It was supposed to be a somber, serious place of business. But Lincoln let his kids, as we said, turn his law office into a playroom. They spilled things. They made so much noise. They pulled books off the shelf. They did the same thing at the White House—at one point, attaching a cart to their pet goats, and riding through the halls.
Lincoln not only indulged this mayhem, he often encouraged and participated fully in their games. There are pictures of his son Tad in a replica soldier’s uniform, and Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd often ‘reviewed’ his little soldier with the solemnity that he gave to actual officers. One of the games his boys like to play was sentencing one of their toy soldiers to death for desertion. When they ‘executed’ the figurine and buried it in the garden, the White House groundskeeper came to Lincoln to complain. Lincoln, with a smile, fixed the problem by writing an official ‘pardon’ for the soldier and informing the boys he could no longer be so punished. Lincoln even helped the boys set up a fort on the roof of the building, securing for them some logs to use as ‘cannons.’
All these games must have been noisy. They must have been disrupting. In some cases, they must have spurred controversies and criticisms. But Lincoln understood that children needed to play and that the games that they played were more than just amusements—they were ways that children processed what was happening around them. Instead of shutting these games down, Lincoln took them seriously. He suspended disbelief. He entered their world. Imagine what that must have meant, how comforting that must have been, to both the father and the sons in a country being torn apart by war.
In the August 10 entry in The Daily Dad book (get a signed copy here), Jeannie Gaffigan talks about realizing that she had spent more time engaging in control of her children’s activities—like playing with slime—than she actually did playing with them. It’s such an easy trap to fall into. Our job is not to have a clean house or a clean office. Our job is not to prevent our kids from playing and learning and having fun. Our job is to help them do those things…messes and noises be damned.
