My eight year old loves Leave it to Beaver. There’s something naive about Theodore Cleaver she finds endearing, and she laughs at all the jokes. If you haven’t seen it in years, or maybe never have, it’s worth taking a look. Despite having been shot now 50 years ago, many of the situations are timeless. Communication between the generations breaks down, metaphors are misunderstood, kids misbehave, and most of it is harmless. And yet, there are still lessons for the modern dad. Almost every show nears its conclusion with Barbara Billingsly in the role of June Cleaver, saying to her husband (Hugh Beaumont), “Ward, don’t you think you’re being a little too hard on the Beaver.” And sure enough, dad has over-reacted to a small issue and usually sees that he has complicated something pretty small.

The episode I watched the other night (“Wally’s New Suit”) though had a line that summed it up even better. Ward, the dad, has been yelling at his son, Wally, and using examples of things he had lived through when he was a growing boy. He is frustrated because his son just doesn’t seem to be listening or benefitting from his hard-learned lessons. Eventually, the situation has to be undone by the mom coming in to find a face-saving solution for everyone. After Wally figures out the right thing to do, he tells his father, “I didn’t know you were trying to tell me something. I thought you were just yelling at me.”

Ward sums up what he’s learned, “You know, I think Wally has hit on something there. We yell at our kids tryng to make an impression on them them and all we accomplish is to get them to so confused they don’t understand a word we say.”

Sometimes a subtle reminder is all we need to be better dads and hold down the volume when talking to our kids. Leave It to Beaver is available on Amazon and Netflix.com.

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