Their games are noisy. Their insistences can be inconvenient. It’s sweet how much they love their pet bunny, but it’s made a mess in your house. The game of pretend is exhausting.
But you know what? Stick with it. Because you never know.
We talked recently about Lincoln’s relationship with his son Tad. Tad was a slow learner who had had a hard life. Lincoln went out of his way to indulge his son’s requests—asking for a flag from a cabinet member for Tad’s room, letting his son interrupt important cabinet meetings and sit on his father’s lap—and played along with his many games. In 1863, Tad had grown attached to a turkey that had been sent to the White House to be served on a special occasion. Tad named the turkey Jack and was distraught when he learned that it was to be eaten. Storming into one cabinet meeting, Tad begged his father to intervene, which Lincoln promptly did, ignoring the monumental issue of state, as if this was the most important request in the world. Just as he had gamefully gone along and written an official pardon for one of Tad’s toy soldiers a few months before, Lincoln ‘pardoned’ the turkey, thus beginning an enduring American tradition which has continued every Thanksgiving since.
He could have had no idea that the practice he’d come up with to placate his son would lead to such a cultural touchstone. He was just doing his job as a father. He was meeting his son where he was, taking his big emotions seriously. Like the best Thanksgiving memories, this lovely moment between father and son was one that they were still talking and joking about years later. “Does he vote?” Lincoln said to Tad the next year when he saw the turkey on election day. “No,” Tad said with a mile, “he is not of age.”
You never know what an experience is going to mean. But you can rest assured that generosity, kindness, and fun, matter—they create moments that stick with people. And though we’d never predict it would be such, it’s those moments that form the traditions that bond and unite our families through the years.
