what he needed, only about 15 years too late to save his front teeth.
©
2005 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.