Family: What I Believe!

The essay I am looking at is "A Legacy of Integrity" . The summary of the belief is Integrity. The author is talking about is how he learned what he knows about integrity from his father. That is the belief. Integrity and how it either is or isn't woven into who we are. How it is part of the choices we make and how we can live up to ourselves if we have it. Growing up all he heard was about integrity. He learned through what he called hard lessons that integrity must be the driving factor in his life. Tahat he must "keep his word" and "follow through on what he says". It was beaten into him until he was sick to death of hearing the word integrity. So he decides to rebel (as most red-blooded teenagers do) and steals some change from around the house to buy himself and a few friends "Cokes". This boy was growing up in India and a coke was a big deal to him and his friends. Kids always think they can get away with things. He didn't. Mom and Dad find out, she screams and Dad just stays silent (which says it all to the son). Then his father says he wonders if his son can be a person of integrity. Always was he trying to shrug off his fathers voice. But that was the one thing ingrained in him his whole life. Then the author had kids and raised them the same way. The children would roll their eyes and tune him out. But he taught them the values and integrity he was raised with. That was his fathers legacy to him and his children.
I believe the author does strike a balance between communicating and preaching. He is really letting his audience know about all the ways he was taught integrity and values and all the ways he rebeled against it. Then he talks about how he raised his children in the same way and with the same values and emphasis on integrity. I'm sure his children would've thought their dear old dad was coming off as being preachy. If they had to listen to dad going on about integrity day after day, preaching probably would've been a nice thing for them to say about dad.
The voice/tone I am hearing is a bit of regret. Regret that maybe he didn't really appreciate the knowledge and insight his father was giving him when he was growing up. But later, appreciation. Thankfulness for the lessons he did learn and the way he was brought up. Since he did choose to teach his own children those same lessons. I thought it was a really good essay.