When my dad, brother, and I went on walks when we were little, we always held hands. My dad was always in the middle with my brother and me at his sides. It began when we were in Chicago and my dad would step in between us and hold our hand so we would stop messing around and to ensure that we wouldn’t find our way onto the street. 

We would always try to escape his grasp so we could run around and cause more trouble but he was too strong to pull away from. But, there was always a moment when he would be distracted and I could quickly pull my hand free and run to my mom, leaving my brother on his own. If you were caught trying to escape, the “punitive” as my dad called it would be a 5-second bone-crushing hand squeeze. Calling it a bone-crushing squeeze was quite an exaggeration but it was enough to deter us from attempting poorly planned escapes. 

So, in order to maximize our success rate, my brother and I would think of elaborate plans of distraction to lure our dad into a false sense of security to escape. Sometimes it meant one of us would sacrifice ourselves so the other could escape and other times it meant betraying one another in order to be freed (while rare, betrayal was used in the most dire of situations). 

This game was like a tradition in our family and was played during our adventures around the world and it always made us laugh and smile. This tradition helped make family time so fun and dear to me. I hope to not only make this tradition part of my family when I’m a parent but also to instill the values of family in my kids.