A MOTHER CRAB was scolding her daughter one day for walking backwards the way crabs do. “For goodness sake, Daughter, why don’t you walk the way the rest of the creatures in the world do, instead of crawling backwards in that silly fashion?” “Mama,” squeaked the Daughter Crab, “all I know about walking I learned from you. If that doesn’t please you, why don’t you set me a better example yourself and teach me how to do otherwise?” Aesop
I surprise myself with the smugness when I can read a fable like this all the while saying to myself, “That’s not me. I wouldn’t say ‘Do what I say, not as I do!'”
Do you think parents are leveraging Christmas to get better behaved children, rather than by modelling Christ? Are we collectively using “better be nice rather than naughty” or “if you are not good”? Children need to see our example, ideally, genuine remorse and repentance when we fall short and humility and joy when, in Christ, we do model true virtue. This Christmas season revisit with your family why Jesus came for the Mother and Daughter crab in all of us.
