Your Presence is a Present
"The best inheritance a parent can give his children is a few minutes of his time each day."
— O.A. Battista
I want to ask you something.
When you look back at this summer in November, or perhaps in February, or even years from now when someone casually mentions the summer of 2026, what do you think you'll actually remember?
I don’t mean what you planned, or what appeared on the itinerary, cost the most, or required the most careful logistics. I’m referring to the moments that will still be with you long after the season has passed.
I've been sitting with that question myself, and every time I come back to the same answer.
It won't be the perfectly organized day or the thing we booked months in advance. It will be the evening in the garden when nobody went inside until it was properly dark. The meal that started late because everyone was still talking and carried on much longer because nobody wanted it to end. The afternoon Chloe and I did nothing in particular and somehow both felt completely content with that. The drive somewhere with the audio switched off because she started telling me something she'd been thinking about for weeks, and I happened to be listening.
None of those moments were planned and it didn’t cost us much really. And most of them were never photographed, but just simply happened in the spaces where nothing more urgent was demanding our attention.
And, if I'm honest, those are the moments I know I'll keep.
The more I think about it, the more I wonder if we've really misunderstood what makes something memorable in the first place.
We invest so much in the big experiences (which is great!). The holidays, the special outings, the carefully organized days that are surely going to become the stories our children tell one day. And sometimes they do. Some of those planned moments become exactly the memories we hoped they would.
But the ones that stay with us the longest are often much simpler than that.
When I think about those memories, I don't think what made them special was what happened. It was who was there. And even more than that, it was how present they were.
I've come to believe that memory is built from presence. From someone truly being in the moment with you instead of simply sitting beside you while their attention is somewhere else.
Children know the difference (trust me they do!). They may not have the words for it yet, but they feel it.
Perhaps that is why presence feels like one of the rarest gifts in modern family life.
Not because parents don't care (we care enormously) but because the competition for our attention is relentless, and it doesn't politely disappear just because it's August.
Of course, slow things require time, but I think they require something even more important than that: Permission.
Permission to let something take as long as it needs to.
Permission not to rush on simply because the next thing is waiting.
Permission to stay fully in this moment instead of already thinking about the one that comes after it.
I've come to believe that this is one of the most generous gifts we can give our children. And perhaps, if we're honest, it's one of the kindest gifts we can give ourselves too.
When I think about what I'll remember from this August, I don't imagine it will be the plans themselves. It will be the unplanned spaces around them.
Those are the moments I want to be fully present for.
So this week, if you can, give yourself permission to slow down a little. Stay at the table for another ten minutes. Take the longer route home. Let the conversation wander without needing to steer it anywhere. Put your phone away if it's possible and simply be where you already are.
Because I have a feeling those are the moments you'll carry with you long after summer has become a memory.
I made something for exactly the kind of evening this post is about.
Small Talk: Conversation Cards for Deeper Connection is now available.
No screens. No setup. No rules. Just a card drawn from the deck and a question asked around the table or in the car or on the slow summer evening before it ends.
The questions are designed for ages six and up, which means they work whether you have a seven-year-old who wants to tell you everything or a teenager who has gone quiet. They range from genuinely silly to genuinely moving, and the conversations they open have a way of going longer and deeper than anyone expected.
If you are trying to create more of the slow, connected, screen-free moments this post is about, these cards were made for that. They turn an ordinary evening into one worth remembering.
And right now they are available to order ahead of the full launch.
Order at joymarchese.com/shop 🌿
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