The Daily Dad

"It can be hard to express your feelings as a father sometimes. Not so much because men are expected to bottle up their emotions, but because the emotions that come with being a dad can be so overwhelming and complex. It’s a rush of a million feelings: love, joy, fear, absurdity, exhaustion, responsibility, motivation, and primal attachment."How does a dad express his emotions to his loved ones? Listen to today's Daily Dad Podcast episode and find out.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.comFollow @DailyDadEmail:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidaySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"You’re anxious. You’re stressed. You want them to be safe. You worry about what they’re doing when you’re not there. You worry about their future. You worry they might not get into the school you have your heart set on. You stress over their friend who might be a bad influence. You stress about the cars zooming by your house. You’re nervous about COVID-19 and climate change and global unrest and everything else on the news. You don’t want anything bad to happen—to them, to you, to anyone. In the tunnel vision of your anxiety, these things are all you can think about. "That anxiety doesn't come without its own negative side effects, as Ryan details in today's Daily Stoic Podcast.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.comFollow @DailyDadEmail:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidaySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"Bruce Springsteen has three children: Evan, Jessica, and Sam. One of them is an Olympic-level equestrian (which can not have been a cheap or easy interest to encourage, nor always a fun one to watch). His son, Sam, recently became a New Jersey firefighter (a scary thought for any parent). Clearly, Bruce and his wife Patti have figured out how to help their children become who they are, and to realize their potential. "Find out how they did it in today's Daily Dad Podcast.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.comFollow @DailyDadEmail:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidaySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"Arthur MacArthur was a vain and conceited man. He was a war hero at age 18 at the Battle of Missionary Ridge. From there he went on to become a colonel, then a major, then lieutenant colonel, and then held several other prestigious military positions. He was notoriously self-absorbed and ambitious. As one former aide would say, Arthur was the 'most flamboyantly egotistical man I had ever seen.'"Yet MacArthur's excessive ego was exceeded by one other person's. Find out who in today's Daily Dad Podcast.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.comFollow @DailyDadEmail:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidaySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"Harry Truman was not a good businessman. The clothing shop he opened with a friend was a disaster—and he was paying off the debts through his senate career and into his presidency. Most of his investments were flops. He had to sell off chunks of his mother’s farm when they couldn’t pay the mortgage. After he left office, the only safety net he had was his army pension."Yet as Ryan describes in today's Daily Dad podcast, Truman was still able to leave his children a special legacy, something worth more than a large cash inheritance.****If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.comFollow @DailyDadEmail:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidaySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"Right now, you and your family are stuck at home. Or you trying to dig yourself out of the wreckage of a situation that wasn’t your fault, that is stressful, confusing, and overwhelming. There is a lot that is uncertain right now, a lot that we just don’t know. But one thing is a given: Your kids are watching you in this moment. They might not be in school. They might think that this is time off from learning, but, in fact, they are being taught so much. And you are the teacher. The question is: What is the lesson? What are you showing them?"In today's Daily Dad podcast, Ryan discusses the things you might want your children to learn from you during the pandemic.****If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.comFollow @DailyDadEmail:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidaySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"Last week, we talked about some words that become magical when you become a dad. Although “I love you” is always powerful, suddenly, when you have kids, the phrase “as a family” becomes one of the most meaningful expressions in your life. It sets your priorities. It defines your existence. But there is another short phrase—a question, actually—that also has the power to melt your heart."Find out what those words are on today's Daily Dad podcast.****If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.comFollow @DailyDadEmail:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidaySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"Sometimes it can feel like being a dad is just an endless series of errands. It’s the call from the bedroom that they need a glass of water. It’s the call from college for you to come to take them shopping for something they need for their apartment. It’s the running around town getting soccer cleats, or picking up concert tickets, or bringing them the homework they forgot. "Ryan discusses how to change your perspective when you feel like you're becoming your kids' butler.****If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.comFollow @DailyDadEmail:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidaySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"We talked before about Kipling’s poem “If,” which was written as advice for Kipling’s son, John. It’s a beautiful poem about toughness and virtue, honor and duty. But there is one line that doesn’t get as much attention, maybe because it’s a bit confusing..."Find out more in today's Daily Dad podcast.****If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.comFollow @DailyDadEmail:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidaySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"Most schools and most parents teach reading all wrong. They bully kids into doing it. They pressure them. They tell them, 'Reading is what smart and successful people do.' Then they’re surprised when kids who struggled with reading don’t think they’re smart, and they wonder why kids almost wear illiteracy as a badge of honor. They wonder why people say things like, 'I haven’t read a book since I was forced to in high school.'Ryan discusses the best way to help your kids fall in love with reading.****If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.comFollow @DailyDadEmail:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidaySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"Before you had kids, 'I love you' was that powerful three word phrase. You said it to your future wife or your future husband and you loved hearing it. But now there is another phrase even more beautiful. It’s these three words: as a family."Ryan describes the beauty of being part of a family in today's podcast.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.comFollow @DailyDadEmail:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidaySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"...As parents, we tend to do a lot of talking. There are all the things we tell our kids. The things we remind them about. The lessons we try to teach them. The books we read to them. But it’s worth remembering that ancient saying: Two ears… one mouth."****If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.comFollow @DailyDadEmail:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidaySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"It doesn’t matter how old you are or how old your kids are. You have more experience than them. In some cases, that’s a couple decades. In other cases, it’s many decades. But whatever the age difference is between you and your kids, you’ve lived longer and been through more."What to do with all that hard-won experience? Ryan explains in today's Daily Dad podcast.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.comFollow @DailyDadEmail:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidaySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"Family is wonderful. None of us would be here, the writer Aaron Thier once put it, if people hadn’t taken care of us when we were small. Somebody birthed us, raised us, drove us to school, kept us safe. So naturally we feel an affinity and obligation to our family, as we hope our own children will. Being around them is comfortable. It’s familiar. It’s primal. But it’s also important that we realize, as we get older as parents, that we always remember that our job is to lift our children up, to push them forward, and never to hold them back. That’s why we have to work on ourselves. That’s why we can’t get complacent or selfish."Ryan talks about the importance of teaching your kids to eventually live their lives independently.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.comFollow @DailyDadEmail:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidaySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"There is so much we want to teach our kids—so much that fathers are expected to teach their kids. How to ride a bike. How to swim. How to throw a punch. How to tie a tie. How to read. How to get up the guts to talk to someone. All of this is important, of course. All of this must be done. But there is a lesson underneath all these lessons that matters more."Find out the lesson in this week's episode of the Daily Dad podcast.****If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.comFollow @DailyDadEmail:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidaySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"These are challenging, uncertain times, no question. What’s at the root of it? How did we get here? And what can fathers do about it?The answer comes to us, as it often does, from an ancient prescription: Character is fate."Listen to learn more about why character is so important in raising your children into amazing adults—and how to do it.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.comFollow @DailyDadEmail:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidaySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"Right now, most of us are stuck with what you might call dead time. We’re trapped indoors. We’re working from home… or not at all. Kids are out of school, and who knows when it will be back in. We’re in the snow day of all snow days, except we can’t go outside and take advantage of the time off because the snow might make us all sick."What ways can you convert this experience, from "dead time" that leaves you no better off than you were before, to "alive time" that enriches your life and helps the best version of you leave quarantine for the final time, however many months in the future that may be?***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.comFollow Ryan:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidayYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"Does your dog’s gender matter to you? Like have you ever once thought about whether they were capable of this task or that task because of their sex? Has your understanding of their gender changed how you play with them? Do you think about whether to get them this toy or that toy based on its color? Or its name?"Ryan discusses how you should treat your child depending on their gender, i.e. exactly the same.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.comFollow Ryan:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidayYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Your kids will do all sorts of ridiculous things. They will trip and fall, and yes, you will sometimes laugh. You will tease them about this and that. They’ll make hilarious mistakes. They’ll look back on their own childish ridiculousness with bemusement. Your family will have all sorts of inside jokes. This is fine. This is wonderful. It’s what binds people together—the ability to bust each other’s balls, to share memories and experiences. But there is one thing you should not tease your kids about, as the now famous (anonymous quote) goes: “Never make fun of someone if they mispronounce a word. It means they learned it by reading.”Receive a new email with a meditation like this one every day by signing up for the Daily Dad at https://dailydad.com/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It wasn’t until many years into his coaching career that Pete Carroll really settled into his philosophy—the system by which he built his teams, and his athletes around. It seems simple but it’s actually a profound one. As he describes it: Always compete. Compete.Isn’t that what sports are about? Where’s the innovation there?According to Carroll, competition isn’t about beating someone or something. It isn’t some contest between two opposing individuals, groups, or teams. It isn’t a zero-sum game. It isn’t something you do on Sundays. Competition, Carroll says, is all about doing your best. It’s striving to reach your potential. It’s focusing on doing “things better than they have ever been done before.” That’s the mentality a competitor approaches every day with: Am I better today than I was yesterday? Yes? Then I won. Your job as a dad—whether you coach one of their teams or not, whether they play sports or not—is to help instill this mindset in your kids. They have to learn how to compete. Every day. In everything. We’ve talked about Jeannie Gaffigan and her husband Jim, how they started competing as parents, seeing who could get the kids to bed fastest, or get up earliest to make breakfast. We’ve talked about how your kids will rise to the level of your expectations—and that’s true for their expectations of themselves too. No one gets better just because. Getting better takes work. Improvement requires drive. Winning requires competing. Well, are you teaching them that? More importantly, are you modeling that?Kids need opportunities to compete. They need contests to better themselves in—whether it’s trying to memorize every state capitol faster than they did yesterday or running across the yard more times than they did last time. They need to grow up in a house where everyone is trying to grow somehow, in something. Where everyone is expected to perform at their best. If you can make that happen, they’ll be a winner.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This change we’ve made, this decision to become dads—it has uprooted everything. It’s like we were hit, suddenly, with a crossfire hurricane. The house is a mess. The schedule is grueling. There is never enough sleep, never enough time in the day. Even the cool, quiet dark is pierced by the shriek of a man who has stepped on a pile of Legos… and the shriek is coming from your mouth. Yet to be good at our jobs, to be good at this fatherhood thing, we need stillness. We need time to reflect. We need focus. We need calm to restore and reboot us. Where will we find it? It won’t be, as Seneca and Marcus Aurelius remind us, in fleeing to the country or to the sea. It won’t be those measly two weeks of vacation or by cutting and running. No, we must find the stillness within the chaos. It might not feel like these moments of quiet can exist with all the crying babies or arguing teenagers, but they can. We must go within. We must find it, early in the morning before the house is awake. We must drink in those minutes after the kids are in bed—really drink it in, don’t defer it in favor of Netflix. We must take time with a journal. We must enjoy that cute, but preposterously slow, walk from school to the car, or from the car back into the house. Soak up the garbage time. Soak up the quiet. Store these moments in your soul so you can have them always. You must find the stillness. So much depends on it. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

By now, you’ve almost certainly lost count of how many questions you’ve been asked by your kids. From the moment they can talk, that’s what fatherhood is—answering questions. Some you can’t wait for them to ask, some you hope they’ll never ask (or ask their mom), some so absurdly, brilliantly child-like you never could have guessed they were coming in a million years. Samuel Edison, the father of Thomas Edison, once remarked of his son—who few thought was a genius as a child—that Thomas was “forever asking me questions and when I would tell him I didn’t know, he would say, “Why don’t you know?” Out of the mouths of babes. What a perfect indictment expressed so innocently. Your kid is 5. Or 13. Or 30. But you’re much older. It makes sense that they don’t know things. But you? You don’t have an excuse! Too many of us let our curiosity atrophy as we get older—we close our minds the minute we close our last textbooks. Kids are a great reminder that our learning should never cease, that we should never be satisfied not knowing the answers to things—or at the very least knowing where to find the answers. If we want our kids to have an “everything is figureoutable” mentality, we’re going to have to model it ourselves. We have to show them that we’re curious, that our education is still ongoing, that we’re constantly questioning and discovering and exploring too.Why don’t you know? There’s no good answer. So keep learning. Keep thinking. Ask yourself that question. If you want to raise a “why child” you’re going to need to be a “why adult.” See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

F. Scott Fitzgerald knew the long term damage of being spoiled rotten. Not only was he a prime and painful example himself—as we’ve written about—but as he observed and studied the rich men and women of the Jazz Age, he saw how indulgent people quickly became the “careless” monsters that he portrayed in The Great Gatsby. In Fitzgerald’s stories, the rich are always expecting life to be easy, expecting their money to exempt them from consequences; they’re selfish, naive, insufferable, and superficial. As the subjects of his stories, this makes them fascinating heroes and anti-heroes, but Fitzgerald also wanted us to know who the real villains were: the parents and the families that raised them. As he depicts in one memorable exchange in The Offshore Pirate, a story about a young, beautiful girl who refused to listen to her guardians:“You’ve grown unbearable! Your disposition—”“You’ve made me that way! No child ever had a bad disposition unless it’s her family’s fault! Whatever I am, you did it.”This truth applies to all of us, not just fathers and families whose incomes put them in the 1%. We must blame ourselves or no one, remember? If our kid’s not a hard worker, that’s on us. If our kid’s a bully or acts like they have an advanced degree from “dick school,” that’s on us. If our kid has an attitude or gets into trouble, that’s on us. They’re kids. It’s our fault for not teaching them better… and it’s even less excusable if we throw up our hands and say, “That’s just the way they turned out.”No, whatever they are, we did it. And it’s not too late to make improvements. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The world is a scary place right now. Your retirement accounts have taken enormous hits. Events are getting cancelled. Government officials are failing, publicly and embarrassingly, to protect us. Nobody knows quite what the next few weeks or months will look like. But one thing that is certain? Your kids need you to be calm. They need this as much as they need anything right now. Because this wasn’t their fault. Because they haven’t been through stuff like this before. Because they are looking to you for guidance, for an example of how to be and behave. If you’re freaking out, if you’re letting your anxiety run wild, what will they think? More importantly, how is that helping them in any way? People in the sway of their passions or fears don’t make good decisions. They don’t inspire confidence. They are not their best selves. Well, this is a moment that requires the very best of you. It requires you conquering your fear, discarding your anxiety, and focusing on the task at hand. It requires you to truly be there for your kids. To make good decisions, in the calm and mild light of good philosophy. This is where you teach them what leadership and citizenship look like. This is where you teach them how to be strong and calm precisely when a situation most calls for it. They need you to be calm. So step up. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On their deathbeds, fathers think about a lot of things. They think about the world they’re leaving to their sons and daughters. They think about how they parented. They think about the mistakes they made. They think about what they did right. They are warmed by the thoughts of their children, and, if they are lucky, they find themselves surrounded by them, the hospital bed serving as the final crowded table we have talked about here. The question for you to think about today, on a day hopefully quite far from that moment, is what decisions are you making now and how will you think about them then? Think about what most dads regret as they come to the end of life: They regret not spending more time with their kids. They regret not telling them how proud of them they were (not doing it nearly enough). They regret taking things too seriously, they regret letting petty differences or petty problems loom larger than the love that they felt in their hearts. They regret not being present, spending all that energy trying to organize perfect “quality” time when there was so much ordinary, wonderful garbage time to be had. They regret not “engaging with the slime” because they cared too much about keeping the house clean. They may regret spoiling their kids, not teaching them the right lessons, not having the conversations that needed to be had. Well, you’re lucky. Because you’re not on your deathbed right now. Because it’s not too late. Nor is it ever too early. Today you can adjust and change to make sure you don’t have those regrets—or at least you can seek to minimize them. You only get one go at this. Learn from the people who have come before. Learn from your own parents. Try to get it right. Before you regret it. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Each of us, no matter how old or successful, has things we wish we knew how to do. We wish we could speak another language, or change the oil in our own car, or play the guitar. It’s not that we aren’t up for learning these things now—more so even than when we were young—but it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks, as they say, even when the dog wants to learn. It can be a frustrating experience. Sometimes, when the desire is deep enough but the capacity for comprehension is not, it can even produce resentment toward our own parents for not encouraging or teaching us these skills earlier—when we had less going on, when our mind was more pliable, when we had the time. The French philosopher Jean de la Bruyère (who we’ve quoted before) has spoken about the importance of laying the foundation for language learning in our children: “when the soul naturally receives everything, is deeply impressed by it, and when the memory is fresh, quick, and steady.” That is, as early as possible. It’s true for more than just picking up française or español. When we’re young our mental maps have yet to be fully drawn. Our neural pathways are still being carved. Our brains are lumps of clay waiting to be molded--by exposure, by experience, by accident, by parents. When we’re young, our view of the world has not yet been colored by the kind of preconceptions, desires, and passions that seem to define what is possible for adults. Kids aren’t tied down by the familiar and they aren’t yet burdened by the responsibilities that adults know too well. They can be excited easily with games, they are impressionable, they are not yet jaded, and, most of all, they have time. They have so much time. You have to recognize that they are clay in your hands. You have to help them seize this window. You have to help them open their minds. Jean de la Bruyère said that language especially will “clear the way for the acquisition of solid learning.” But so will dancing, learning to tie a tie, computer programming, drawing, piano, and a million other skills. More is better, as we’ve said before. Help them develop range. Let them learn to love not only the benefits of range but the pride of depth and the process of acquiring both. It’s not too late. But earlier is better. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sometimes it’s good to acknowledge our biases. And one of the biggest biases in our lives is our kids. Not just a bias in the sense that we prefer them, but a bias like one of those ones that cognitive behavioral scientists point out that prove we’re totally and utterly irrational.We love our kids and love makes us crazy. It is irrational. And that’s okay. In Herman Hesse’s beautiful novel Siddhartha, the titular character—who had spent his whole life in the solitary pursuit of enlightenment—suddenly finds himself a father. This changes him. Makes him feel all sorts of things he had never felt before, feelings that, in many ways, he had denied and pushed away for so long as part of his journey. “He was madly in love, a fool because of love,” Hesse writes of Siddhartha, but also of you and every other parent who’s ever lived. “Now he always experienced belatedly, for once in his life, the strongest and strangest passion; he suffered tremendously through it and yet was uplifted, in some way renewed and richer.” Our kids make us drive. They drive us crazy. They mess with our minds and our priorities. Love does that. Mad, mad love is powerful, skewing things. But it’s also a wondrous, special thing. It makes us suffer, but it also rewards us. It uplifts us. It changes us, sure, but they change us so much for the better.It’s good to acknowledge that.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Imagine that you’re gone and able to look down now and see your kids from above. Or imagine that somehow you had magical powers and could see inside their heads and read their thoughts. What is it that you would never want them to witness? What is it that you would never want them to feel?Not failure, obviously, because you know that’s a part of life. Not suffering—within reason—because that too is a part of life, as the Buddha says. But you would never want them to feel stupid, or feel unloved, or feel that they had to earn your approval. You would never want them to feel worthless. Or find out that they really needed you but were afraid to come to you for help. You would never want them to think you were too busy for them, or that you cared about their success more than their happiness. This is basic stuff, right? Okay, but honestly, if you really looked at your behavior, do you think you contribute to those exact feelings? They came to you and instead of listening… you rushed right in with judgement or a lecture. You criticize far more than you compliment. You are cold or easily disappointed… because you’re still dealing with your own issues. You lost your temper. You say harsh things. Every father does this. We make our kids feel a way that if we heard their boyfriend or their boss made them feel that way we’d drive down and kick their ass. We do it because we’re not aware enough, because we don’t take our influence seriously enough. And that’s not okay. We can do better. We have to do better. Imagine you could see the world from inside your kid’s heart and head. Now look at their father—look at the way you act towards them. It’s not the picture you want to see, is it?So change. Now. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

If you’re in your 30s, then your parents raised you through the global financial crisis, SARS, the bursting of the tech bubble, and 9/11. They saw two wars in Iraq, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Black Monday. If you’re in your 40s, they experienced that and the crack epidemic, the AIDS epidemic, stagflation, Chernobyl, and the final saber rattling of the Cold War. If you’re in your 50s, then your parents raised you through Vietnam and Watergate and the Berlin Wall. If you’re in your 60s, they raised you through the Civil Rights movement, the counterculture revolution, the draft, Vietnam, the Kennedy assassinations, MLK’s assassination, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. If you’re older than that… well, now we’re getting into even headier territory: the war in Korea, the Iron Curtain, the Second World War, the Marshall Plan, and god knows what else. You think that was easy? You think there weren’t moments where they shut the door and wept out of anger or fear? You think they didn’t spend a lot of nights sitting up in bed, talking quietly to their partner about what was going to happen, about how (and if) they were going to make it? They were scared. They were overwhelmed. They wondered what kind of world this was to bring you up in. And then you know what? They put on a smiling face and made you breakfast. They went to work. They saved their money. They prepared for your future. They loved you. They protected you. They soldiered on. You come from that tradition. You come from parents who didn’t have it easy… and grandparents who had it harder, and great-great-great grandparents who definitely had it worse. What we face today is tough. These are real economic, political, and medical crises. But we’ll get through it. We’ll get through it as our parents did. We’ll keep smiling. We’ll keep protecting. We’ll keep doing our job. Because we have to. We have a tradition to uphold. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Your job today as a father is to do one thing. It’s to read this poem, which dates back to 1895, and then to think about how to incorporate its lessons into how you raise your kids. Ignore the gendered language (it was written as advice to the poet’s son) because it doesn’t matter. There isn’t any child, boy or girl, at any age who won’t benefit from this wisdom. If— BY RUDYARD KIPLINGIf you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and DisasterAnd treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spokenTwisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:If you can make one heap of all your winningsAnd risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,And lose, and start again at your beginningsAnd never breathe a word about your loss;If you can force your heart and nerve and sinewTo serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in youExcept the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,If all men count with you, but none too much;If you can fill the unforgiving minuteWith sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!Go!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

These are strange times to be a father. Fathers have never been expected to do more—around the house, in their children’s lives. This is wonderful. It’s also challenging and confusing because societal expectations and the actual process for preparing new dads for doing these things are not quite in alignment. At the same time, the word “masculine” is not indelibly connected to that idea of “toxic masculinity.” So much of what it has and continues to mean to “be a man” are now denigrated and criticized. The modern picture of a dad is somehow simultaneously an overweight oaf who tells lame jokes and a patriarchal tyrant. A control freak and a checked out layabout. And this isn’t even getting into the extreme theories about how having kids is unconscionable in an age of climate change or feminist arguments for “abolishing the family.” The point is: It’s confusing and overwhelming to be a dad sometimes. Who should you be? How should you act? Are you doing the right thing? Or are you a monster?Blake Masters, the founder of Spar! (an awesome fitness/habit app that will help you get better and stay healthy) and the co-author of Peter Thiel’s Zero to One, has a rather refreshing and inspiring message for dads out there. We asked him what fatherhood has meant to him and his answer cuts through so much of the noise:I am *proud to be a father*, not only in the sense that my particular children have this or that specific quality, or that I teach them x or I learn from them about y. I'm proud to be a father because fatherhood is important, fatherhood is a key half of what makes the whole human enterprise keep going, and fatherhood specifically is about raising formidable young people that understand and respect what's good about the world their predecessors have made, how to keep up that good work, and indeed, maybe even how to make things a little better, without getting crushed or discouraged or too jaded along the way. *My* kids are great, I love them very much, and I'm proud of and cherish our relationships. But every once in awhile, when they have finally gone to sleep for the night, it's nice to zoom out and try to understand the big picture: we are participating in the timeless institution of watching over and rearing small people, who will before too long take up that challenge and do it again themselves. Don’t let anyone make you feel down about this. Don’t let anyone kick you around for doing your best. This fatherhood thing is important. It’s a long tradition we are a part of. We are doing the work of our grandfathers and their grandfathers, and at the same time, we are also moving the world forward, questioning old assumptions, setting new norms. Give yourself some credit. Feel the power of that bigger picture. Know that you are engaged in a timeless process, one that the human species would not survive without. You are a father and that’s a good thing. Keep going. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Seeing your own parents now, as an adult, is stressful. There’s a great Ram Dass line that the comedian Pete Holmes has used in relation to his own parents: You think you’re enlightened—go spend a week with your family.The point is, having Mom and Dad come stay with you is few people’s idea of a relaxing weekend. It’s stranger still once you have kids, because suddenly you start to see and think about your own childhood differently. Some insights you get are good, but some of the behaviors you see make you sad. Because you see it through the eyes of your own kids now, you see how it affects them. How could I have handled these people as a child, you think. This is no way to live.As we’ve said before, each one of us needs to examine these feelings and process them. Your kids are a second chance for you. You have to heal your inner child. You have to wipe the slate clean. But this exercise—of seeing your parents and their flaws through your kid’s eyes—should also humble you. Because how do you think it is living with you now? Do you think it’s easy to be a kid in your house? Or might it be incredibly stressful and disorienting—what, with all your anxieties and vices and issues? Remember that your kids—like you all those years ago—have no idea that this isn’t normal. They have no idea that you mean well but are flawed. They have no idea that this is stuff you’re working on in therapy or in your journal or with your spouse. All they feel are the effects. The residue of your unaddressed anger. The insanity of your need to control things. The stress of your work. That’s not fair. They can’t handle it. You have to handle it.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

People are freaked out. Events are cancelled. Schools have been let out. You’re working from home, or, at least, not going out like you used to. Money is being lost. The elderly and vulnerable are at risk. We are seeing, laid bare, what incompetent leadership looks like...and how fragile our institutions are. Is there any good that can come of this? On a large scale, no. But there is one silver lining to look at here: You’re spending more time with your kids, as a family. You’re being reminded, vividly, of what’s truly important in this life. You’re able to see just how much you took stability and the modern global world for granted, and how when that falls away, what’s left is the core unit of family. What’s left in stark relief are the people and relationships you care about most. So as you sit here, going a little stir crazy, push those fears and anxieties out of your mind and focus on what matters. Drink in this time with your family. Go play a game with your kids. Watch their favorite movie on the couch tonight. Work on a project in the garage together. FaceTime with your brother or sister or son who lives across the country. Heed this reminder, seize this moment. The present is all we have. Nobody knows where this is going to go—-except that, like all things, it will eventually pass. But right now? Right now, the silver lining, the gift of it, is that it’s an opportunity for you to cherish your loved ones. It’s a chance for you to be a good father. It’s a chance for you to be together. Take it. It was bought at a high cost and it would be a tragedy on top of a tragedy to waste it. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Do you know the story of Cincinnatus? He was a Roman general who had retired to his farm until he was called to rescue his country from an invasion. Made dictator in these desperate times, he had unlimited power, which he used to save the empire… only to immediately relinquish the power and return to his farm. Is the story true? Does it matter? George Washington knew this story—it was almost certainly read to him as a boy—and modeled his life on it. From this legend came real history—it shaped Washington’s life and the life of the country he helped found. The same goes for the story of Washington and the cherry tree. Is it true? Probably not. But for generations, children were taught this story and it shaped real lives and the country they lived in. Today, we don’t tell these stories enough. Children’s books are all about robots and talking dogs. Or they are preposterously inappropriate totems for parents to virtue signal with (who thought this book was a good idea?) History books as kids get older are all about facts, they’re all about punching holes in things, in showing how the heroes of the past were all racists and hypocrites. And then we wonder why we live in a world devoid of courage. Where irony reigns and inspiration is replaced by nihilism. Of course these things are gone. There is only one way to get them back: By telling your children of Cincinnatus. Teach them the legends and myths of the past. Show them what greatness looks like, even if it’s through the haze of hagiography. Give them someone to look up to. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s in moments like these—a pandemic or a hurricane or a terrorist attack—that we fathers are thrown back into a more primal role. Yes, there are so many things we are expected to do as dads these days: Teaching them to love to learn. Teaching them how to be vulnerable and kind. Raising them to question things, to pursue mastery, to follow the four virtues. All of these things are important… but quite obviously come to matter very little if we don’t do our most important job: Keeping them safe. Right now, practically, that means curtailing travel and meetings. That means washing your hands. It means keeping their (and your) immune system healthy. That means sending your employees home, supporting the less fortunate however you can, so they can stay home too. It means making sure you have the supplies necessary (food, medicine, etc) in case of mandatory quarantines. On a larger level though, this is a reminder that many of us have not been taking this job seriously enough. We are complicit in enabling these incompetent leaders who got us into this mess. We looked the other way because “the economy was good.” We accepted arguments like, “It doesn’t matter if a president or a governor or a prime minister is a good (or competent/qualified) person, what matters is if they agree to support the policies of my party.” We’ve been telling our kids that character matters, but we didn’t fully believe it and now we are being reminded of the timeless rule that character is fate. We didn’t prioritize leadership and here we are… leaderless when we desperately need it. Most of us ignored the warnings. Most of us assumed someone else would solve this. Most of us let others do the talking for us. We didn’t have emergency supplies handy. We didn’t have a plan. And here we are—in danger. Thankfully, kids seem to be remarkably (and mercifully) protected from COVID-19, but the rest of the world is not. We need to remember what our primary job as fathers is. We can never neglect it. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Almost every talented and successful person can remember their introduction to whatever it was that became their thing. In Mastery, Robert Greene explores countless examples of this beautiful process by which some of the world’s most notable experts discovered their “life’s task.” He talks about Martha Graham’s first time watching a dance performance, for example, and he tells the story of the compass that Albert Einstein’s father gave him as a present when he was five years old:“Instantly, the boy was transfixed by the needle, which changed direction as the compass moved about. The idea that there was some kind of magnetic force that operated on this needle, invisible to the eyes, touched him to the core.At the core of most of these stories are a few key ingredients: Luck. Openness. Curiosity. And of course, often, a parent who actively exposed their kid to different things. For every Tiger Woods, who had golf more or less forced on him from birth, there is an Albert Einstein whose life was changed by a simple gift—a thought from a father who said, “Hey, maybe they would like this” or “Hey, this might be fun.”It’s your child’s job to figure out what they want to do in life. No parent can or should make their child master anything. But it is your job, especially when they’re young, to open their eyes. To introduce serendipity into the equation, to expose them to all the possibilities that life has to offer. Show them how things are figureoutable. Show them what’s out there. Help them discover. You’ll change them...and you may just change the whole world in the process. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Because you’re in charge, because you’re so much bigger and stronger and smarter, it’s easy to get trapped into a battle of wills with your kids. Don’t do that or else! Because I said so. Oh, you think it’s like that, do you? We put our foot down. We tell them how it’s going to be. We argue. Sometimes, at the very, very end of our rope, we lock them in their room. Maybe we think this is what authority is, that it’s about force. That it’s about asserting dominance or control. Of course, this is wrong, not just morally but factually. It’s one of the most enduring myths of history, propagated by movies and stories, that wars are won and lost by two great armies going head-to-head in battle. In fact, in a study of 30 conflicts comprising more than 280 campaigns from ancient to modern history, the historian B. H. Liddell Hart found that in only 6 of the 280 campaigns was a decisive victory the result of a direct attack on the enemy’s main army. Only six. That’s 2 percent.Instead, most wars—like most arguments and most matters in life—are won indirectly. They’re won creatively. They’re not matters of full force going against full force, but about finding another way around, a way to really get through. Sometimes they’re won by delay, sometimes by surprise, other times by feints or alliances. And so it should go with your kids. You’re not going to yell them into listening. You’re going to have to find where they’re vulnerable. You’re not going to get them to calm down by force, but by realizing that they’re hungry...or need to be tired out. You’re not going to get them to stop being afraid by logic, you’ll have to change their perspective. Nobody wins a battle of wills. Every victory is Pyrrhic. So get creative. Stop throwing yourself against a wall. Protect both combatants. Don’t attack head-on. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We know that our kids want to feel good, feel safe, feel loved. We know they want to feel that someone is proud of them, that they’re talented, that they’re worth something. We also know that they’ll want to have fun, take risks, mess up, be crazy, and feel the pleasures of the world. As the person in charge, as the person who wants them to be successful in life, it may come to pass that you are at odds with those feelings more often than you’d like. Because you see their potential, you are critical of their choices. Because you are worried about them, you’re strict. Because you know how hard and competitive the world is, you push them...and then maybe you push them some more. And because you have so much on your plate, you don’t always say the nice thing, the obvious, supportive, reassuring thing. The problem is: If our kids aren’t feeling safe or loved or supported by us, where will they get it from? Because they will go out and try to find it. If Dad is blocked off because Dad is busy, Daughter will go find love in the wrong places. If Dad is a hard ass, because Dad regrets his choices in his own youth, and he pushes too hard, Son might rebel or learn to value the wrong things. The gender of the child doesn’t matter. Neither does their natural personality. If Dad doesn’t give his kids what they need, they’ll get it somewhere else and it will almost certainly not be from the right or best place. It might be from drugs or a gang or bad influences or reckless behavior or from a false belief that you can earn acceptance and appreciation. All of that is wrong. Your kids deserved those things at birth. And they deserve them from you.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There has never been a father—a good one anyway—that did not at least occasionally look at what was happening around them and question the world they were bringing up their kids in. This is worth remembering today, as you watch the news or the stock market, whether you’ve got adult kids or just found out you’re having your first.Yes, it looks scary out there...but it’s always been scary. Just three years ago, on that somber, confusing day for many people—the day a certain president was elected—hospitals were full of mothers giving birth and new fathers being minted. You think the COVID-19 pandemic is scary? Imagine you and your family just survived WWI and here comes the Spanish Flu. Even the supposedly idyllic 1950s actually occurred under the claustrophobic terror of potential nuclear annihilation. And if you were black, or gay, or any other number of minorities, it was even more repressive still.It might feel like this is a bad time to be bringing kids into the world, that what’s happening out there should alarm you. But again, it’s always been scary and always will be scary. Fathers have had to raise their children through plagues and civil wars. They’ve faced pogroms and changing climates. They’ve stared down appalling infant mortality rates, along with failed states, incompetent kings, and moral corruption. There will never be a time peaceful enough, upstanding enough, fair enough, bright enough, calm enough to reassure you. All we can do as dads is keep going—we must keep carrying the fire. We must do our best to raise good kids who can survive and endure and make the world a little better. And we should be grateful that as scary as the world is...we’re luckier it’s not as scary as it once was. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When your kids mess up, what’s your reaction? Do you freak out? Or are you calm? Do you make the situation better...or worse? Can you actually listen? Or are you halfway through a solution before they’ve even gotten two words of explanation out of their mouths?The answers to these questions matter if, like a good dad, you want to be the kind of father who your kids turn to when they have a problem. You want them to come to you with their fears, with their secrets, with their dilemmas, don’t you?Well then you better make yourself the kind of parent that has earned that honor, that has earned that respect. Because it’s a privilege and not a right. Need proof? Think about your own parents and how many things you kept from them. Even more, why you kept it from them. Sure, some things we hide because we know it’s stuff we’re not supposed to be doing. But a lot of it is stuff we could have used their advice on, that we ached to connect over—but we knew we couldn’t. Because they would rush to judgment. Because they wouldn’t let us explain. Because it would trigger their anxiety or their temper or their moralizing reminders. You want them to come to you with problems? You want to help them? Then show them. Teach them that it’s worth doing. Teach them that they’ll get a fair hearing. Prove to them that you make things better and not worse. Let them see how you love them more than you hate any mistake. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

From his dad, Bruce Springsteen learned about shame, about broken pride, and struggling with demons that you can’t quite conquer. It’s an all too common story, unfortunately. The lack of a strong role model leaves a void that haunts a kid forever, even long after they leave the house. You can hear that pain in Springsteen’s songs today.As unlucky as Bruce was to be dealt that hand, he was also incredibly lucky. Because in his mother he had a very different example, one that taught him very different things. In his memoir, Born to Run, Bruce writes about visiting his mom at work, Lawyers Titles Inc, where she was a legal secretary. Where his dad was angry and bitter, his mom was brave and tough. He could see himself in her and it called him to be better. “I am proud, she is proud,” he wrote, recalling how it felt to see her in her element, away from their house, doing her job. “We are handsome, responsible members of this one-dog burg pulling our own individual weight, doing what has to be done. We have a place here, a reason to open our eyes at the break of day and breathe in a life that is steady and good.” Again, this is why we have to remember that our children are always watching. This is why we have to let them see us work. We want to teach them what it takes to survive in this world. We want them to see us dressed up, sleeves rolled up, surrounded by people who respect and depend on us. We want them to see us not only at our private worst, but also at our public best. “Truthfulness, consistency, professionalism, kindness, compassion, manners, thoughtfulness, pride in yourself, honor, love, faith in and fidelity to your family, commitment, joy in your work and a never-say-die thirst for life,” Bruce wrote decades removed from those afternoons at the legal office in New Jersey, “Those are some of the things my mother taught me and that I struggle to live up to.” Do the same for your kids and they’ll never forget it. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It happened again. Your kid screwed up. They did something stupid—from drawing on the walls to getting caught drinking. They hurt someone or they lied. They failed a test or broke something important. You’re pissed. You want to yell. But before we do that, stop and think: Have you raised a good kid? Have you taught them right from wrong? Have you taught them to care about other people and the truth?Yes, yes you have. Now ask yourself: Does yelling teach them these things more? Does getting upset re-emphasize what is right and what is wrong, or does it just reinforce the power dynamic between you two? Does yelling make them hear you more...or tune you out completely?More to the point, if you’ve raised a good kid, do you really think they did that on purpose? Don’t you think they already feel bad? In fact, wouldn’t a calm discussion about the difference between who you know they are and what the statement their behavior has made be a far louder and clearer discussion than yelling ever could be? Remember as you’re getting upset that you’re not just dealing with the situation at hand but you are also showing your kids how adults should act when things go wrong—you are teaching them lessons that will impact how they treat their employees and their own children in the future. Keep that in mind… and calm down. Be understanding. Talk, don’t yell. Let their own conscience—the one you have worked so hard to help them develop—do most of the heavy lifting. Let them learn to see the error in their own ways, let them learn how to learn from their mistakes. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

For thousands of years, humans have been expressing wisdom to each other through fables. Whether it’s Aesop or the Bible or Leonardo da Vinci or Hans Christian Anderson, smart writers have been packaging moral lessons in the form of quaint little stories or parables. And, for just as long, parents have been passing these fables onto their children.But for whatever reason, this form of storytelling has lost favor. The stories are violent, people complain, or a tad dark. They’re full of weird historical anachronisms. They aren’t funny. Where are the pictures?! But Washington didn’t really chop down the cherry tree. Talk about missing the point. Our job as parents is to teach our kids the timeless truths of the world. It doesn’t matter that the Frog and the Scorpion didn’t really exist—what matters is that we have to see people’s true nature. It doesn’t matter whether you believe in God or not, the lessons in the Bible have served humanity very well over thousands of years. Make an effort to start bringing these fables into your house. You can listen to them on Spotify in the car. You can read them together before bed. Or you can tell the stories yourself from memory. Don’t just focus on the plot. Talk about the lessons too—talk to them about Da Vinci’s fable of the stone and its message about the importance of solitude and quiet. Talk about the Fox and the Stork, and how when you play a prank, you’ll get pranked too. Talk about “sour grapes.” Teach them about the world through ridiculous stories. It’s a grand tradition...and a critical part of growing up. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When Kobe Byrant took off in his helicopter from downtown Los Angeles on January 26th, he was a 5 time NBA champion. He was a 2x Finals MVP. He was a 2x Olympic Gold Medalist. He had won an Emmy and was a New York Times bestselling author. He had earned hundreds of millions of dollars in his career and raised a venture capital fund of more than $100 million, with stakes in companies like Cholula Hot Sauce and Alibaba. Yet it goes without saying that he would have traded all of those incredible accomplishments, if he had been lucky enough to be offered the choice, for just one more day as a dad to his four girls. And you, whatever accomplishments you have piled up in your life, would do the exact same thing. Who wouldn’t? We know this. If asked, we would say it. Yet...yet...yet...look at our choices. You’d give up so much for one more bedtime with your kids, and here you are, on your phone while they’re in the bath. No amount of money could compensate you for one more morning with them, and here you are, grouchy because it’s early, put out because you’re sitting in traffic as you drive them to school. You’re away from home, chasing a business deal. You’re preoccupied with email. You’re thinking about whether the grass is greener on the other side of the marriage fence. You’re planning that trip with friends. You have, right now, in your grasp the thing that Kobe Bryant, that Stuart Scott, that John F. Kennedy would have traded the Sports Center desk for, traded the presidency for, traded all their trophies for. Do.not.waste.it. Do not take it for granted. Do not trade it away for nothing. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

These kids have changed your life. There are so many things you used to do that you no longer can. Traveling with no notice. Staying out all night. Sleeping on an airplane...sleeping in at all. You used to have so much more energy for your job, for your friends. You used to have time to do lots of things. And now it’s a real crapshoot whether you will get a shower in today...let alone keep up with the ambitious upstarts coming behind you. So let’s not be sanguine about the sacrifices this decision has required you to make. But these days, society does a pretty good job discussing all the costs—financial, physical, social—of having kids. You see it in every article about the celebrity or artist who chooses not to have a family. You see it in the arguments of every activist or politician who pleads for sympathy for working parents. What seems to get mentioned much less often is what you’ve been given as a result of becoming a father, the wondrous happiness you feel despite all the disruption. “One doesn't tend to associate kids with peace,” the venture capitalist Paul Graham observed recently in his fantastic essay about being a parent, “but that's what you feel. You don't need to look any further than where you are right now.All those ordinary moments: Playing in the yard. Getting pummeled when they jump in your bed in the morning. Watching TV on the couch. Being a family. It’s just so amazing. Even the garbage time together is great—and well worth what you’ve traded away to get it. “Most of the freedom I had before kids,” Paul Graham wrote, “I never used. I paid for it in loneliness, but I never used it.” It’s true for you too. It’s true for all of us. We’ve paid a high price for these kids, but we have gotten—we will keep getting—so much. Sometimes it’s helpful to tell ourselves that. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You’re upset because you just blew it in that meeting. You’re kicking yourself because you meant to get up early and ended up sleeping through your alarm and missing a flight. You’re stressed about the business, you wish your marriage was better, you hate the way your house looks from the street. You can’t watch the news without being disgusted or outraged or worried. What should you do? How can you deal with the creeping overwhelm that each of these problems has come to represent?Go spend time with your kids. Seriously. 5 minutes. 15 minutes. 5 hours. Watch as those feelings melt away. Not because you’ve ignored them, but because they’ve been placed in perspective. Your kid doesn’t think you’re garbage because you messed up at work. Your kid doesn’t care about the economy. They’re not anxious. They’re not cynical. They’re not riding you about anything. They’re present. They’re happy. They’re grateful. They’re wonderful and they think you’re wonderful. Soak that in. Let them rub off on you. Have fun. Be reminded of what life was like before all these responsibilities fell onto your shoulders. And then, properly refreshed and reset, go back and tackle your problems the only way you can: one at a time, in the way that’s best for you and the people you love. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In one of F. Scott Fitzerald’s funniest short stories, “Head and Shoulders,” a certifiable genius falls in love with a showgirl. The plot and moral of the story aren’t relevant for today’s email—though the story is highly recommended—instead there is a little passage in it that introduces a concept that is worth thinking about:“I was a ‘why child. I wanted to see the wheels go around. My father was a young economics professor at Princeton. He brought me up on the system of answering every question I asked him to the best of his ability.” A “why child”—what a delightful phrase! Isn’t that what we’re trying to raise? We’ve talked about raising a child who knows how to “figure things out” but this is part and parcel of that. A why child isn’t content to take things at face value, or simple explanations. They not only want to see the wheels go round, they want to know why, they want to know how, they want to know where they came from in the first place.Can this be annoying? Absolutely. It can even get them in trouble (isn’t that the whole message of the Curious George series?). But curious is better than complacent, annoying is better than ignorant. You must seed this habit. You must make sure you water it too—and do your best never to stamp it out, just because you’re tired, or just because the question is inappropriate. The more questions they ask the better. Not just to their parents, but for their whole life. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We’ve all done it. It’s happened to almost all of us. We see a thing. We want to try it. It’s hard. And…we give up. Whether it’s karate, business, piano, reading, learning another language...every new skill has a “pain period” and, most of the time, we never get over it.Because we lack encouragement or any visible progress, we quit. In a way, this is a kind of costly cognitive error. In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear talks about something he calls “The Plateau of Latent Potential.” This plateau can be likened to bamboo, which spends its first five years building extensive root systems underground before exploding ninety feet into the air within six weeks. Or to an ice cube, which will only begin to melt once the surrounding temperature hits thirty-two degrees (or the resulting water that only boils at two hundred and twelve degrees).Just because it sometimes takes longer than we’d like to see the results of our efforts doesn’t mean that our efforts are going to waste. In fact, most of the important work—the build up—won’t seem like it’s amounting to anything, but of course it is. We struggle with realizing this as adults...so imagine being a kid. They’ve never experienced the elation of suddenly breaking through that plateau. They don’t even have enough experience to understand the bamboo analogy!Which makes this a key area for a dad to exert important influence. You have to keep encouraging them. You have to help them see even the microscopic progress they’re making. You have to help manage their expectations. It might not seem like doing this piece of homework or trying hard in practice matters. It might not seem like any of it is making a difference, but you can show them how it is. You can show them why it matters. It’s not that they should never quit things (especially things you forced them to do against their will). It’s that if you want them to get across the threshold, they’ll need your help. They’ll need you to encourage them. They’ll need your help developing grit. They’ll need you to convince them that a payoff is coming. Because it is. Especially if they can learn this as a general life lesson. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It can be easy to question your parenting. To feel like you’re not doing good enough, that you’re not nearly enough. You see what other parents are doing, or hear what other fathers say they are doing, and it can seem like you’re the worst parent ever: The food you give them isn’t healthy enough, their education isn’t good enough, you’re not patient enough, you’re not dedicated enough. But it’s important, when you start to feel this way, that you step back. Don’t just compare yourself to the dads you see around you—that can be dubious and unreliable—compare yourself to your own father and his father before him. When Jerry Seinfeld was on Jimmy Fallon a few years ago, he quipped, “You know what my bedtime story was when I was a kid? Darkness!”Compared to not too long ago, you’re the greatest dad ever—you’re spoiling your kids rotten and protecting them in a bulletproof, bubble wrapped hug. John D. Rockefeller could not give his kids half of what you do—even with his wealth, the collected wisdom and modern technology you have access to was way beyond his grasp. Just think of what fathers used to let their kids do, think of the basic things fathers used to not do. You would never tolerate that.Because you care and are committed in a way that is generationally and historically completely unprecedented. You are present and home to a degree that fathers never have been before. Even as lopsided as household chores remain between genders, the small amounts of progress that have been made are providing a dramatically better example for your kids than ever before. The sensitivity that you feel towards their feelings, the openness you have about your feelings—even if you are a pretty closed off guy—is still better than any generation before. You are doing better than you think. It’s just hard to see that because you’re surrounded by so many other dads doing the same, who for the first time ever are expected to do the same. So give yourself some credit. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Have you ever heard your kids say something that just stops you cold? One of those remarks that instinctually makes you do a double take? It can be an unexpected curse word, or some preposterous old-timey expression, or one of those heartbreakingly earnest statements about love or happiness. Where did that come from, you think? Where did they hear that?Of course, you know. They heard it from you. You’re the one who cursed. You’re the one who told them about how annoying your neighbor is. You’re the one who turned on the TV and let them sit there. The point of this is not to shame you, it’s to remind you. Your kids are always watching. A little fellow follows you...eyes, ears, and heart open and absorbing. Don’t be the parents in A Christmas Story, washing their son’s mouth out with soap, yelling at his friend’s mother, pretending that there is anyone else to blame but yourself. Don’t be the parent who underestimates their power to teach, who thinks that your kid is lost if they don’t have access to the most expensive and prestigious schools. No, they are always learning, always watching, always little vessels ready to be filled. What will they hear? What will you pour? That’s the question. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.