Igor K. (SEE) - respect and authority

For a SEE, it is very important to have close relationships with their parents. They want to share their innermost thoughts with them. I wanted to share things with my father, but not with my mother.

I remember the first time I started respecting my father. I had broken the neighbors’ window. A group of us boys were hanging out. We were playing with snowballs. Passing by, someone threw one at the window. The window broke. We were caught and brought home. They brought us home, and my mother started yelling: “That’s it! If your father comes out now, I don’t know what will happen!” And I was little. My father came out. The first thing he did was calm my mother down. Then he came to me and said, “What did you do?” — “I broke the window.” “Where?” he asked. “There.” “Alright, fine, go to your room,” my father said. That was it! He didn’t whip me or punish me — and that was enough. Later he told me, “I put the glass back in.” I liked what the man whose window I broke said. My father asked him, “What did he do?” The man replied, “He’ll tell you himself.” My father looked at me, and I answered honestly, “I broke the window.” Then my father came to me and said, “Do you understand what you did?” I understood what I had done — and that was enough. If he had beaten me, I might have developed some resentment, some kind of grudge.