(A version of this story first appeared in the fall 2016 issue of Walla Walla Family Forum.)

Recently I was at the park with my kids and struck up a conversation with a stranger. (Way to set an example, Dad!) The subject: Stranger’s four-seat stroller.

I was pushing the twins in one of our two-seaters while our 4-year-old walked and my wife carried our littlest on her back. But this stranger had it figured out.

Just imagine, I said to my dear wife, all four kids in one stroller. We can tie them up so they can’t get loose (wait, no, I mean “buckle them in for safety”). It’ll simplify things!

“What if we need to go into a building?” she asked.

I looked over my shoulder at the stranger’s wide family transport. She had a point, but I rarely let that stop me.

“We won’t,” I said. “We’ll live outdoors like feral cats. Feral cats with an awesome stroller.” After all, our kids have taken a sudden and inexplicable liking to trying to relieve themselves outdoors. Which is also why I haven’t finished building the sandbox.

I lost that argument in the end, probably because we have an abundance of strollers already: two single umbrella strollers, one single stroller that went with the car seat, a single jogging stroller, a double jogging stroller, a double umbrella stroller, and a three-child inline monstrosity that steers like an Olds Custom Cruiser and is about as long. That’s more strollers than family members.

The right tools for the job

As our family has grown, so has our stroller collection. Each of them has a specific use case depending on how many grown-ups are available to push, how tired the kids are, what kind of doorways and crowds we’ll be navigating, etc.

But for all the diversity in child cartage, we only own two vehicles: an 8-passenger minivan and a motor scooter. Because the reality is that we take an all-or-nothing approach to travel. When we go somewhere, we go together, whether it’s an event or simple errands.

When I had to fly to Washington, D.C., last year for a business conference, my family came with me. I’d rather spend nine hours of travel time (each way) comforting a trio of airsick toddlers with my pregnant wife than stay in a hotel room by myself.

We go as a family to the grocery store. We go as a family to the park. We go as a family to the bank. We go as a family to the doctor’s office.

We go as a family.

This pack mentality is so ingrained that our kids actively worry about leaving our pet bunny behind when we go grocery shopping. Lord help us if they ever consider the chickens part of the family.

Teachable moments aren’t supposed to be easy

Pack travel isn’t easy physically or emotionally. There are strollers to load, car seats to buckle, naps to work around, extra clothes to bring, people looking down their noses at children defiling the sanctified territory of the canned goods aisle. It’s a logistical Rubik’s cube wrapped in a sour-apple coating of judgmental strangers. But we don’t do it because it’s easy.

The most important thing we’ll ever do is raise these kids. It’s a constant challenge to live out what we teach about being good and gracious human beings. But we decided long ago that hiding from that challenge and hoping for the best didn’t work for us. Sure, it’s difficult. It’s devilishly hard sometimes to be the kind of person I want my children hanging around.

But study after study shows the benefits of having parents who are more involved—especially fathers. In our over-scheduled, hyperactive society, the essence of that message gets lost in translation.

Quality time doesn’t have to mean weekend getaways and elaborate parties and trips to theme parks. And it doesn’t have to mean the kind of helicopter parenting so often ridiculed on social media. It simply means being more present.

There are many ways you could choose to do this. We’ve decided to occupy space in our kids’ lives more often and, importantly, include them in ours.

Someday they’ll have to learn about things like bank transactions and comparison shopping for tuna and waiting 45 minutes in a clinic lobby surrounded by floral-print furniture and dated auto magazines. Those are some of the most useful coping skills they could have for the so-called real life that awaits them once we don’t chauffeur them around anymore, and we’re frequently presented opportunities to teach them.

So I say, take the kids with you. It’s worth it.

Find a good stroller (or seven), a baby pack, and a quality water bottle. Plan an extra couple of minutes in your travel time. And when they’re tired and cranky and just can’t sit still anymore, close your eyes and remind yourself they’ll be better off because of the time you’re spending together, even if it means you’re getting less done in the moment.

Oh, and if you’re in the market for a three-kid stroller, I’ve got one for sale. Handles like a dream.