“What did you do on Pesach?” ask our “morahs”. (Every babysitter is a morah.)

I eavesdrop eagerly, curious to hear what they'll highlight. The huge house filled with all their cousins? Their big cousin's Bar Mitzvah party? The kid Seder with Zaidy?

“We drove in the car for a long time,” says the 4 year old.

“We ate a LOT of chocolate,” says the 5 ¾ year old.

All that work… the packing, the planning (the lists!!), the cooking, the expense… for them to remember this??

We drove to a house with a pool and a playground! You played with cousins from morning til after bedtime (and found the chocolate stash sometime in between)!

But if I think about Pesach from my own childhood—also spent with grandparents and cousins—I can't really remember the specifics, either. I have a photo in a ball pit but no recollection of jumping in. What comes to mind is more a general sense of family and togetherness.

Kids won't remember what you do but how you made them feel is a motivational (or cautionary) quote I heard as a teacher, but it's true for parents too.

We work so hard to create memories… but they remember the moments. Not what we plan, but how it feels for them.

So it doesn’t matter whether you stayed home or traveled, took the kids on an expensive trip or to the park across the trip, or made a Seder by yourself or with family.

It’s not about what happens or where we go… but about how we show up for the experience. Less doing. More being.