Growing Up (Vorse)/Chapter 3
WHAT are you to do with a child who measures the thing it wishes to do with punishment, and finding the price of punishment small deliberately makes his choice? There's not much to be done, is there? Tom got out of it this way:
"If we spank him he will look upon our punishment as revenge." And when Alice asked: "Well, if he wants to do something that will hurt him, what are you going to do then?" Tom answered with a finality that did not hide the weakness of his position:
"We shall find some better way of reasoning with him. This steadfastness of his, is a splendid thing if rightly directed."
When Alice asked how he proposed to direct it rightly he left for the office. Meanwhile Robert sat smiling serenely. His calm mouth was shut with a firmness that must always have been there and that Alice had never before noticed. He had an unshakable quality, a determination that defied them. Nothing but annihilation could subdue him. He was tiny, but he was stronger than they, for he knew exactly what he ought to do in life, and they, poor things, were uncertain.
Because of such trivial things as his Grandma's goldfish, Robert had already shown them that when it came to a show-down he held the trump card of independence.
The complacent look went from their faces. They no longer talked evenings of how badly other people brought up their children. For they began to realize the truth on which all the wisdom of parenthood is built, that the supreme thing which matters in the bringing up of your children is not following this theory or that. The thing of deepest importance is for you to try and find out as soon as possible who your baby is, for if you do not do it yourself he will make you. But it takes more than one child to teach this lesson, just as it takes more than one child to give a parent humility.