My oldest son was 7 years old when he finally expressed to me how inadequate our family was. Often, we took a hike with a little sibling who couldn’t handle a lengthy trek and began whining. Regularly, we ran into lunchtime, and the granola bars or cheese sticks or raisins I had packed were insufficient.

The biggest problem was that on every walk, we covered half the territory we should have — because at some point, we needed to turn back, in order to return home or to the car.