Assumptions

Hubby shared a story about how Aiden once pushed Oliver and got in so much trouble for it. Later on, he heard a loud ‘thug’ and assumed that Aiden pushed Oliver again. In anger, he scolded Aiden.

Aiden, in the midst of tears and seemingly on the verge of either anger or deep hurt said, “NO! NO DO IT!” In his very limited verbal ability, he protested.

Hubby quickly realized he made a mistake. He assumed wrong. It was not fair to Aiden. And while he was grateful for the spoken words, he knew he hurt his son. He apologized profusely but the guilt feeling of that incident had stuck with him all this time.

You see, we both agreed on a rule at home. If we did not see what actually happened, no one gets disciplined for it.

Sadly, we fail at following our own rule. A lot of times, we feel overpowered by the urge to assume. We try not to.. We really do! But it just takes so much effort to resist drawing conclusions when the obvious is l-i-t-e-r-a-l-l-y in front of you.

Or so we think…

Recently, I had two donuts. I ate one and offered the other to the Hubby. He told me to save it and that he was going to have it later. Well, later comes by and he wanted it. But then, it looked like someone had already been helping himself to it. Almost instantaneously, we assumed it was Oliver because Oliver LOVES donuts and Aiden doesn’t eat donuts.

When asked, Oliver adamantly protested, “I DIDN’T EAT IT! I PROMISE!“

Then… Aiden comes by laughing with his face and hands covered in chocolate. The boy had been eating the chocolate off the top of the donut!

Sometimes a wrong assumption feels comedic and we laugh about it. But other times, it leaves a painful imprint and we hurt for it. And then I wonder, what assumptions could my kids have of me.