Letters to My Kindly Kids

Vianney, it's okay for children to behave as they wish but i shan't ever let you adopt such a mentality as my youngest brother has come upon. Once, while we were discussing an assignment he was given at school and I was trying to get him to see that he had to do what he was assigned or his teacher will work herself into a fit of which the burden will be: "O, believe me, your parents will hear you no longer do assignments!", he did say, referring to the teacher, words to this effect: "Why fume at me, do not I pay you to do your job!". It's distressing, Vianney, to imagine that such a one as my brother shall have sometime under his tutelage, pupils who are to be instructed on etiquette and civility. Few days later, my eldest sis and I tried to convince him that it was only respectable to keep one's hair at low levels, but he didn't wish to listen. A day later, I was not a little startled to open the door to this brother of mine wearing over his hair, what'd have passed for a scarf. I dared to unravel this curious situation and found to my great contentment indeed, that his hair had been cut into eight parts via four different planes. I did laugh him to scorn, but his only regret was that he'd suffered this mishap on the last day of school.