McManus makes that point again with a story about his little two year old son, who loved to crawl, and who put off walking.** This wasn't a problem, except for the stairs. He knew how to crawl up, but not down; so his parents would have to "rescue" him several times a day. Finally, daddy Erwin caught the lad in the act halfway up the stairs. In a stern voice, he commanded the son to come down. The son contemplated the situation and said, "Daddy, carry me." Each of three times the dad refused in a battle of wills. Finally, the boy just jumped. He knew his dad would catch him. It is a great story about trust. He didn't know a lot about his dad (not his name or other such data), but he trusted him.
The first ending of the story had the dad stepping back, allowing his son to crash into the wall behind him; but he cried "psych!" and revealed he was just kidding. (He didn't really use the word "psych!") **But the details about his son being two sound a little weird. I bet that detail is purposefully inaccurate. Surely these parents would not wait a full year past the normal age (one year) of learning to walk. Even on his or her own, a child would normally learn to walk on their own by that time. Instead of passing judgment on their parenting skills, I'll pass judgment on the writer's editing skills and presume he just fudged a little bit.
"They say" that the longer a chld crawls the better he or she will be at cognitive skills, like reading and math and whatnot. I don't really know who "they" are, but it makes you feel good as a parent if your child hasn't taken those first steps by birthday #1 (which is really birthday #2 if you consider the day they were birthed as #1... Maybe McManus is using "biblical math," like Sunday being the third day for the resurrection, as Friday and Saturday count as #1 and #2, respectively).
Posted by Doug Van Pelt at January 14, 2008 07:42 AM