One More Weekend of Summer

Summer rarely announces when it is ending.

There is no bell. No final scene. No moment when everyone stops and acknowledges that another season of childhood has passed. Instead, one day the evenings are a little cooler. School has started again. Football appears on television. The swimming pools begin closing. Labor Day arrives.

And suddenly, summer is over.

This year, we spent one of those final weekends at the Canfield Fair in Northeast Ohio. There was nothing especially complicated about it. We walked. We ate fair food. We looked at animals and exhibits. We wandered through old buildings and crowded midway attractions. The kids had fun. We took pictures.

It was simply a family day at the fair.

But those ordinary days are becoming increasingly important to me. Because one of the strange things about fatherhood is that you spend so much time thinking about your children's future that it becomes easy to overlook the fact that their childhood is happening right now.

We worry about schools. We think about what they are learning. We plan activities. We save money. We push them to develop discipline, faith, competence, and character. We think about what kind of adults they will eventually become.

All of that matters. But someday they will not remember our five-year plans. They will remember going to the fair. They will remember the strange food they ate, the ride that scared them, the animal they wanted to take home, the joke somebody made while walking through the midway. They will remember being together. And that creates a particular challenge for ambitious fathers.

There is always more work available. There is always another project that can be advanced, another problem that can be solved, another hour that can be converted into progress. For men who are building businesses, practicing professions, pursuing large goals, or simply trying to provide well for their families, work has an almost limitless ability to consume whatever time we give it.

The argument for working is also, usually, convincing. There really is something that needs to be done. There really are innumerable problems that need to be solved. Perhaps you really are the only one--or one of a few--who can bring resolution, progress, or solutions to the problems that life hands out.

However, the problem is that childhood operates on a deadline of its own.

Your nine-year-old will only be nine for twelve months. There are a finite number of summers before your children begin building lives that increasingly belong to them rather than to you.

That does not mean fathers should abandon ambition. I don't believe children benefit from watching their fathers drift through life without purpose. There is value in seeing a father work hard, pursue difficult things, accept responsibility, and build something. Children should see that. But they should also see that they are part of what he is building for.

That sometimes means closing the laptop. Getting in the car. Going somewhere. Doing something that will never appear on a productivity report.

Family traditions do not have to be elaborate. In fact, many of the best ones are almost embarrassingly simple. The same vacation. The same restaurant. A Christmas routine. A summer baseball game. A fishing trip. A county fair.

And fathers have enormous power to create those memories intentionally. Not by manufacturing constant entertainment for their children. Not by believing every weekend has to become an expensive production. Simply by recognizing that family life needs rituals, movement, laughter, and shared experience alongside rules, education, discipline, and responsibility.

The Canfield Fair has been held for generations. Families have walked those grounds long before ours arrived and, hopefully, will continue doing so long after we are gone. There is something reassuring about that.

Another fair.

Another summer.

Another set of pictures that probably feels ordinary today.

Someday, I suspect, it won't.

You do not have to stop building the future. Just make sure you occasionally look around and notice the part of it that is already here.