"Therefore, hear me now, my children, And do not depart from the words of my mouth." Proverbs 5:7

I confess. =I have two sons.

Yes, I have been known to sometimes disown them. Yes, on more than one occasion I have held broken video game controllers in my hand and said to my wife, "See what YOUR boys did when they were wrasslin'?"

And I admit I have considered not telling the truth every time a teacher would approach me at an open house with a weary, defeated look and ask, "Are you Thing One's father?"

But for nearly a score of years, the Lil Missus and I have made it job one to teach our sons. Right from wrong, bad from good, Shinola from other substances. We never missed an opportunity to take an otherwise dull, ordinary moment and transform it into a teaching moment.

Not that we've stopped teaching. I still have quite a few lessons to teach my young sons as they approach adulthood. One message I have consistently taught (and will continue to do so) is that for every action, good and bad, there are consequences.

Lately, though, the Lil Missus and I realized our sons aren't lil fellers any longer. The days when they were toddlers and we could control what they ate, how they dressed and when they slept are long gone. We're no longer two adults and two kids living in the house; now there's four grown-ups in the house (a stat I'm reminded of every morning we have to share 1.5 bathrooms).

As a result, I called a family meeting recently to re-establish everyone's expectations and responsibilities and consequences of not meeting those expectations. It covered the usual fare; keep your room clean, make good grades at school, keep foul odors to a minimum, etc. As long as everyone behaved and pulled their weight, there would be no problems, I told them.

The boys were more interested in hearing stories of how the Lil Missus and I got in trouble when we were teens. Attempts to redirect them back on topic were futile.

"I just need to know that you and Mom weren't perfect when you were teens," Thing One said. "Because I get the feeling you guys think you were perfect when you were our age."

"Oh, we weren't perfect as teens," I freely admitted. The Lil Missus glared at me. "OK, I wasn't perfect ... but your mother was, and is and will always be perfection personified."

She nodded approvingly.

Of course I had consequences when I messed up as a teen. Those included grounding, losing privileges and, as the son of a state trooper, possible incarceration with a hulking criminal named Knuckles.

I hope the revelation that I'm not perfect didn't shatter my sons' image of me. And while I admitted to them that I'm far from perfect, I stopped short of admitting to any specific flaws. I imagine those will become evident farther down the road.

I'd love to stay and chat, but I'm off to teach my boys. Today's lesson: the difference between a certain posterior body part and a hole in the ground.

I still have a quite a few lessons to teach.

Scott Beck of St. Charles is a Web page specialist for a health foundation in St. Louis. He writes a semimonthly column for the Journal.