Does obedience imply weakness of character?

I recall a woman once came to me saying that she has a son with a very polite and gentle nature who began to attend a nursery school. After his first day there, he came home and told his mother he had done something wrong, to which his mother responded gently, “Please don’t do that again.” But the child answered, “No, I will do it again.” “I said no … and no means no” the mother said. Not wanting to damage her relationship with the child, she left the matter there and said no more.

The next day, she asked her son if he remembered their discussion the day before. He said he did. She asked him, “What do you think about what you did?” He answered, “It was wrong.” She asked, “Well, why did you do something you know is wrong?” He answered, “Mum, don’t you realize that if I just say yes to everything, that would mean that I have a weak personality?” The mother was astonished that this was the first lesson he had learned from the other children — that to obey is equivalent to having a weak personality or to being servile.

The mother then dealt with the situation wisely in this way: she did something wrong in front of him, and when he told her it was wrong, she stopped doing it. Two days later she had another conversation with him. She asked him whether he thought that she has a weak character. The child answered, “No. Actually, I love you because you listened to me.” She

773 See Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty, The Social Ethos of the Early Church Fathers ( Al-khatu Al-ajtimaei ‘Eind Aba' Al-kanisat Al'-uwlaa, Arabic) (Alexandria, 2005) and Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty and Maged Sous, Faith and Permissiveness ( Al'-iman Wal'-iibaha, Arabic) (1998).

said, “Obedience and dialogue do not weaken our personalities, they make us more loved and more mature.”