I think being a parent is spending years trying to manufacture childhood magic and then finding out your kids’ favorite memory was eating snacks on the trampoline on some random Tuesday.
I’m not exaggerating. We spent a small fortune taking GirlWonder and BoyWonder on the requisite happy childhood vacations — the aquarium, pro sporting events, every zoo in three states, Washington D.C. and countless museums, waterparks, even a beachfront in Miami — the full American childhood highlight reel. You know what their favorite memory was? Boating and camping beside an inland lake 40 minutes from home.
I packed for and planned trips like we were emigrating. Snacks, itineraries, backup plans for the backup plans. All that engineering, and the highlight of it all was a tiny camper and a 20-foot boat.
We’ve taken them to the beach. To the mountains. To Disney World, the supposed happiest place on earth, where I smiled through the prices and told myself this was an investment in lifelong memories. And for years, when GirlWonder got her special Girls Day with mom — a whole day, anywhere she wanted, — do you know where she usually picked? Staying home and playing Pretty Princess board games and eating from our “secret candy stash” with mom.
At home. With mom. That’s it.
In memories, a 45-minute lake run and board games beat The Magic Kingdom. No hard feelings, Mickey.
Both kids still talk about the time we ate McDonald’s in the car at Daddy’s work because we would visit him during his lunch hour. Sitting outside a factory sharing nuggets made the highlight reels. Be still my heart.
My mom texted me the other night, out of the blue, with a sweet meme about parenting and “But hey you didn’t die.” With a winky face emoji. Then, an hour and a half later: “That is my claim to fame.”
I wrote back at 4:30 in the morning, because that’s when all my best parenting philosophy happens: “And I did not — as far as you know — become a serial killer! So that is also a measure of success! I use that one. At this point my kids were actually just super good kids or they hid it super well so Success!”
Her reply came back the next morning: “Well, if you all hid it well, that shows intelligence and critical thinking skills. So SUCCESS!”
Two generations of mothers, and our gold standard is this: nobody died, nobody’s in prison except by career choice, and if the kids were feral, they at least had the critical thinking skills to cover it up. Honestly? I’ll take it. Frame it. Hang it on the wall.
Here’s the part that gets me, though. When I think back on those years — the sleepovers, the firepits, the pizza parties, stargazing in the backyard, Christmas mornings, the sound of the woods, morning coffee on the porch — I remember how ordinary it felt underneath. Nobody tells you that you can be building the exact childhood you dreamed of giving them and checking the mail and folding laundry at the same time.
We made it through. And I needed to tell someone, so I’m telling you.
Here’s what I’ve finally figured out, and I wish someone had told me back when I was worrying myself over whether I was doing enough: the magic was never in the grand plans. It was never going to be the aquarium or Disney World or the perfectly executed vacation. It was always going to be an ordinary Tuesday. Snacks on the trampoline. An Icee at a gas station. McDonald’s in a rainy parking lot to show daddy how much we appreciate him. The magic is ordinary days with people you’d never trade.
They don’t need perfect memories. They just need happy moments, with you there.
And somehow that’s the sweetest part.
(Kymberly Foster Seabolt welcomes comments care of FosterSeabolt@gmail.com; P.O. Box 38, Salem, OH 44460; or KymberlyFosterSeabolt.com.)
