Several years ago, “Our Daily Bread” carried an article by an anonymous author on the power of example. It would be worth repeating it here.
“One day when Junior was 14 he noticed his father wearing a happy grin as he came home from the office.
“Got pinched for speeding, but Jake down at the city hall got the ticket fixed for me,’ he said.
“When Junior was 15, he was with his mother in the family car when she backed into a tree. The damage would easily exceed $100.
“We’ll say someone rammed into us when we were parked downtown, she said. ‘Then we’ll collect insurance for it.’
When the boy was 16, he listened to his grandfather reminiscing about the ‘good old days of rationing’ when he made $100,000 black-marketing cars. That same night Uncle John was bragging that on a good share of his business he sent no bills and took no checks—just cash.
“Why be a sucker and let those punks in the Internal Revenue Department get all my money?’ he asked.
“When Junior turned 18, his family pulled every possible string to get him a paid scholarship at a coveted Ivy League school. They even lied about the family income to make it seem that their son needed financial aid. When he had a rough time scholastically, an upperclassman sold him the answers to the calculus examination. Junior was caught and expelled. When he returned home, his mother burst into hysterical weeping over the disgrace he had caused.
“How could you have done this to us’; she sobbed.
‘This isn’t the way we raised you.””
John Lawrence: I have a feeling I know why this was written anonymously; it is too like the real thing not to be based upon reality.
As someone has well expressed it “As the twig is bent it is apt to snap back in your face.”
(The 7 Laws of the Harvest; Page 41)