It was 5:18 a.m. and the sun was just creeping in through my bedroom window as I pried my eyes open against the call of more sleep. Everything is fuzzy in those first few moments before I have my glasses on, but I have a clear focal distance of about four inches, and that’s exactly how far away the eyes were, wide open and clear, and the thin-lipped mouth rhythmically expelling warm breath that said, sweet and hushed, “Hi, Dad.”

I nearly jumped off the mattress. So much for more sleep.

My son is a thumper. You can hear him walking around the house from two floors away because of the way his feet land on the wood floor. I never worry about him playing outside in the newly fenced yard because I can always hear him no matter where in the house I am. He’s the loudest human being I know. And yet, at least once a month he manages to try giving me a heart attack with those early morning bedside awakenings. I don’t know how long he stands there watching me sleep before my subconscious registers that something’s off and forces me to open my eyes. He can sneak up behind me while I’m frying something on the stove. If I’m mowing the lawn, he’ll be in my path when I turn around. Once, I held a nail in place on a board, then looked down to grab my hammer, and when I looked back up to swing his fingers were on the nail head as he asked, “What’re you doing, Dad?”

In short, the kid has a way of being stealthy when he wants to be. Which I don’t mind, except that this week he put that skill to poor use.

– – –

See, I bought some pretzels last week. They were an extravagance—99 cents at the local discount grocer. Ordinarily I am against buying anything (especially food) that isn’t actually needed, but hey, I’m human and I was grocery shopping alone due to Twin B having hand, foot and mouth.

Anyway, a couple of days later I was in the home office during the kids’ nap time when Mister Man wanders in and tells me he’s done sleeping.

“No,” I said, “It’s been 20 minutes and I know you haven’t actually fallen asleep.” He gives me this astounded look, like I’m some kind of sorcerer for knowing he hadn’t yet slept, and then I volunteered to lay down on his bed with him for a few minutes to help him fall asleep.

(Side note: I have actually cried over the fact that as my kids get older they will no longer want to just snuggle with me. They are wonderful and sweet and innocent and joyful and I will miss the way their hair smells and their complete trust.)

As he was drifting off, he whispered to me, “Dad, what are those crunchy things you got?”

“What?” I asked, not making the connection.

“The crunchy things that are brown. Do they taste good?”

“Oh, the pretzels? Yeah, they’re good, I guess.” I hadn’t really thought about it to that point. And then he fell asleep.

It wasn’t until the next day that I looked behind his window curtain.

Sitting on the windowsill above his bed was a plastic cup from the kitchen with about a dozen pretzels in it. That’s when his questions made sense—he’d already made his theft when he asked me those questions, but he probably didn’t know how to process what he’d done, was feeling some kind of guilt that was unfamiliar and needed settling, confessing.

I took that cup and told him we would talk about it later. I could tell by his face that he knew it was wrong. And my heart broke.

– – –

“You shall not steal.” It’s right there in black and white. (Or red and white, depending on whether you’re in Exodus 20 or Matthew 19, and if your bible of choice does the red Jesus words thing. Google “red words in the bible” for a quick fact-finding rabbit hole.)

I think it’s safe to say pretty much every parent teaches their kid this commandment whether religious or not. It’s innate knowledge—it is wrong to take something that does not belong to you. We know this. It’s just a thing. And maybe that’s the problem.

We’ve talked briefly about being nice to other people, don’t take things, stop biting people, please don’t take things out of other people’s carts at the grocery story, where did you get that gecko, etc.

And yet, pretzels on the windowsill.

When we talked about it later, Mister Man said he understood it was bad to take those pretzels and to hide them. So I asked him why he did it if he knew it was wrong. And he just looked at me for a moment, then glanced away and kind of tilted his head—he has incredible long blonde hair that he doesn’t even notice being in his face anymore, so it just filters the light that hits him and gives him this kind of half-wild, half-majestic look—and he said quietly but clearly, “I don’t know.”

And I understood. And I feared.

– – –

Original sin. I won’t get too deep into the debate, but it’s taken on new light for me. Eventually as a parent you come to a point where you have to decide which terrible truth to base your parenting on: Is sin an innate part of the human condition, or did I screw him up?

Neither is pleasant to think about. It’s deciding between inevitability and ineptitude. Either things have been hopeless all along and it was just a matter of time before he expressed evidence of original sin, or, worse, things were swell—he was born a good and sweet babe—and I ruined them. No: ruined him. Like father, like son.

I spent the next day or so unable to think about much else, bewildered by the turn my precious child had taken, the terrible path he was headed down: first pretzels from the kitchen, but pretty soon he’d be captaining his own Queen Anne’s Revenge.

Did I not do enough to hammer home the point? Did I take for granted that the kids (at least Mister Man) understood that stealing is bad? Is my complacency to blame?

A few months ago, Young Christian Mom and I took a parenting class. This was just shortly before Fourth Corder was born, but darn it—after three kids we were determined to prepare a little bit for the next one. It was a Love and Logic class that met weekly, and if nothing else it gave us a lot of perspective on the parenting choices we’d already made and made us talk a lot about the kind of parents we were and wanted to be. Recommended.

Anyway, one significant point early on in the class is that it’s OK—necessary, really—to let kids make small mistakes. Better to have small problems and teach with appropriate countermeasures than to try and prevent kids from slipping up at all. Because, the theory goes, people always slip up eventually (sinners all, right?), and if a child hasn’t been allowed to make mistakes and learn from them early on when the potential consequences are not great, that person doesn’t learn how to avoid poor decisions later when they can be more impactful—even life-threatening.

Experience is the best teacher. Let your kids have experiences, essentially.

I always knew that Mister Man would eventually steal something, break something, hurt somebody, etc. It’s just what happens. As a parent, I have a choice to make: Work my ass off to prevent him from being in situations where those things are temptations (and in the course of so doing make myself an exhausted worrywart while preventing him from having many experiences) or take the reins and lead by example and be gracious enough to teach him when he does inevitably make a mistake.

– – –

If I had to describe parenting to someone without kids, I wouldn’t waste time on fluff. Yes, you change lots of diapers. And you miss a lot of sleep. And it’s harder to have a social life. Etc. and so forth.

But the fundamental role of a parent is to make decisions that have indefinite and aggregate consequences. Every single choice that I make as a father has far-reaching implications, many of which I can’t perceive or won’t perceive for years. The way I respond at any given moment sets a precedent for every future instance. Without consistency, everything unravels.

Every single day your kid is going to experience something for the first time. One day it’s going to be coloring on the wall with a Sharpie. One day it’s going to be tasting ice cream. One day it’s going to be figuring out how to make mud in the garden when you aren’t looking.

One day it will be the urge to steal. And you’ll have a choice to make. Good luck.