Cute Now, Not So Cute Later

Sitting at a table in the early morning sometimes will stir up old memories like a stick in a yellowjacket nest. One thought bumps into another, and before long, you’ve gone from thinking about the work day to solving all the world’s problems with a coffee in your hand and a dog snoring beside your chair.

The other morning, I got to thinking about a story some friends of mine told me years ago. They were out hunting and had stopped at a little restaurant somewhere off the highway. Nothing fancy. Just one of those places where the waitress calls everybody “honey,” whether she knows you or not.

They were minding their own business, eating and trying to solve life problems they weren’t qualified to solve, when in walked two ladies and a little boy about four or five years old. From the second that kid crossed the doorway, you could tell peace had left the building.

That little rascal hit the dining room like a fly on a streetlight. He never sat down one time. He was bouncing off booths, spinning in circles, climbing seats, and darting between tables like a caffeinated ground squirrel. But what really caught everybody’s attention was the fact that this child, old enough to be discussing mortgage rates, still had a pacifier stuck in his mouth.

My buddy said the boy finally wandered over to their table and just stood there staring at them like he was sizing them up for ransom money. One of my friends, who apparently enjoys danger more than wisdom, leaned down and asked, “Son, ain’t you a little old for a pacifier?”

That little boy never even touched it with his hands. He just slid that pacifier over sideways with his lips like a professional gambler moving a cigar and unleashed about three words that would’ve made a sailor apologize to his grandmother. Then he walked off like Cool Hand Luke headed toward another felony.

My other buddy whispered, “I bet you don’t ask him that again.”

About that time, the mother hollered across the restaurant, “I knew he was gonna say that! He hears that stuff and repeats it!” My buddy said he was thinking, “Ma’am, respectfully… children aren’t parrots accidentally repeating random noises. They’re little mirrors.”

What gets poured into them early has a way of coming back out later.

Now that got me thinking about bird dogs. You know I love German shorthairs. Smart dogs. But most shorthair pups come into this world with a gift: jumping on people.

And when they’re little fuzzy puppies, folks love it. “Oh, look how friendly he is!” That’s cute at five pounds. But if you don’t correct it while they’re little, one day that same “friendly puppy” becomes a fifty-pound missile with paws the size of baseball gloves, tackling your elderly aunt into a flower bed. (We still speak, by the way.)

The problem wasn’t when the dog was grown. The problem was what nobody dealt with when he was small.

That’s exactly why God told Israel in Deuteronomy 6:6–7: “These words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children…”

God never intended parents to outsource spiritual training to the church, the school, or a youth pastor with a fog machine and flannel. The home was supposed to be the training ground.

Teach them when they sit down.

Teach them when they walk.

Teach them when they wake up.

Teach them when they go to bed.

Why? Because once life grows up wild, correction gets harder. A tree bends easier as a sapling than as an oak. That’s why Proverbs says, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

Notice it says train up a child. Not a thirty-year-old after life has wrecked them. Not after culture disciples them. Not after social media raises them more than their parents did.

Children are always being discipled by somebody. If parents don’t shape them, the world gladly will. Trouble is, the world has all the tenderness of a chainsaw.

Paul said in Ephesians 6:4, “Bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” That means discipline, instruction, consistency, patience, and example. Not screaming one day and ignoring them the next. Not demanding holiness while parents live like pagans. Not humiliating children until anger hardens their hearts.

God disciplines us with truth and love. Parents are called to do the same.

Because one day, that little unchecked attitude grows up. And suddenly folks are shocked when the thirty-year-old acts exactly like the five-year-old nobody trained. By then, life usually becomes the teacher, and life charges expensive tuition and painful discipline.

I’ve watched people spend years trying to undo habits, wounds, and thinking patterns that should’ve been addressed around a kitchen table when they were children.

That’s why parenting is more than keeping kids fed and entertained. It’s discipleship. It’s stewardship. Psalm 127 says children are “a heritage of the Lord.” God loans them to us for a season.

And the goal isn’t just to raise successful children. It’s to raise wise children who know God. Because if all we teach them is baseball, dance recitals, hunting, fishing, and making money, but never teach them how to walk with Jesus, we’ve handed them a toolbox and forgotten to build them a foundation.

And I’ll be honest with you… every now and then, when I see one of these little wild restaurant terrorists sprinting through public places like escaped zoo animals, I think about that shorthair puppy.

Cute now. Not so cute later.