A pair of young parents began to notice their eldest son was behaving strangely. Every single morning at exactly six o’clock, he would get out of bed, tiptoe into his one-year-old brother’s room, and carefully carry the baby back to his own bed. At first, the mother found it sweet, assuming the older boy just wanted extra time with his sibling. But the clockwork precision of the ritual, happening without fail at the same time each day, made her grow curious and a little concerned.
Finally, one morning, she decided to follow him. She pretended to be asleep as she watched her son gently lift his baby brother from the crib. Unable to contain her curiosity any longer, she stepped into the room and asked him why he was doing this. The boy’s answer broke her heart. He explained that he had overheard her talking to his grandmother, saying how tired she was and that she sometimes felt like placing the children in an orphanage just to get some sleep.
The older brother, misunderstanding her words as a serious threat, had taken it upon himself to solve the problem. By taking the baby every morning, he hoped to give his mother the rest she needed so she would never feel the need to send them away. The mother, filled with remorse, hugged her sons tightly and promised they would always be together, learning a powerful lesson about how carefully children listen to our most frustrated words.