July 11th marks the 50th anniver­sary of the book “To Kill a Mock­ing­bird.” Did you have to read it in school? I did and I didn’t fall in love with it until I was a few years older and re-read it because I wanted to. The lyri­cism of the words, the descrip­tion of the small, South­ern town and the char­ac­ters drew me in like a fly to honey. I grew up in the South and felt a kin­ship with some of the peo­ple and wished I had been able to know oth­ers. And I am very sorry to say that I did know a few peo­ple who bore more than a pass­ing resem­b­lence to a few less than savory characters.

I got to think­ing about Atti­cus Finch, Scout’s father in the book, the other day. And I real­ized that there was much to learn about par­ent­ing from Atti­cus and some of the folks who inhab­ited that world. And I thought about Scout and Jem, his daugh­ter and son, and how they respected him as a par­ent and he accepted them as his chil­dren. On July 11th I’ll raise a glass and toast Harper Lee. Maybe you can join me. I’ll leave you with four of my favorite quotes from the book and encour­age you to get out your copy and read it again. Now that you’re a par­ent, I bet you’ll see it in a whole new light.

“I wanted you to see what real courage is … It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin any­way and you see it through no mat­ter what.  You rarely win, but some­times you do.“
— “To Kill a Mock­ing­bird, Atti­cus,” Chap­ter 11

“You never really under­stand a per­son until you con­sider things from his point of view–until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.“
— “To Kill a Mock­ing­bird,” Atti­cus Finch to daugh­ter Scout, Chap­ter 3

“When a child asks you some­thing, answer him, for good­ness’ sake.  But don’t make a pro­duc­tion of it.  Chil­dren are chil­dren, but they can spot an eva­sion quicker than adults, and eva­sion sim­ply mud­dles ‘em.“
— “To Kill a Mock­ing­bird,” Atti­cus, Chap­ter 9

“I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.“
— “To Kill a Mock­ing­bird,” Scout, Chap­ter 23

Tags: Atticus Finch, fatherhood, Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, wisdom