Let the Healing Begin

By Michael Harburg

My newly three-year-old son Sam, who has learned a few things in his day, one morning found himself alone in the house without those two big supervisor people, for the first time. Mama had to leave abruptly to go to work, and I, the father, really wanted to finish digging the garden in the back yard. Over the course of a few minutes I went in to listen at the back door a couple times, but he seemed to be doing OK. Then, the inevitable crash followed hard on by the urgent cry, "PAPA!" I ran in and found Sam in the middle of a back porch in a very advanced state of disarray. As if a tornado had just ripped through it.

Sam sometimes resembles an elf, as he is about three feet tall, has blond curly hair, and can be as wise as the ages. After my quick survey of the chaotic scene, I looked down at this elfin son and asked in my best stern voice, "What happened?" Sam had the look of someone who knows he has sinned (as defined by the higher ups) but doesn’t necessarily feel guilt or regret, because it had to be done. And that was the way he answered me, speaking in a very straightforward, compellingly honest tone, spilling the whole beans all at once. "I banged on the window, and, I spilled water—but, but, I cleaned it up, and, I bonked the door," he said, pointing at the dehydrator door on the floor.

This litany of no-nos was like a three-alarm fire at the parental fire station, and my mind instantly leaped into parental action mode. We had told him millions of times not to bang on the front window, but to no apparent avail. (On the other hand, I had heard it when I had checked in, and had recognized that he was banging with restraint so as not to be in any danger of breaking the window (his way of compromising). Which is why I hadn’t said anything at the time.)

I decided I needed to get a fuller inventory of all the damage before pronouncing the guilty verdict and the sentencing. "Show me the spill," I said in a dark, ominous tone, indicating my serious displeasure. He obediently ran into the kitchen and carefully explained how he had knocked over the watercoloring water, which spilled here, and (running over to the rag cabinet) he had gone, here, to get a rag to clean up, and (running to the back corner) he had thrown the rag, here, in the dirty rag bin. Though I was assuming the angry father posture because of his conflagration of wrongdoing, I nevertheless found myself secretly admiring that he had cleaned up after himself so thoroughly and appropriately. Then, without any prompting, he ran out and pointed again at the dehydrator door that had fallen off. The hinges had broken long ago, and we had asked him--again, a million times--not to touch it. But for some reason it held an irresistible temptation for him. After this full and complete remuneration of all his wrongdoing he fell silent. He was cognizant that he had done wrong and that he might well get into trouble, but--and this struck me--he was not afraid. There was a pregnant silence as he stood, turned 90 degrees away from me, stared fixedly at the wall, and guardedly awaited his fate.

A slew of the usual punitive parental responses flew through my mind: "Here we leave you in the house for just a few minutes and you go wild! How are we going to trust?!" "Sammie, we’ve told you over and over how dangerous it is to bang on the front window!" (Although, he had banged with restraint.) "We let you alone for one second and you go and do all the things we have told you not to." (Though he did do a great job of cleaning up after himself.) "Papa is really disappointed in you. I thought I could trust you to be by yourself . . . ." ( But he was being very trustworthy by telling me exactly what he had committed.) Wait--maybe a consequence would work better . . .OK, let’s see . . . "Sammie, this shows us we can’t let you be by yourself, if you are going to act like this." "Sammie, I need to take away your play hammer if that is what you are going to do with it." But none of them fit. None of them fit, and I was at a loss for what to do.