“I like that!”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Yeah, yeah! I like that one!” My twelve-year-old daughter sang as she pointed out the assortment of shovels that hung on the pegboard wall of the retail chain hardware store. I paid for the shovel and we went out to the parking lot.

The ride home was fun and lively, capping off our perfect dad-daughter lunch date. We got home safe and sound. As we entered our house, I asked her to put on some “walking clothes”. These were keywords. They wanted to say that we were going for a walk in the great bay that graced the view from our porch.

My job as a mobile ER nurse had taken my family and I to many places, but settling down by the San Francisco Bay Area was our favorite. Due to this traveling lifestyle, my wife and I thought about homeschooling our daughter and her younger brother. We had all spent many hours walking along the edge of the San Francisco Bay, but this walk was going to be different.

My daughter had hit a wall with her upbringing. She lacked concentration and she had lost her drive. Always a good student, she now she could hardly get him to read without friction and conflict. The matter had reached a breaking point.

No threat, barter, or negotiation had changed anything. Given the harsh discipline of my youth, I was desperate to find a way to motivate her. Not with the rigid posture of shaking a clenched fist, but with my bent knee offering an open hand of understanding.

Then an idea struck me a month before our wonderful daddy-daughter lunch date. While preparing a creative writing lesson plan, I came across an old proverb. It said: “A pencil is lighter than a shovel.” I realized that my daughter did not understand this concept.

After all, it had been like that for me. I spent the entirety of my thirteenth summer working alongside my father as he built a church from scratch in a small coastal town in North Carolina. I missed work when the project was completed, but realized that that type of work did not appeal to me. The experience was one of the reasons I went to college. I had to teach my daughter the difference between a pencil and a shovel.

Leaping into my long strides, he carried our new shovel. We had been walking for about 15 minutes when we came to a clearing. Then, we went off the beaten path and sat on a trunk of a long fallen tree.

While she remained seated, I got up and measured a 3 foot by 3 foot area on the floor. I then picked up a nearby tree branch off the ground and marked a length of 3 feet. Finally, I stuck the shovel into the soil center of the measured square and posted the lesson plan for that day.

Lovingly, I said, “You will use this shovel and dig a hole that is 3 feet by 3 feet by 3 feet. Take as long as you want. When you’re done, we’ll walk back home.”

I sat in the old tree as she went outside and grabbed the wooden handle. Her face heralded many questions, but it was time for her to dig. As she turned over the first shovelful of fresh grass, I pulled a paperback from my pocket and began to read to myself. Silent.

I’m sure the next hour and a half seemed longer to him than it did to me that July afternoon in California. From time to time, walkers would pass by, looking at us curiously only to continue their walk. “Why is a grown man sitting on a log reading a book while this young lady digs a deep hole?” their faces asked.

The answer came after I measured the excavation at three feet deep. I took my daughter out of her new tool and asked her to sit on the log to rest. I started to fill the hole again. Sweat glistened on her face and her arms in the daylight. Her breathing was heavy. She had all of her attention.

Lovingly, I said, “I don’t care how a person chooses to make a living for themselves and their family, as long as it’s legal and doesn’t harm innocent people. I believe in honest, hard work. However, you had better make sure.” to know what kind of hard work you want to do. Are you going to choose the pencil? Or are you going to choose the shovel?

My daughter was quiet and retrospective for the rest of the day. It is possible that she has not been talking to me. It was a risk she had to take.

With the next morning came my apprehension. Which would she choose? She greeted me at the breakfast table with the same beautiful smile that I look forward to each morning. We talked about the previous day’s event over a couple of bowls of cornflakes. She told me that she understood what she was trying to do and she promised to forgive me, as soon as her back stopped hurting.

He began his studies and never looked back.

Four years later, he attends public school and is thriving. She averages reading 2-3 books a month, has a GPA above 4.15, and is the student editor of her high school newspaper.

I keep his shovel close by and pull it out when I need to dig a hole or two. She just smiles and walks away from her. She maybe she will give it to him as a gift one day. Maybe the day she graduates from college.