The Other Side of the Story - As Ye Hoe...
Plant your garden with patience and it will sprout understanding; because...
As Ye Hoe...
Every Friday I prepare a list of the jobs that need to be done in preparation for Shabbat and divide them up among my children. The list is then posted on the refrigerator with the child's initial next to each of his jobs. It is a pretty good system and works fairly well, but there are always the last minute jobs I forget about. Then my husband or I grab the nearest child and ask him to do that particular task. Sometimes, though, there are misunderstandings. Last spring, for example, my husband asked my eleven year old to put away the gardening hoe that had been left out. She cheerfully agreed. A half hour later when he was ready to leave for shul and he saw the hoe still out, he hit the roof. "Didn't you tell me you had put the hoe away!"
My daughter came running to the front door insisting that she had put the hoe away and pointed to the garden hose neatly coiled around the garden faucet. And so we learned in our household, where English is not the first language for all of our children, there are many situations where we need to judge their deeds with the benefit of the doubt.
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