TAKING RESPONSIBILITY

"You can choose the kind
of man you want to be."

I was trying to teach my nephew what it means to take responsibility this evening. He's six. I genuinely don't think that's too young to start learning how to be a man. He didn't like his lesson very much, I'm afraid.

Like the famous mismatched-draughts-game, he screamed and he cried when he couldn't get his own way. Half-way through a job, packing away the playmobil, he'd given up because it was 'boring'. I told him that he could choose to do that but it meant he had to sit down and do nothing for the rest of the evening - an infinitely more boring (and for him, difficult) task.

"You've got a choice," I said. "1 or 2. There is no 3. 1 means you tidy up and we play the next game. 2 means you sit here like this with me for twenty minutes until it's time to put your shoes on and go home."

I desperately want him to understand. He screamed, he cried, he kicked and he wriggled, but I could not allow him not to be responsible. It's massively important. He had to choose.

The thing with irresponsibility is that somebody somewhere always has to clear up the mess. It's an intrinsic law of the universe. Whether you're a big city banker or a teenager leaving wet towels in a heap on the bathroom floor, there is always someone who has to deal with it.

Unfortunately we live in a world that's stacked against us seeing it. You can drop litter in the street and it disappears, you can leave lights on in the office all night and no-one bats an eyelid. You can even gamble with millions of pounds worth of other people's savings, pensions and investments... as though it were some game of hooray-henry-roulette...

But the law remains. Somebody somewhere always has to pick up the pieces of our irresponsible actions. It may as well be us, it should be us!

After all, I know grown men - strong, young, selfish-headed men who've walked out on their families because it's too difficult to take responsibility. Seeing it through, honouring their commitment is somehow beyond them. What kind of utterly diabolical role-model is that?

In the end, he gave in. I let him go and in a unique and creative way (that's his style), he did finish the job. I was quick to balance my draconian discipline with some gale-force encouragement. While he pushed the box of packed-up playmobil into the corner with his head, I told him that a hero is someone who completes the things he doesn't want to do; someone who sees it right through to the end because it's the right thing to do.

I pray with every fervency I can summon within that he gets it - that all four of them do! I wish I'd had an annoying uncle sometimes.