When your child brings home a game ball from a winning baseball game, put it in a display case.
Spend $10 to get one from a hobby store, grab a pen and write the game date and score, and their name on it; ‘Andrew’s game ball.’
Then, place it in that plastic display case.
There is a joy right there with that game ball that is the kind of joy parents nowadays sit around reminiscing about from the good ole days.
It’s the joy they’re talking about with the loss of innocence because of ‘how fast children are growing up these days’, while talking about how we need to preserve their childhoods.
That’s it. Encase the ball, and you are preserving a piece of their childhood.
You won’t know what that game ball will mean down the road, but you encase the game ball now and you capture memories in that case with it.
What have you got to lose . . . but a piece of their childhood?