I’m a fun dad so I promised my kids a picnic — and not just any picnic, one in their favorite climbing tree.
We’d been gifted one of those improbable summer days where the air feels like a hug and not a weighted blanket. You get one, maybe two of these days a year. So you don’t waste them. You pull the kids from camp. You take a personal day. You do what you need to do. Because what’s the point of having a day like that if you can’t share it with your family?
So we packed grapes, pink lemonade, tiny baguettes, even tinier smoked sausages, and the fancy cheese that comes wrapped in wax. (Fun dads love quirky cheeses.)
We traveled to Holden Arboretum in Kirtland, which includes — among its many wonders — the platonic ideal of a climbing tree. It’s a beech with four different climbing paths of varying skill levels. It’s like a sublime ski hill, except you’re going up.
Good food. Great weather. Perfect tree. Family all together. You get the idea. Expectations were high, especially mine.
Things fall apart.
When we arrived, the beech was cordoned. A sign explained that the tree suffered from root compaction. That’s when the soil around a plant becomes so dense — often from foot traffic — that its roots can’t grow or transport water and nutrients.
In other words, we’d smothered our tree and it needed some space.
I didn’t begrudge the tree, its fence. We wanted it to be healthy — for its own sake, but also so future generations could know the joy of our beech tree.
But — sheesh — imagine trying to explain root compaction to a kindergartener.
We ate our picnic in an eagle nest facsimile instead — still fun, right? — and then we headed to the emergent tower. If you’ve never been to the Arboretum’s tower, it’s 120-feet-high. On a pretty day, you can see acres of flourishing forest that stretch all the way to Lake Erie.
Also on a pretty summer day, the queue to climb it looks like something from Disney World.
My children waited 30 seconds to tell me they were bored.
“I’m bored” are the trigger words of many a good parent, but I was in fun-dad mode. And boredom is the canvas on which a fun dad paints.
I gave them ideas: Make a leaf mural; go on a snake hunt; use the branches around us to build a small violin and play the world’s saddest song.
My suggestions ranged from unappealing to terrible, but I kept making them. I couldn’t let my kids’ abiding memories from this PERFECT DAY be root compaction and boring lines.
I’m a fun dad so I needed to spackle this failure of a field trip with FUN.
Eventually, my wife whispered in my ear, “Leave it alone.”
Now, my 8-word bio would read: “Good at fun. Bad at leaving it alone.” But I trust my wife’s judgment so I stopped making recommendations.
As my wife knew and I learned, kids aren’t good at staying bored. Soon, they wandered into the trees, found some other bored kids, and built an awesome lean-to.
They liked their branch hut so much that they didn’t notice when it was their turn to climb the tower. And when they finished their ascent, they went right back to their shack.
That lean-to turned out to be their favorite part of our day. So they had fun and I learned that kids are like trees. If you’re always around them — even if you love them –—you’ll stifle their growth.
Trees, kids, they need space to grow. Even if you’re in fun-dad mode.
