Often parents are tempted to criticize their children.

You would expect me to say “don’t.” But I will not, I am

merely going to say, “Before you criticize them, read

one of the classics of American journalism, ‘Father Forgets.’ ”

It originally appeared as an editorial in the People’s

Home Journnl. We are reprinting it here as condensed in the Reader’s Digest:

“Father Forgets” is one of those little pieces whichdashed

of in a moment of sincere feeling - strikes an

echoing chord in so many readers as to become a perenial

reprint favorite. Since its first appearance, “Father

Forgets” has been reproduced, writes the author,

W, Livingston Larned, “in hundreds of magazines and

house organs, and in newspapers the country over. It has

been reprinted almost as extensively in many foreign

languages. It has been ‘on the air’ on countless

occasions and programs. Oddly enough, college periodicals

have used it, and high-school magazines. Sometimes

a little piece seems mysteriously to ‘click.’ This

one certainly did.”

FATHER FORGETS

W. Livingston Larned

Listen, son: I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little

paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily

wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room

alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper

in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me.

Guiltily I came to your bedside.

There are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross

to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because

you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took

you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily

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 off to play and I made for my train, you turned

and waved a hand and called, “Goodbye, Daddy!” and

I frowned, and said in reply, “Hold your shoulders

back!”

Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. As I

came up the road I spied you, down on your knees, playing

marbles. There were holes in your stockings. I humiliated

you before your boyfriends by marching you ahead of me to

the house. Stockings were expensive - and if you had to

buy them you would be more careful! Imagine that, son,

from a father!

Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library,

how you came in timidly, with a sort of hurt look in

your eyes? When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at

the interruption, you hesitated at the door. “What is it you

want?” I snapped.

You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous

plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed

me, and your small arms tightened with an affection that

God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect

could not wither. And then you were gone, pattering up the

stairs.

Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped

from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me.

What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault,

of rep
rimanding - this was my reward to you for being a

boy. It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected

too 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 of you was as big as the

dawn itself over the wide hills. This was shown by your

spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night.

Nothing else matters tonight, son. I have come to your bed-side

in the darkness, and I have knelt there, ashamed!

It is a feeble atonement; I know you would not understand

these things if I told them to you during your waking

hours. But tomorrow I will be a real daddy! I will chum

with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you

laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I

will keep saying as if it were a ritual: “He is nothing but a

boy - a little boy!”

I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see

you now, son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that

you are still a baby. Yesterday you were in your mother’s

arms, your head on her shoulder. I have asked too much,

too much.

Instead of condemning people, let’s try to understand

them. Let’s try to figure out why they do what they do.

That’s a lot more profitable and intriguing than criticism;

and it breeds sympathy, tolerance and kindness. “To

know all is to forgive all.”

As Dr. Johnson said: “God himself, sir, does not propose

to judge man until the end of his days.”

Why should you and I?

Don’t criticize, condemn or complain.