JUST TRYING TO BE LIKE THE FATHER

The Reverend Bob Stamps is a delightful man with a good sense of humour. He is also bald. One night Bob and his wife decided to go out to dinner. So they hired a babysitter to take care of their little children. While they were gone, the babysitter got interested in a television program and wasn't watching the children very carefully. Their little boy Peter, got into his father's electric shaver and shaved a big landing strip right down the middle of his head. When Bob came home, he was furious. He said, "Peter! I told you never to play with my shaver. Now you are going to get a spanking that you will never forget!" He was just about to administer that spanking when Peter looked up at him and said, "Wait until you see sister!" Bob said that he and his wife were horrified when they went into the next room and saw their little four-year-old daughter with all of the hair shaved off of her head. She looked like a little skinned rabbit. By this time, Bob was really furious. He grabbed up Peter and said, "Now you are really going to get it." Just as he lifted his hand and started to bring it down, Peter looked up at him with tears in his eyes and said, "But Daddy! WE WERE JUST TRYING TO LOOK LIKE YOU!" There was one little boy who didn't get a spanking that night. Instead he got an explanation and a hug.
Adapted From a sermon by Dr. Joe Harding, quoted in A New Daddy, from Eight Habits of Highly Effective Families, copyright 1997 by Seven Worlds Corporation.