Before you had kids, “I love you” was that powerful three word phrase. You said it to your future wife or your future husband and you loved hearing it. But now there is another phrase even more beautiful. It’s these three words: as a family.

As in, “Let’s go for a walk as a family.” “Let’s go to Disneyland as a family.” “We’re going to be here for your sister as a family.” “Let’s order pizza and watch a movie as a family.” “We are going to get through this pandemic as a family.”

Love is a feeling. Family is a state of being. It’s something you do. It’s something you live. Marriage is important—it’s a bonding of two people. But family is something so much bigger than any legal relationship. It’s so much more than two people—by definition. 

Your family is a unit. It’s something greater than the sum of its parts. It contains within it all your happiness and your purpose for being on this earth. It’s the thing that makes anything and everything special—that transforms time sitting on the couch with a bowl of cereal (sad when you’re single) into something magical and beautiful when you do it as a family. Disneyland is fun whenever but as a family it’s something wholly different… and somehow worth every penny (and it costs a lot of them). 

And the best part of those three words? As we’ve talked about, it’s that you can be a family anywhere. Everywhere. Including right now, in a world locked and shutdown. 

So go do it.

P.S. This was originally sent on April 30, 2020. Sign up today for the Daily Dad’s email and get our popular 11 page eBook, “20 Things Great Dads Do Everyday.”