You drive them to soccer practice. You get them to school early on days they have choir. You drop them off at friends’ houses and football games and school dances and the movies. This is how it goes.
Our job is to drag them around, to expose them to things, to get them to where they need to be…but aren’t they also doing the same thing for us?
There’s a scene in this heartwarming documentary about Swiftie dads (fathers of Taylor Swift fans) where one dad in the parking lot of a Taylor Swift show gushes about his daughter and says, “We’re not bringing her—she’s bringing us to see Taylor Swift.”
What a lovely perspective! She is exposing them to something. Her interest is driving them…even if they are the ones literally driving the car. And this is what happens when you embrace what your kids are doing, what they’re interested in, what they’re including you in (intentionally or not).
Because you can be in a bad mood about having to go, you can look at your phone while they do their thing, or you can enjoy it with them. You can bond with them while they do. You can create a memory that they—and you—will not forget.
