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A Spiritually Enlightening Online Magazine. March's Theme: "Action and Inaction"
Volume 7 Issue 3 ISSN# 1708-3265

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 		Action or Inaction?
by David Reber

And teach Your children well Their Father's hell Will surely go by…
     -Crosby, Stills, and Nash

I remember several years ago when my wife and I decided our son needed a little responsibility. We made him responsible for at least one load of dishes and a bag of trash each day. He did very well at first other than the god-awful sigh when we reminded him. After a while though, he started running the dishwasher with maybe two plates, a cup, and a couple bits of silverware. I fixed that by telling him he was responsible for all the dishes in the sink. It was up to him if he wanted to do one load or five. It was the following week when the next short-cut reared its ugly head.

It started when in the kitchen there was a single plate or bowl sitting freshly cleaned right out on the counter. No biggie, I just unthinkingly put it away. Then more and more were left out. Finally I inquired.

"I can't reach up that high," he told me.

I replied, "You can't think of a way to get those up in the cabinet?" I admit I tried leading him here as what leaned against the cabinet, not two feet from him, was a three-stair stepladder we keep in the kitchen for exactly the purpose of getting up higher. An item he used on the regular bases to get at the stuff he wanted.

"No," he said.

"No way at all?"

When he said no again I said, "Then you need to come up with a way."

That annoyed him enough that he grunted and lightly, but frustrated, struck out a fist at the counter. Unfortunately the stepladder was in the way and he tagged it instead. It was all I could do to keep a straight face when I asked again if he was sure he could not think of anything.

"No!"

So I left him there to think about, and I hoped like crazy he'd make the connection.

My wife was, at the time somewhere else in the house working on the bills so she missed the whole exchange. She came through about fifteen minutes later a bit grumpy and saw our son still standing in kitchen as he tried to work up a tear.

"What's your problem?" she asked.

"I can't leave until I put away all the dishes."

She barks, "So do it."

"I can't reach that high."

"Get a chair."

My son went to the dining room for a chair, and in the process actually paused to move the step stool aside so he could slide in the chair.

It was just one of many such amusing little incidents of our lives, but it illustrated the difference in our parenting styles. I tried to get the boy to figure it out on his own, with as little input on my part as possible. I strongly believed that the lesson best learned are those worked through on your own. I thought by leaving him to think it through on his own he engaged his brain. My wife more often than not takes a more direct course.

I did not say my wife's style is wrong, or mine was right. In fact, if anything what I found out every day was a potpourri of instances where either action or inaction was the best and rarely was the same way right twice. In fact another very recent situation occurred which quite clearly illustrated my way of letting him work through it on his own did not work quite as well my wife's more direct methods.

A little while back our poor guy got his first girlfriend and took his first steps onto a very long road. Unfortunately the first bumps in that road came right before our family trip.

We planned this trip for nearly two years and we were quite adamant that it was all about him. We went to Key West where he got to tour the islands in a bi-plane, go deep-sea fishing, and one morning he got to swim with dolphins. Heck, he even got two extra days off school for it all. We'd actually been waiting on this trip until he was old enough to keep the memories of all these amazing things we lined up for him. Too bad somewhere on the way to realizing the vacation he and his first little girlfriend developed troubles.

For the first several days of the trip the boy was a sullen, smart-mouthed, dark little emotional sink-hole, bent on taking everyone around him down too. Now I, Mr. Inaction, was perfectly happy to let him stew and make himself miserable. I figured he was doing worse to himself internally than anything I could do at that point. My wife however had a more direct approach. She chose the path of action.

About the third day into the trip, when we were waiting sea-side to depart on a private fishing charter I heard my wife say, "Come here."

Normally I cringed when I heard that, but was relieved to the point of dancing a jig when I saw her crooked finger was motioning to the boy instead. She lead him off, and while I could not hear what she said to him, she said it entirely up in his face with lots of between-the-eyes-point-blank finger pointing. The sky grew cloudy and dark over her as the winds blew and the temperature dropped. Lightning lashed in fury spurred on by the power of her countenance.

Whatever she said, it worked. During the fishing trip he slowly turned back into his old self. He caught fish, he cracked jokes; he even showed the occasional glint of sunlight off braces when he smiled.

So which was it… action or inaction? What was the best thing to do well by the boy? So far we constantly walked that line not only between getting involved and letting him handle his own situation, but also between varying degrees of both. How much should we let him handle on his own, or how much do we get involved before it's too much?

I recently talked with my own mother on this. She just shook her head and smiled in a way only the truly justified can. "It's only beginning for you," she laughed. "Gird your loins."

Can anyone recommend a good boarding school?


Hello, I'm David Reber. Currently I'm trying very hard to live a simple, uncomplicated life. I really enjoy tying flies or writing bad fiction in some quiet corner near where my beautiful wife is working on one of her hobbies. I also enjoy long walks with her when the weather is nice and we can take our two Siberian Husky puppies, Annie and Chloey with us - or when the huskies take us for a run would be the proper description. Then of course there is the time we spend trying to keep the refrigerator stocked ahead of "Big J", our active son and his tape worm.

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