Despise Not One of These Little Ones

Three stories -- all true:

(1) "Attention Wal-Mart employees -- we have a Code Adam; repeat, Code Adam." [Code Adam is Wal-Mart-speak for "lost child."] All at once, shoppers and employees stopped what they were doing, listening to the details that followed. Everyone was asked to watch for a little boy who'd become separated from his mother. He was dressed in jeans, tennis shoes, and a brown t-shirt -- and his name was Charlie.

I'd been working in the store that afternoon, replenishing the shelves of the hardware department with our company's merchandise. When I heard that announcement I decided to take a break and look for the little boy.

As I rounded a corner and entered the toy department, there in that long aisle of colorful toys stood a little boy in a brown t-shirt. He wasn't tearing packages open and playing with the toys. And he wasn't climbing up on the bicycles or bouncing the balls like some kids I'd seen. He was standing there silently, almost frozen in place, his wide eyes slowly taking everything in.

I casually approached him and said, "Hi, is your name Charlie?" He nodded, cautiously. I said, "I think your Mom's looking for you." And just at that moment, a woman stepped into the aisle. I could tell by the way she looked at him that it was his mother. Walking rapidly over to Charlie, she took him by the hand, gave me a nod of thanks and led him away.

They walked two aisles over and turned the corner, and as soon as they were out of sight I heard the unmistakable sound of an adult hand smacking a little boy's behind.

(2) I was out in the garden department of another store, setting up our company's display. Suddenly I heard a little boy calling to his father: "Dad! . . . Dad! . . . Dad! Look!" This boy wasn't lost. He'd obviously come upon something he thought was pretty cool, and he wanted his Dad to see it too. But the boy's father was a few aisles away, talking with a store clerk. After about the 8th "Dad!" the father shouted in a commanding voice: "GET OVER HERE! I TOLD YOU TO STAY WITH ME!"

There was silence. You know the kind -- the silence that announces when a child's feelings have just been trampled on -- by a bully.

(3) After spending the night in a Bakersfield motel, I was about to check out when outside of my window I heard a man's voice shouting loudly. I opened the curtains and looked down on the parking lot from my second-floor window. There I saw him -- a large man.  And a frail little girl. He was shouting, scolding, and swearing at her, using the most offensive profanity. She just stood there looking up at him -- not arguing, not crying, just looking at him with fear all over her little face and taking all the foul and hateful stuff he was hurling at her. And I thought of the Savior's words: "It were better for him that a millstone were hanged around his neck, and he be cast into the sea, than he should offend one of these little ones" (Luke 17:2).

What is it that causes adults to act this way? In so many cases, on a scale of 1 to 10, the child's "infraction" rates about a 1 or 2, and the adult responds as if it'd been a 10. I've done it myself at times. Not moments I'm proud of. Why not just take a deep breath, as in the case of little Charlie, give the little guy a hug and say, "I was worried about you. Let's not do that again, ok?"

I came across this little article in a very old file today. It's called "Father Forgets" by 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.

"These 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, 'Good-bye, Daddy!' and I frowned, and said in reply, 'Hold your shoulders back!'

"Then it all 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 boy friends 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 with 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 reprimanding--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. It 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 bedside 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 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."

President Gordon B. Hinckley: “Never forget that these little ones are the sons and daughters of God and that yours is a custodial relationship to them, that He was a parent before you were parents and that He has not relinquished His parental rights or interest in these little ones. Now, love them, take care of them.

"Fathers, control your tempers, now and in all the years to come. Mothers, control your voices, keep them down. Rear your children in love, in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Take care of your little ones, welcome them into your homes and nurture and love them with all of your hearts” (Salt Lake University Third Stake conference, 3 Nov. 1996; in Church News, 1 March 1997:2).