Toss the heavy tomes to the side. Some of the best advice I’ve received for raising kids arrived via Cesar Milan, the Dog Whisperer. One might think I would be reticent to admit I snagged parenting cues from 30-minute bits aired on the National Geographic channel, but we all know this parenting gig scoffs at a man’s pride.
The most intriguing Dog Whisperer episodes are when there is an especially troublesome canine. Perhaps a small pooch who’s diminutive size has given him an inferiority complex, and now he bites every person other than the one human he considers his “mommy.” Or a large brute who repeatedly rips the sofa and shreds the rugs and chews the wooden chairs like they are a rawhide treat. I recall one episode where a couple, married maybe thirty years, had their life completed upended by a little 9 pound fur-ball with a very large attitude. The emasculated man surrendered his bed and his place and became the third wheel. It was pitiful to watch.
I am not a patient man. I would like to say that I am, but I am not. If I were living with any of these dogs, I do not know what would come of them, or of me. I do not know how that story would go, but not well. Cesar, on the other hand, exudes gentle authority. Cesar, with the benefit of edited tapes of course, rarely gets flustered. When a dog exhibits bad behavior, Cesar says, “Ah, now this is good. This is something to work with.”
Gentleness has been my word for awhile. I want to be a more gentle man. Mainly, I want to be a more gentle father. When one of our boys presses hard on that magic button they so easily locate, the one that triggers my blood pressure and my nervous twitch, I want to just lower the shoulders and drop the rigorous energy and say, “Ah, now this is good. This is something to work with.”
My high-pitched response to my boys’ foolishness (and it is often foolishness, let’s be honest) actually says more about me and the state of my soul than anything it says about the two rascals. Maybe my less-than-gentle reactions say something about my view of the world and the stock I put in keeping things in some semblance of order, maintaining the illusion that we are not swimming in chaos. But you just recognize these things and you move on. I imagine God getting a chuckle and saying, “Ah, now this is good. This is something to work with.”
Have always maintained that we should go through dog obedience training before having children (of course this after I had already birthed 3 daughters). I learned much about myself when I took one of our dogs though a class – and about raising children – again after being 12 years into the process of raising children.. But this is one old dog who learned some new tricks – and saw more clearly where MY nature ruled me rather than that of Christ’s. Amazing how children have a knack for kicking awake the sleeping lion.