• Update Date:2007-08-31

Like most dads, I hope that when my kids look back on their childhoods, they'll remember the luminous moments most clearly. I hope they'll contrive to gloss right over those occasions when I was less than charming to them or to Mom. In particular..

Like most dads, I hope that when my kids look back on their childhoods, they'll remember the luminous moments most clearly. I hope they'll contrive to gloss right over those occasions when I was less than charming to them or to Mom. In particular, I hope they'll forget a particular July afternoon when I went nuclear at Santa's Work Shop in North Pole, N.Y. (Not that it wasn't justified, mind you, just that it wasn't my finest hour.) Alas, the best way to plant happy memories — by being loving and funny, energetic and devoted — is no snap for mere mortals. We're not paragons, just men. Still, even if tenderness and mirth aren't your strong suits, you can leave your kids with recollections that will sweeten their lives forever.

A word of caution: Be careful not to get all deliberate about making memories. Anxious, hyped-up parents suffocate the present by working way too hard to create memorable occasions. Exhibit A: our foolishness with over-the-top birthday parties designed to bedazzle the kindergarten prince. Resist the urge to throw money at the memory mandate. Not that it doesn't work — kids generally remember an elephant trek through the Punjab — but because it's cheating. Any drone can buy space in his kids' hard drives. The challenge is to weave a memory quilt with your wits, not your wealth. So if you would rather test the limits of your ingenuity than that of your credit line, try these tricks for helping the kids look back and smile.

Think like Steve Jobs. A catchy name helps a product stick in the mind. The iPod wouldn't be a phenomenon if it were called the Music Thingy — actually, that name might have worked, but you get my meaning. Where would Christmas be if it were known as December 25? Monikers promote memory. When my kids were in grade school, in an attempt to teach them something about pitching in — and, okay, to get some help with the yard work — I instituted Leaf Day by paternal decree. Set on the Saturday nearest the autumnal equinox, it was to be an annual O'Neill family festival of leaf raking and natural history and football-themed cupcakes. On Leaf Day, we would drink hot cider, swap tidbits about the angle of the Earth's axis, and mostly, just enjoy one another's company. The kids quickly saw through my front to use them as child labor. While I was dragging a drop cloth full of leaves to the curb, they threw down the adorable little rakes I had bought — yes, I actually imagined their children using them on Leaf Days yet to come — stole the cider thermos, and slipped away to a kickball game in the neighbors' yard.

Now, here's the twist. To this day, my kids remember Leaf Day — but not as an event that lasted for all of eight minutes one morning in the fall of 1992. No, they remember it exactly the way I had hoped they would: as an annual family tradition during which they dutifully helped rake the leaves and we all drank cider while yakking about the angle of the sun's rays.

Memories need not be accurate to be enriching. So christen traditions and let names be the grains of sand around which pearl-like memories grow. You know how Mom sleeps in on Sunday? Well, that can either be bleary-eyed you, sacked out on the couch watching SpongeBob, or it can be a meeting of the far-more — memorable Fun Day Club. Your call, Dad.

Write a jingle. Music isn't required, but lyrics are. I came up with a family slogan, the domestic analog of Nike's "Just do it:" "Let's have zeal for Team O'Neill." Now, you might not be surprised to learn that I endured much Mom mockery early on. She would repeat the slogan aloud, sure that if I just heard it, I'd notice exactly how dumb it was. No way. Sometimes she'd focus her satire on the central word. "Zeal?" she'd say. "Really? The kids are 5 and 8, and you're going with zeal?" Apparently, she had missed Marketing 101, or she would have known that the very oddness of the word made it a cunning keystone. During the teen years, the kids picked up the derision ball, and I recall the word lame getting a workout. But once again, I've been vindicated. The phrase has become a yawp of loyalty and common cause, family shorthand summarizing our commitment. It's one of my family-life formulas: C + T = GM (Corny + Time = Good Memory.) I rest my case with the following fact: My now-grown kids sometimes sign e-mails with "With zeal for Team O'Neill." Okay, there is still a trace of mockery in there, but just a trace. Mostly, they have come to cherish our family cri de coeur.

Buy frames. Your house is probably loaded with frames, most of them featuring pictures chosen by Mom or Grandma. This is all good. But make sure there are also a couple of Dad-specific frames — by your bed, on your desk, over your work table in the basement — that are dedicated to photos chosen and framed by you. Every now and then, announce that you found a photo that captures something elemental and that it's getting some display in Dad world. Frame it yourself. Don't subcontract the job to Mom. If you do a lousy job, if it looks as though a simpleton jammed the picture into a cheesy frame, it will actually have more power. Be enthused about your history. If you see your family as a legend worth propagating, then the kids will too.

Break frames. There's an old journalism trope that nobody writes about the planes that land safely; it's the out-of-the-ordinary things that are remembered. So every now and then, jump the tracks, especially if you're generally a paint-within-the-lines guy. After the soccer game, instead of going home, spontaneously hit the road and take an overnight to Gettysburg or Mount Rushmore or an amusement park. If nobody has toothbrushes, well, that's why there are drugstores. And guess what? Teeth can go a day without brushing. Be impulsive, and let the kids believe that Dad, too, in his mild way, hears the call of the wild, at least when it comes to getting away with his kids. Speaking of which...

Establish Hooky Day. Once a year, the whole team takes a day off — from school and from work — and does something together. Sure, Junior is supposed to be learning algebra and you're supposed to be working on that merger, but hey, the message of Hooky Day is that this family is the preeminent organization around here, we make the rules, and being together is plenty important. All the school has to know is the truth: The prince and princess have a family obligation. A movie marathon or a day at the beach when everybody else has their nose to the grindstone is unforgettable.

Spend $5.99. I stand by the prohibition against laying down serious cash to buy memories, but springing for them $5.99 at a time is a good idea. Tourist-trap totems have power. When our kayaking-Santa ornament comes out of the box each December, it brings back that trip to Maine. And when the Oberlin sweatshirt takes its turn in the sweat-shirt batting order, we can'' help but recall that college visit to Ohio featuring the incident in the motel hot tub with the Airedale, and it's always good for a laugh.

I hope my kids remember it all. I hope they remember the texture of their blankets, the creak of the plank in the corner of the back deck, the name of every hamster. I hope they remember the milky dawn light over the lake that summer and each of a million and one laughs. But if there were just one memory I could etch into their hearts, it would be this: I'd like them to remember a man who was steady at the helm, who could be depended on, not because he was any much of a much, but because he believed in their worthiness, that they were entitled not just to his best, but to all the happiness and love the world might offer as well. A memory of a man like that just might come in handy.

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