It’s one of those secret, little pleasures of parenting that don’t get talked about enough. That hug and goodbye ritual at school dropoff. The intricate, almost compulsive bedtime routine. The playacting before you wrestle or chase them down the hall. The inside joke you text to your teenager.
The little things that bring us together. The little moments of joy and silliness.
In her amazing book Papyrus, which we’ve been raving about and you can grab at the Painted Porch, Irene Vallejo talks about this little game she and her mother would play out almost every night when she was a little girl. Just when they would come to an exciting scene in a book, just as the story was really picking up, her mother would suddenly stop and pretend she couldn’t go on reading. “Then I had to beg in despair,” Vallejo recalls with affection, “No don’t stop here, keep going just a bit longer.” “I’m tired. Please, please,” her mother would say.” They’d act out this scene and then finally, her mother, smiling, would continue.
Sometimes these little song-and-dances can be exhausting—not quite as cute as the handshakes or the playfighting. Like, do we really have to have this argument every single morning? Yet this too is part of the rhythm of childhood, part of the rhythm of living together that we should cherish. We should embrace it, not fight it.
We told the story a while back of Bill Bryson’s father who invariably, on every road trip, would find himself reenacting the same argument and resistance to stopping, before inevitably acquiescing to some roadside attraction. Why not skip the fighting, we should ask ourselves, why not just go to the fun part. Or as Vallejo’s mother did—turn the whole thing on its head and make it a farce, knowing full well that you love nothing more than those opportunities for connection and time together.
Because in the end, it’s through these little games, these playful rituals and running jokes, that we weave the bonds between us and them. They are not just routines—they are the language of family, the moments we’ll look back on and realize were the best part all along.
