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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In his book, The Vanishing American Adult, Senator Ben Sasse pondered what might strike a person from the distant past as odd about our modern society. Aside from the technology, he said, they’d notice the extreme age segregation. Invariably today we spend time almost exclusively with people our own age. Our kids go to school with other kids. We work with other adults. Our own parents and grandparents are shunted off to retirement communities and old folks homes and cruise ships. The average age in the US Senate, where Sasse works, is around 61, and there are only 10 people in it under 50 years old. When was the last time you stayed under the same roof as someone twice your age? How many conversations do you have with people who grew up without the things you completely take for granted?In Lori McKenna’s song, Humble and Kind, she talks about “visiting grandpa every chance that you get.” It actually requires more than that, more than just seeing your own family. You have to make sure your kids aren’t stuck in a bubble, living their lives away from anyone but other children. Instead, you have to expose them to wisdom. Expose them to people who remember the good and the bad things that humans did in the recent and not-so-recent past. Expose them to people who have learned painful lessons. Expose them to people who have accomplished incredible things. The famous Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes died two days short of his 94th birthday. But in those years, he managed to shake hands with John Quincy Adams (the 6th US President) and John F. Kennedy (the 35th US President), who were born almost exactly 150 years apart. Indeed, the 19th century remains just a handshake or two away. A few handshakes more and you’re back before the founding of America, a few handshakes more and you’re in uncharted territory. This is humbling. This is inspiring. This is eye opening. This is a human wormhole to timeless wisdom.People born today might live for a very long time. But the people born a long time ago don’t have many years left. Meet them while there is still time. Let your kids learn from them while there is still time. 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 watched someone sit and play with a little kid for hours? Like totally engrossed, never checking a phone, never rushing, never getting bored or frustrated, never pulling the adult card? Maybe your spouse can do this, maybe you’ve seen a grandparent do it, maybe you’ve pulled up and watched the teachers at a daycare do it (or maybe you’ve watched them calmly, quietly put 10 kids down for a nap at the same time).When you see this sort of effortless presence and patience, it’s humbling. It’s an incredible feat of human endurance and focus; one that doesn’t seem to come naturally to all of us. And that’s the point: It doesn’t come naturally. Like all other feats of endurance and skill, it takes work. You build the muscle before you can use it to move mountains...or put a dozen toddlers to bed.But here’s the real question: Are you actually putting in enough of that kind of effort? Or are you just throwing up your hands and saying, “That’s not me. I can’t do it.” You would not be alone. But you would also not be more wrong. Try. Start small and try. Leave your phone in the car when you come home. Play LEGOs for the next hour, with no interruptions. Write the rest of the afternoon off. Put as much work into this parenting thing as you do with your work. Try to be all-in, just for a bit.See what happens.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

General Jim Mattis has talked about his idyllic childhood in Pullman, Washington. There he spent time outdoors, explored, got in trouble, and had an all-American childhood. He talks lovingly of a house filled with books—as we’ve said, a house without books is not a home—and parents who not only encouraged their children to read them, but questioned and interacted with them. “They introduced us to a world of great ideas—not a fearful place,” he said, “but a place to enjoy.” What a thing to say! A target for each of us to try to hit with our own children. It’s so easy in these partisan, political times to live not only in a bubble of our own beliefs...but to actively denigrate the beliefs of others. Think of the families hunkered down, watching Fox News, refusing to interact with any information that contradicts their worldview. Think of the parents who are no better than book burners, arguing that Huckleberry Finn should be pulled from schools or that trigger warnings need to be put in front of everything remotely controversial. These people are teaching their children that ideas are dangerous, that disagreement is an offense and that you can make things go away by pretending they don’t exist. You must teach your kids to be curious, to be open, to be willing to explore. Your job is not to make them believe what you believe or to prevent them from ever encountering what you dislike or think is repulsive. Your job is to teach them how to make their own informed opinions, how to decide for themselves, how to be comfortable with uncomfortable topics. Don’t model contempt. Don’t model close-mindedness. Don’t model fear. Ideas are our friends. They will serve your children well, and your children will serve them well, if you teach them early and often. The world is a place of great ideas. There is nothing to be afraid of...except fear and ignorance. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Nobody wants to see their kid make a mistake. That’s why we spend so much time teaching them right and wrong, why we try to be a good example, why we try to catch and stop them when we see them going down the wrong path. Since the beginning of time fathers have been doing this...and since the beginning of time have had, at best, only minimal success. In the novel Siddhartha, the title character tries desperately to convince his son of the importance of the simple way of life, having learned the wisdom of it through painful experience. Like you, like all fathers, he watches as his son ignores his warnings, despairing as his son goes the wrong direction. As he sees his son falling into bad habits, Siddhartha confides his frustration to his friend, Vasudeva, who replies, “Do you really believe you have committed your follies so that your son may be spared them?” It would be wonderful if our kids didn’t have to learn through trial and error, if they could simply accept our advice and start where we left off, rather than touch the proverbial hot stove for themselves. But we should be wise enough as human beings by now to know that is simply not how life works. Much of what we learn has to be learned on our own. Some mistakes have to be made to be fully understood. Don’t your own experiences teach you that, anyway? How many of your parents’ warnings did you really listen to?You can’t prevent your kids from making mistakes. Nor, honestly, should you really want to. You have to let them learn on their own. And you have to give them the space to do it. Knowing that you’ve instilled the character, the awareness, and the willingness to ask for help that they will need in order to bounce back from the mistakes they will inevitably make. 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 the 300 Spartans? Maybe you do. It was first immortalized by Herodotus, and then has been passed down through the ages from Simonides to Plutarch. Most recently, it was the basis for the awesome Zack Snyder movie by the same name, and Steven Pressfield’s beautiful novel, Gates of Fire. If you don’t know the story, here’s what happens: the Ancient Greek King Leonidas led some 7,000 men, 300 of which were Spartans, in a battle against an invading army of more than 300,000 soldiers led by Xerxes the Great, king of the Achaemenid dynasty of Persia. The Spartans held the front line for two days, but on the third, they were outmaneuvered. Leonidas ordered the 300 Spartans to remain and fight, sacrificing himself and his men to allow Greece to live and fight another day. There is a part left out in most retellings though, that is worth thinking about today. How did Leonidas choose the 300 warriors to lead out to the Hot Gates to battle an overwhelming enemy? Obviously he picked his best and bravest warriors. But there was something else they all had in common. They were all “fathers of living sons.” You might think this was exactly what leaders would have tried to avoid—that the ones with families were allowed to sit out this potential suicide mission—but that’s now how it worked in Sparta. Fathers were chosen because fathers would not want to let their sons down. These fathers would fight most bravely, most fiercely, not only to protect what they had back at home, but also because they would not dare abandon their comrades or behave cowardly for fear of letting down the family that so looked up to them. How far we have gotten from this! You have parents bribing their kids into college. You have dads looting the companies they work for to pay for that ski house in Aspen. You have people willing to do anything to get famous—from sex tapes to reality television—even if it means humiliating their kids forever. C’mon. Remember: A little fellow follows you. Your kids are always watching. They’re the ones you should want to impress. They’re the ones you should never want to let down. They’re the ones you’re not only fighting for, but whose standards—whose natural admiration and love—you should always be fighting to live up to. They are the only ones whose opinions matter. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is just my personality, we say. I just don’t have any energy when I get home from work, we complain. I’m in a bad mood today, that’s all. My parents weren’t any different, and I turned out ok. It’s just a stressful period right now. They’re young, they won’t remember any of this. All lies. All excuses. All holding the potential to cause terrible painIn his beautiful and vulnerable memoir, Bruce Springsteen talks—years later—about how his father’s mood and issues affected him. “As a boy I just figured it was the way men were, distant, uncommunicative, busy within the currents of the grown-up world,” he said. “As a child you don’t question your parents’ choices. You accept them. They are justified by the godlike status of parenthood. If you aren’t spoken to, you’re not worth the time. If you’re not greeted with love and affection, you haven’t earned it. If you’re ignored, you don’t exist.” It breaks your heart. And each of us is doing some version of that to our own kids right now. Our moods and choices and the examples we set are affecting them always, changing how they see the world and how they see themselves. It’s making them feel better or worse, worthwhile or worthless, safe or vulnerable. A little fellow follows you, remember that. The decision to shut down emotionally doesn’t just impact you. The decision to overcommit. The decision to be gone. The decision to hold onto resentments. The decision not to take care of yourself. The decision to hold them to unfair standards, to belittle or to be mean.All of this matters. It matters more than anything.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Douglas MacArthur was a complicated man. He was ambitious. He was vain. He made many mistakes. It’s very unlikely that he was a perfect father. In fact, it’d be incredible if he had been, given his demanding, seemingly perfect father (a Civil War hero) and controlling, overly involved mother (who was actively involved in her son’s career up until her death in 1935). But it is surprising that, given all that, Douglas MacArthur seemed relatively accepting of his quiet, sensitive boy. It was undoubtedly MacArthur’s dream to see his son graduate from West Point and enter the service. That was never going to happen. So MacArthur had to adjust, like all fathers he had to accept “undeniable reality,”—something that could not have been easy for a man used to getting his way on a global scale. This was a learning experience for MacArthur as it will be for all of us. It forced him to think about measuring life on different terms, certainly terms different than his own parents had thought about. We get a sense of this from a “prayer” he wrote one evening for his only child, his son, Arthur:“Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid; one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.Build me a son whose wishes will not take the place of deeds; a son who will know Thee — and that to know himself is the foundation stone of knowledge.Lead him, I pray, not in the path of ease and comfort, but under the stress and spur of difficulties and challenge. Here let him learn to stand up in the storm; here let him learn compassion for those who fail.Build me a son whose heart will be clear, whose goal will be high; a son who will master himself before he seeks to master other men; one who will reach into the future, yet never forget the past.And after all these things are his, add, I pray, enough of a sense of humor, so that he may always be serious, yet never take himself too seriously. Give him humility, so that he may always remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, and the weakness of true strength. Then I, his father, will dare to whisper, ‘I have not lived in vain.’”Not bad! And did you notice something about it? It doesn’t say anything about careers or success or reputation. It’s all about character—the only thing that really matters. It’s also the only thing we should actually want for our kids, and something we should work our asses off to provide. The rest is up to them.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What schools are your kids attending? No, not what college or prep school. This is more of a “school of life” question. Charis Denison, a relationship development and organizational specialist who works with a lot of young people, recently observed “At one time or another, every young man will get a letter of admission to ‘dick school.’ The question is, will he drop out, graduate, or go for an advanced degree?”She happened to be speaking about some of the more toxic elements in cultural masculinity, but the truth of that quote applies to both sexes and pretty much every gender stereotype. It can just as easily be said that every young woman is presented with a letter of admission to an equal number of problematic schools. It’s like every boy and girl, some time around middle school and high school, will get recruiting letters from...-The school of being entitled and spoiled-The school of cheating to get ahead-The school of not caring about anyone but yourself-The school of materialism-The school of anxiety and worry-The school of getting high and killing time-The school of being an asshole or a liar or an insufferable egomaniacUnlike college—which is so expensive they’ll need your help to pay for it—parents have less say over the decision to attend any of these schools. Instead, all you can do is try to direct them, try to show them examples of the costs of going one way or another. Your job is to help educate them so they can make the right choice about their education. So they decide to drop out rather than graduate, or better yet, not even consider being recruited by any of these toxic schools. And, as always, lead by example, show them proudly which degree is (and isn’t) on your wall. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In 1982-83, Jim Valvano coached the North Carolina State basketball team to a National Championship title. The Wolfpack was a mid-ranked team that entered the NCAA tournament looking like anything but a title contender. It was improbable that they’d win their first two games, and even if they did, no one in the world would have put even a dollar on them upsetting #2 ranked Virginia. No one, except Coach Valvano. He believed he and his guys could do it. Even when his guys didn’t. The rather unassuming Valvano was known for that unshakeable—borderline irrational even—belief in himself and in his teams. In his coaching career. In his battle with cancer. In every aspect of life, he lived by a quote he heard when he was a young boy, “Every single day, in every walk of life, ordinary people accomplish extraordinary things!” Valvano was, himself, an ordinary kid with ordinary parents from an ordinary town where he received an ordinary education. Still, he did extraordinary things in his life. Valvano wasn’t yet out of high school when he first told his dad he had decided what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. He was going to be a collegiate basketball coach, he told him. With that high schooler’s naivete, he said, “Dad, I’m going to win a National Championship.” Think about how your parents would have reacted if you’d told them that. Maybe you can feel—in your heart, if you’re being honest—how you’d react if you heard your own kids say that. Well, that’s a really hard thing to do bud. Are you sure? Maybe have a backup plan. That wasn’t how Mr. Valvano was built. A few days after Jim told his dad about his plans for the future, his dad called him into his bedroom. “See that suitcase?” he asked, pointing to a suitcase in the corner of the room. Confused, Jim replied, “Yeah, what’s that all about?” “I’m packed,” his dad explained. “When you play and win that National Championship I’m going to be there, my bags are already packed.” “My father,” Jim would later say in his legendary ESPY speech, “gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me.” Stricken with the cancer that would soon after take his life, that belief drove Valvano’s Wolfpack to the national championship in 1983 and it gave him the strength to give that very speech.We talked recently about not being a minimizer, about how important instilling the growth mindset in our kids is. Our job is to spur our children to conceive of big dreams, to encourage them to go after them, to give them the greatest gift anyone can give another person: belief. If you don’t believe in them, who will? And if they are, in fact, lucky enough to find someone else who believes in them, think about what it will do to your relationship when they are able to compare, when they are able to say, “This total stranger saw my potential, but the people who birthed me and raised me and claimed to love me, just could not.”You have to give them your belief. You have to be ready to root for them. It’s the greatest gift you can give. It’s the one they, whether they tell you or not, want more than anything.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ernest Hemingway was not a great husband or, as often as he should have been, a great father. He had four wives, at least one affair, and was often absent in his family’s life, preferring to spend his time when not writing on big-game hunting, deep sea fishing, bullfighting, and so on. But he was a great writer and a great observer of the human condition. There are few scenes in literature that capture love and loss and the terrifying but also inspiring moment of becoming a father quite like the end of A Farewell to Arms. And nothing quite captures love like this quote from it:“When you love, you wish to do things for. You wish to sacrifice for. You wish to serve.”Isn’t that what we’re doing here as dads? We’re asking that question Tom Hanks expressed almost as beautifully as Hemingway:“What do you need me to do? You offer up that to them. I will do anything I can possibly do in order to keep you safe. That’s it. Offer that up and then just love them.”So think about that today. Remind yourself what love is, what your job is. You’re here to serve. Whether that’s driving them around, or just listening to them talk. Your job is to sacrifice. To give what you didn’t get. Offer that up. Offer it always. Even if they’re not ready to take it. Even if they don’t understand. Even if you’re not as good at it as you’d like to be. Just keep trying. Keep serving. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In early January, Kobe Bryant got a note from a reporter at ESPN. She was working on a story about a moment in Lakers’ history and she wanted to feature Kobe in the story. It’s one of those requests that public figures get all the time. It’s part of their job—in fact, it’s kind of one of the things that attracted them to the job in the first place. To be in the news, to have people want to hear their opinion, to grow their brand. How long would it have taken to answer the inquiry? Fifteen minutes? An hour? A few emails back and forth? Who knows. What we do know is how Kobe responded to it, and it’s a response made heartbreakingly sad but also deeply moving considering his tragic death just a few weeks later. "Can't right now," Kobe messaged the reporter. "My girls are keeping me busy. Hit me up in a couple of weeks.How often do you have the discipline to send something like that? How strong are you at putting your family first? How good are your defenses against the endless requests, opportunities, impositions, and obligations that come with your work and with life? It’s so easy to let people steal your time, to let them take you away from the thing that is keeping you busy: your kids. Your family. Your private space. Kobe Bryant, tragically, will not get any more time with his kids and they will not get any more time with him. Which is what makes that text he sent such a powerful reminder to us, a final feat of performance left there to inspire those of us continuing in the shadow of his death. Put your family first. Put your kids first. Say that you’re too busy. Say no.Politely decline. You have other priorities. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There is a type of parent out there. Career-wise, they are killing it. They have a good marriage to an income-earning spouse and together they make good money. They live in a great neighborhood in an awesome house. They have good educations. They have smart kids. They go on nice vacations. And yet, they are constantly worried. Worried about money. About whether their kids will get into the right school and get the right jobs. About their taxes. About keeping up with the Joneses. About so many things. Everything looks great on the outside—and by any objective measure, it is actually great—but they are somehow still angry or anxious on the inside. Sure, there is a lot wrong in the world, and you never know when it could all go away (natural disaster, medical emergency, legal troubles, etc), but at the same time you’d think with how hard they work and all the things that have gone right, that life would at least feel a little easier. That they’d be comfortable. Maybe even...haNot so much. Instead, these parents respond to their inner turmoil by trying to exert even greater control over their external environment. Does this dissonance sound familiar? Maybe because you know these people. Perhaps there is a part of you that is these people. But do you know the term that sociologists and political observers have created for them? It’s not a particularly nice one: They’re called dream hoarders.Dream hoarders are the people who, in an attempt to soothe their own anxieties by securing their station in life and smoothing the path for their children, do things to control the world around them that have the effect of limiting opportunity and mobility for those “beneath them.” Dream hoarders are the NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard) who oppose the creation of more housing (because it would ruin the character of their neighborhood). They oppose school vouchers and magnet schools from the comfort and safety of their children’s private schools.  They favor legacy admissions standards to colleges over any kind of assistive programs that give the poor and underprivileged a boost. These are the people who complain about taxes directed at funding initiatives to help the greater good...despite being in the 1% or better. These people are immune from most of the real crises that are ravaging their country and the world, and instead turn their own piddly problems into World War III at school board and city planning meetings all across America. They have gotten what’s theirs, and their anxiety about being able to keep it forever has blinded them to the reality that so many others are barely getting by. Look, it would be ridiculous to criticize anyone for wanting to pass only advantages and privileges to your kids. That is, of course, the entire point of evolution. That’s why you have worked as hard as you have to get ahead, to build up the life you want. But we have to remember that our kids aren’t going to live in a bubble. They are going to have to make their way in the world—a world that the dream hoarders are increasingly turning into a battlefield of Rich vs. Poor, Us vs. Them. If we want our kids to enjoy the bounty we have worked so hard to give them, if we want them to take advantage of those opportunities in ways that make us proud and make them proud of themselves, then we can’t just think about our kids anymore. We have to think about “the children”—as in the neighborhood’s and the city’s and the country’s young people. We can’t hoard from them. We have to share. See Privacy Policy at

If you ever hear yourself uttering these words, “How could you have been so stupid?” to your kids—because they just got escorted home by a police officer, because they lost that expensive iPad you gave them, because whatever...Here’s an answer: The same way you were so stupid when you were their age.Think about all the dumb stuff you did when you were 10. Or 15. Or 30. Or yesterday. How could you have been so stupid? Skateboarding without a helmet and getting injured when you fell. Speeding when you just got your license and ending up with a ticket. Not studying for that big exam and failing. Drinking too much and getting a nasty hangover. The truth was you didn’t really know better, even if you did “know” better, even if people had told you, as you were doing it, not to do it. The only reason you’re able to see now, in retrospect, how dumb you were is because you’ve gotten older. Because you’ve experienced things. Because you experienced doing that dumb thing and now realize how dangerous/unnecessary/ill-advised it actually was. So let’s scratch that phrase, that question, along with “How many times do I have to tell you?” from our vocabulary as fathers. Because it is really stupid—and cruel. Focus instead on using this moment, whatever it is that makes you want to say that, as an opportunity to teach. As an opportunity to make them smarter, rather than a chance to make them feel bad. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dr. Edith Enger’s son was born with athetoid cerebral palsy. A diagnosis like this would be scary whenever one gets it, but getting it decades ago was scarier still. Dr. Enger (then not a doctor) and her immigrant husband, who had both survived the Holocaust, were frustrated and confused and overwhelmed. One day, at a visit to the doctor’s office, Edith Enger expressed some of these fears and worries to the specialist. It was there that she got some advice that is worth sharing for every parent, whether their family ever has to face that kind of adversity or not. “You son will be whatever you make of him,” the doctor explained. “John’s going to do everything everyone else does, but it’s going to take him longer to get there. You can push him too hard, and that will backfire, but it will also be a mistake not to push him hard enough. You need to push him to the level of his potential.” Your kids will be whatever you make them. It’s true of parenting and it’s true of life. Edith Enger is living proof of that (everyone should read her book, The Choice). She survived the death camps. She survived communism. She survived coming to America with nothing. She decided she would make something of those experiences. She refused to accept that her son was forever compromised, believed that he would thrive if she—and he—believed he could.No one is saying that things won’t be hard. No one is saying that any of this is fair—dyslexia or disabilities, being a refugee or losing your job, being a genius or being short, divorce or having to change schools. What matters is what we make of it. What matters is who we push them (and ourselves) to be. What matters is the kindness and the love and the patience we accompany that pushing with. We can’t do everything for them—that would only make them helpless anyway—but we can believe in them and help them believe in themselves. We can help them reach the level of their potential. We can make them be what they are capable of. We have to. That’s our job.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Your kids should be grateful. Not to you and mom, of course, you’re just doing your job. You’re legally and biologically obligated. Your kids should be grateful for everything. We all should be. This is a wonderful time to be alive. Even if it wasn’t—it’s amazing that any of us are alive at all. The odds are astronomically small that we are. So it’s important that you teach your kids about gratitude. Because it’s so easy to take life, to take the gifts we have been given, for granted. Especially when we’re stressed, when you’re a kid with homework or acne or a room to clean. Jason Harris, the CEO of Mekanism—an award-winning ad agency—and the author of The Soulful Art of Persuasion, has an interesting practice for how to persuade your kids to have a more grateful outlook about life. As he writes:As I tell our boys, you’ve got to be great—but you’ve also got to be grateful. Every Sunday night we write down in our book three things for which we are individually grateful. I know this is not an earth-shattering idea. And I’m not the kind of guy who loves shouting out my “intentions” in a yoga class. But this practice has made a world of difference for me and my kids. It resets you and gets you prepped for the week ahead. The things they write down can be big-ticket items like a place to live, or just the fact that they are alive and kicking. But they can also be little things, like something good that happened at school or a play in a game. What’s helpful about writing these reflections in a notebook is that you can consult previous entries and jog your memory on truly trying days. It helps them go back and tap into those feelings when they may seem lost and hopeless.My boys like the routine and look forward to it each week. This is an exercise that takes less than ten minutes, and yet the effects can be dramatic. Keeping thoughts of gratitude on the surface of your mental life can help you realize that whatever might be going wrong today, on balance we all have a ton to be positive about.Beautiful. And how much more beautiful would the world be if more of us took up this practice? And practiced it with our kids?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When we think teacher, we think classroom. When we think leader, we think the corner office or the lectern or a general in front of their troops. But the truth is that a teacher can do their job anywhere and in many forms, just as a leader can. Plutarch would say of Socrates that he “did not set up desks for his students, sit in a teacher’s chair, or reserve a prearranged time for lecturing and walking with his pupils. No, he practiced philosophy while joking around (when the chance arose) and drinking and serving on military campaigns and hanging around the marketplace with some of his students, and finally, even while under arrest and drinking the hemlock. He was the first to demonstrate that our lives are open to philosophy at all times and in every aspect, while experiencing every emotion, and in each and every activity.” As with teaching and with leadership and with philosophy, so too with parenting. You can be a dad anywhere. It’s not just on fishing trips or at family dinners. It’s not just about carrying them around in a baby bjorn or going to back-to-school night. It’s not about punishments or incentives, or rules or life lessons, though of course it’s also about all these things too. Remember what we’ve talked about with quality time vs. garbage time? It may just be that the most impact you’ll have as a dad will come while joking around, it may come on a walk, it may come with how you do your job (and show them your work), it may come on a family vacation or it may come while you’re watching TV and make some passing comment that lands in exactly the right way. It may come—god forbid—on your deathbed, as you depart from this life with courage and compassion, showing them that they don’t need to be afraid, that you love them and that they’ll be okay without you.Being a Dad is not some official thing. It’s not sitting on high, doling out pronouncements and demanding obedience. It’s something you do anywhere and everywhere, every minute of every day in the same way that Socrates taught—by example, by getting down to their level, by being open, and by adapting to the situation at hand.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Way too many parents are competitive. They see the car their neighbor is driving and they want to get a better one. They hear that a friend’s kid got into a fancy school and they think, “My kid is smarter. I’ve got to get them in there too.” We want to make more money than other parents, we want our kids to beat other kids in sports, we want our kids to be cuter than other kids, we want our houses to be cleaner. Needless to say, this is mostly toxic and negative. But that competitive urge is hard to get rid of. So where should we channel it? We've told you about Jeannie Gaffigan before, whose haunting story of a surprise pear-sized tumor changed her and her family’s life. She found a good outlet. She explained that during her recuperation from the surgery her husband brought out a new side of himself and created a healthy, positive dynamic in their relationship: I noticed that like Jim started learning all about the day to day stuff. Out of necessity, but I feel like in my recovery, he has a whole different level of appreciation for me. And also he'd do things like my son Jack was going to like all these bar mitzvahs every weekend because everyone was turning 13. And I'm bad at tying ties, but I would do it because he wasn't home. And then he would be like, when he does something better than me, he brags about it. He's like, ‘who ties the better tie?’ So there was a lot of this kind of fun competition of who made eggs better. And it was a different level of our relationship because before he was not doing that stuff.Don’t compete with other dads, or other families. Compete with your spouse. Compete with their mother. Who can use their phone less? Who can get them down to bed fastest? Who can convince the kids to do that thing they hate doing with the least amount of arguing? Who can pick up the most slack? Who can get up earliest and start breakfast? Who can complain the least?You’ll both be better and happier for it. Your kids might not notice...but they’ll be happier and better for it too.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A few weeks ago, there was a fascinating piece about the controversial NFL receiver Antonio Brown. Of course, anything about Antonio Brown is fascinating—his behavior in the last several months has cost him something like $40M in guaranteed money and taken the best wide receiver in the game out of the game, possibly forever. But what’s worth taking note of in this piece, for any dad or stepdad, are two seemingly inconsequential remarks by Larry Moss, Brown’s stepfather. Brown and his brothers, Desmond and Eddie, would often try to intervene in arguments between their mom, Adrianne Moss, and Larry—arguments Larry attributes to trying to parent Antonio.Larry Moss, Brown's stepfather, says Brown started staying out late and sneaking off with cars around the age of 14, with a "no respect" attitude that contributed to his leaving the Miami Gardens home. As Larry remembers it, he and Brown's mother even lived in separate homes at times because of friction between him and Brown.Imagine that. 17 years later this guy is still pointing the finger at a child for the troubles in his marriage. And he’s so shameless about it, he’s willing to put it on the record to ESPN. This is not what dads do—even if they do have difficult children, even if they are stressed and overwhelmed by being a father or stepfather. We have to follow Marcus Aurelius’ advice always: “Blame yourself or no one.” Your spouse is not the problem. Your job is not the problem. The economy is not why you’re stressed. It’s not the weather. The fact that the house is a mess is not your kid’s fault. The fact that their grades are slipping is not their fault. That’s not why your marriage is struggling. You’re the problem. Your systems are the problem. Your parenting is the problem. Focus on that. It’s the only thing you control. It’s your job to take the blame. It’s your job to help fix it. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The writer Thomas Sowell once noted, sardonically, how sad it is that editions of Frederick Douglass’s memoirs, when provided for high school students, were forced to provide annotated definitions of many words. What does it say, he asked, that a slave in the 1800s was able—under the penalty of severe violence—to teach himself a vocabulary that privileged high school students cannot manage after a hundred and fifty years of progress? And what does it say that we have to spoon feed them the answers to these vexing problems—how could they possibly look up a word without our help!—instead of expecting them to figure it out themselves?We have talked before about why it’s important not to baby your kids when it comes to reading. We have also talked about teaching them that “everything is figureoutable”—that is, giving them the skills to learn what they don’t know. But it’s also important that, as a father, you provide the expectation that they are capable of doing things. If you treat your kid like a helpless idiot...they’ll stay one. If you assume that certain ideas are beyond their comprehension, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Your kids will not learn that which you expect them not to be able to learn. Equally, they will grow and strive and struggle to meet the expectations you do have. If Frederick Douglass could do it, your kid can definitely do it. He had to fear for his life. He had not only to steal time to read, he had to steal books and newspapers too. Your children have far more advantages. So expect, encourage, inspire them to seize this. Expect great things from them, expect progress, but most of all, expect them to try.They’ll be better for it. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In 2009, after winning two National Championships as the head coach of the Florida Gators football team, Urban Meyer stunned the nation by announcing his retirement. The self-admitted workaholic, Meyer made the decision to step down due to a health scare. He woke up in the middle of the night with severe chest pains, lost consciousness, and was rushed to a hospital in an ambulance. He said that when his 18-year-old daughter, Nicki, found out her father would be leaving his job in Florida, she hugged him and said, “I get my daddy back.” She didn’t care about National Championships. She didn’t care about multi-million dollar salaries. She didn’t care about how many people admired her father. She cared that all those things meant her father was never around. So she drafted a contract he had to sign before he ever agreed to another coaching position. What were the terms?1. My family will always come first.2. I will take care of myself and maintain good health.3. I will go on a trip once a year with Nicki (at minimum).4. I will not go more than nine hours a day at the office.5. I will sleep with my cell phone on silent.6. I will continue to communicate daily with my kids.7. I will trust God's plan and not be overanxious.8. I will keep the lakehouse.9. I will find a way to watch Nicki and Gigi play volleyball.10. I will eat three meals a day.It’s a beautiful sentiment, reminiscent of something we talked about recently: King Leonidas choosing 300 Spartan fathers because he knew fathers do whatever they have to do to not let their children down. Would that be the case for Meyer? He returned to football in 2011, taking the head coaching job at Ohio State. In 2015, a caller on a radio show asked Meyer if he still honored Nicki’s contract. He laughed, saying "I tore that thing up a long time ago...It was all for show." Yikes. In 2019, he retired from Ohio State...due to the "long-term risks" associated with a health issue. It was also done in the shadow of mishandling domestic abuse allegations against his former receivers coach.Just because Urban Meyer fell short doesn’t mean the contract was a bad idea, it doesn’t mean we have fall short ourselves. What would a contract with your kids look like? What terms do you need to agree to to have a happier, healthier life? To protect you from your own drive and workaholism? To make sure your family is always firstSign it and stick to it.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s a story as old as fatherhood itself. The son or daughter kills themselves to win the approval of their dad, which never seems to come. There is pain, resentment, bewilderment. I have worked so hard to make you proud, am I just not enough? Only at the end, or after the parent’s death, is it revealed: The child had the thing they wanted all along. They just never knew.This was Claudia Williams’, the daughter of Ted Williams, story. Only buried in a pile of memorabilia did she find a note left by her impossible-to-please father. “To my beautiful daughter,” it said, “I love you. Dad.’” In a recent obituary of the brilliant publisher Sonny Mehta, Roger Cohen writes:“When Mehta’s father, a diplomat, died in Vienna, Mehta found in his desk a folder with every article ever published about him. The pride of his father, who had never complimented his son, was evident.”It breaks your heart. Why couldn’t they have expressed some of this when they were alive? Was it a generational thing? Did they think it was helping to make their kids better, tougher? We wonder this about our own parents sometimes: Did they lack the words, did they just not know any better? Why couldn’t they have been more like Jim Valvano’s father and given us the gift of being a fan?In the end, these questions don’t get answered. We’ll never know. What we do know, what does matter, is what we do with our kids right now. We have been given a second chance. We have been given our own opportunity. We can’t wait to be proud. We can’t keep our feelings for them hidden under piles of paper or in a drawer in our desk. We have to tell them now. We have to show them now.That we’re rooting for them. That we love them. That we believe in them. That we’re proud of them. Because we are. And they deserve to know it—before it’s too late. Before it’s just some bittersweet memory of a connection that should have been there...but for mysterious reasons, never was made.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When our kids mess up we say: Aren’t you a little old for that? And we have all sorts of rules of thumb for what things are age appropriate or not—what age they should stop having accidents, what age they should stop throwing a tantrum just because they’re tired, what age it stops being okay for other people to have to pick up after them. You’re too old to act this way. It’s time to grow up.But, unfortunately, we apply this standard to ourselves less often. Whether it’s as serious as an affair or as silly as getting hangry because you neglected to eat, we seem to forget that we should be policing ourselves first. Our kids are at least still kids, even when they’re acting a bit beneath their age. You’re an adult. What excuse do you have?“We ought not willingly add to old age, which has many of its own problems, the shame of misbehaviors.” That’s Cato the Elder, who seems to have really lived up to that second part of his name. Remind yourself today and every day that you are getting older, that it’s time to grow out of these silly habits you’ve allowed yourself to fall into. Remind yourself that you’re too old to act out, to stoop this low, to not be responsible for yourself. It doesn’t matter if other people are willing to let you get away with it—because you’re a success in your field, because you have a patient spouse, because you’re in private—what matters is that you shouldn’t let yourself get away with it. You’re too old to act out. And even if you weren’t, remember your kids are always watching—a little fellow follows you—so act like the adult that they believe you are.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Pretty much every parent wants to raise kids who turn out to be good people. Almost no father thinks: I’d love for my son to be rich, but awful. Or I’d love for my daughter to be famous, but vapid and cruel. It’s a given. And yet, when you look at most of what we do and say as parents, especially as our kids get older, it’s clear that what we’re actually encouraging and incentivizing is for our kids to be successful. We want to hear how they did on their math test and whether they came in first running laps in PE. We want to know what college they want to go to, and how their extracurriculars are going. We nudge them toward a field of work that’s lucrative, that’s exciting, that will mean they won’t have to worry about money. The problem is that none of this has anything to do with what deep down we actually know we want—that we want them to be good and kind and wonderful to be around. So, clearly, it’s time to rethink some things. As Adam Grant and his wife, Allison Sweet Grant, wrote in a wonderful piece for The Atlantic, maybe the key is to stop trying to raise successful kids. Maybe the key is to change what you give attention to at home and in conversation. Instead, you need to actively discuss and reward thinking about the values that have to do with character. As they write: “To demonstrate that caring is a core value, we realized that we needed to give it comparable attention. We started by changing our questions. At our family dinners, we now ask our children what they did to help others. At first, ‘I forget’ was the default reply. But after a while, they started giving more thoughtful answers. ‘I shared my snack with a friend who didn’t have one,’ for example, or ‘I helped a classmate understand a question she got wrong on a quiz.’ They had begun actively looking for opportunities to be helpful, and acting upon them.”Brilliant. And practical and actionable. It’s worth every father building into their breakfast and dinner conversations and time driving in the car. Don’t ask them about the things that don’t matter in the big scheme of things, don’t teach them that they can impress you with accomplishments alone. Show them that excellence is what matters—moral excellence. That being a good person is not just what you pay lip service to, but what you are always thinking about. So they will too. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

One of the things Napoleon advised his generals against was “forming a picture” of the battle. What he meant was that your preconceived notions, your predictions, were a dangerous liability in something as fluid and fast-paced as a battle. As it happens, this is good advice for fathers as well. It’s easy to go into it thinking that you know. Because you’ve read the books. Because you’re on your third kid now and have it handled. Because you and your spouse have a plan for how to do it all right. And then guess what? Unavoidable reality quickly humbles anyone with this kind of certainty. Many dads go into fatherhood with strong ideas of how differently they’re going to do things than their own parents. They were upset or hurt or never understood why their dad was the way he was. And what do they soon find out from firsthand experience? That, in a lot of cases, there was actually a logic to it. That dad wasn’t as big of a jerk as he seemed to you, a little kid. That it was more a timeless function of the job than any decision they were consciously making. When we talked to James Frey a while back about what he’d learned about fatherhood, his answer was along similar lines. He described being a father as an “ongoing process of learning and adjusting and adapting.” Every situation, every kid, was different, he said. In other words, you can’t form a picture. Not of fatherhood. Not of your family. Not of each of your kids. You don’t know how it’s going to go. You don’t even have much of a vote in a lot of it. Which is why we have to be willing to adjust. To be flexible. To always be ready to learn and to change.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Rules and regulations are important. A child needs to learn what behaviors are acceptable and which ones are not. They need structure and guidance. They need to learn about responsibility and accountability; about how actions have consequences; about respecting authority. Sensible, hardset rules can help with a lot of those things. But arbitrary rules that we make up simply for our own convenience, those are something we should step back from and think hard about. You know the kind we’re talking about. The ones produced in the moment, on the spot, as a response to that one-word question our children learn early and that has a special way of driving us nuts: Why? Because I said so! Because I don’t want to do that.For a long time, one of the arbitrary rules in Jeannie Gaffigan’s house had to do with slime. Maybe your kids are too old to care about slime, but it’s not difficult to relate Jeannie’s dilemma. Sure, the kids are having fun, but it’s a pain in the ass to clean up, and who do you think is going to be the one left with the scrubber and the paper towels in their hands? Recently, though, Jeannie Gaffigan had a change of heart about her rules—particularly after a battle with a benign but very life threatening brain tumor. She recently talked about it and her brush with death on Marc Maron’s podcast:“My nine year old just turned 10. She is into making slime. You know, this is a big thing, right? It's this whole little science thing. So my daughter is really into this slime thing and I had a list of rules and regulations for slime in the house and how to deal with it because I was finding it in places that are like—AH! But after the surgery, I realized that I never asked, 'can you teach me how to make the slime?' I never engaged with the slime. I engaged with the control of the slime.”We don’t want to deal with the mess. So we come up with a rule. We’re too tired when we get home from work. Rule. We just got that carpet and it was expensive. Rule. We’re adults, this is silly. Rule. Our kids could be making better use of their time. Rule. We just don’t have the patience right now. Rule. What we seem to have less rules about are with ourselves. Why not a rule about being interested? Why not a rule about playing and having fun together? Why not a rule about encouraging their fascinations rather than curtailing them? Those are the important rules because they will bring you and your kids closer together. They will help you relax. And, of course, as Jeannie explained, you can still limit where the slime is used in your house. ”There's still rules,” she said somewhat obviously. Because like in any healthy household, there has to be. But make the shared experience--make the fun together--come first. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s interesting to think about the steady decline in expectations for our kids when it comes to reading. Sure, we want them to be able to read earlier than ever, but what about what they read? Not long ago, kids were taught Latin and Greek so they could read the classics...in their original languages. Think of Aesop’s Fables. Think of children being read Plutarch’s Lives by their parents. This is heavy stuff. And purposefully so. Because when you read old school books, what you’re really doing is acquainting yourself with the obscure yet illustrative figures from the ancient world while also displaying a willingness to wrestle with timeless and morally complex topics. There is a quote from George Orwell, which dates to the early 20th century, that illustrates how much things have changed. “Modern books for children are rather horrible things,” he said, “especially when you see them in the mass. Personally I would sooner give a child a copy of Petronius Arbiter than Peter Pan, but even Barrie seems manly and wholesome compared with some of his later imitators.”How many adults even know who Petronius is? (He was a writer who lived in the court of Nero). And how many adults today probably winced at the idea that a book should teach kids how to be manly? Even the idea of wholesomeness is controversial! Wholesome according to whom? The white male patriarchy? The west? The Judeo-Christian tradition? This is how the discussion devolves these days. Is it any surprise then that the children and young adult sections of today’s bookstores are filled with so much infantilizing escapism, fantastical melodrama, ie just plain absurd nonsense? The curmudgeons among us want to blame millennials and Gen Z for this. Their laziness and faltering tastes are why we’re awash in this stuff. But do you really believe our kids are dumber than the kids of Orwell’s time? Or back before that? Of course not! They’re kids. We’re the problem. Parents. Adults. Educators. Publishers. As a collective, we’ve stopped believing our kids are capable of reading challenging books. So we provide them without “kids editions” and give them silly picture books, instead of helping the  build their reading muscles, and then we wonder why they can’t handle heavy stuff. Well stop it. Push them. Push yourself. They aren’t babies. Or at least they shouldn’t be after they’ve learned to read for themselves.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The ancient writer—and father—Plutarch tells us of a parenting strategy he discovered in the works of Plato. “Young people must be taught from childhood,” he said, “that it is not right to wear gold on their bodies or to possess it, since they have their own personal gold intermixed into their soul, hinting (I think) at the virtue that is part of human nature and received at birth.” It’s a beautiful idea: They don’t need to wear that most precious and sought after ornament...because they are made of something much more precious. Even more beautiful is the timelessness of this observation. Plato said it over 2000 years ago...and Mr. Rogers ended every one of his programs with something very similar. "You've made this day a special day by just being you,” he would say. “There's no person in the whole world like you, and I like you just the way you are." We must, as parents, teach our children where their value really lies. It’s not in accomplishments. It’s not in what they earn or how they look. It’s not to be found in anything external at all. It’s inherent. It exists because they exist. Because there is no one on the planet with their same combination of DNA and experiences and circumstances. That’s what makes them special—what makes them rarer than any of the rarest jewels and more precious than the most precious metals. That’s why we love them. And why they should love and value themselves. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The late ESPN broadcaster—and father of two girls—Stuart Scott, was once sitting in a restaurant with some friends and their respective children. Everyone was having fun, and it was one of those delightful scenes where you see parents bonding with their kids. The kids were behaving. The dads were present. All was well.Until a mom walked by and, recognizing Scott, tried to pay him a compliment for “babysitting the kids.” She did not realize that this was an insult to Scott—and in fact to all fathers. Because dads don’t babysit. It’s impossible. Babysitting is something somebody else does for your children on your behalf. A babysitter is by definition a non-parent. These were Scott’s kids. He couldn’t babysit on his own behalf. It’d be like calling a homeowner a security guard every time you see them lock their house when they leave for work. They’re not protecting someone else’s property, they’re just being a responsible homeowner. They’re just doing their job.Scott was doing his job. He was being a dad. No more, but certainly no less. As his friend would observe after Scott’s tragic death from cancer, “We didn’t see ourselves as an occasional parental figure who might take the kids off mom’s hands for a couple hours.”See what you do as important. Because it is. You’re not a babysitter. You’re not some lesser figure in your kids’ lives. When you are with them—and when you are not with them—you’re their father. That matters. It’s an important job, one that you should take seriously and never demean (and not let others demean, either). You’re doing it because you love it, because you get something out of it, and you know what kind of impact it has. Not because you’re covering for someone else. Not because anyone can do it. They can’t. You’re the only one who can. And that’s why it’s got a special name when you do it.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A couple weeks ago, we talked about the sobering exercise of trying to observe other people getting upset or losing their temper at their kids. Nothing wakes you up quite like catching a reflection of yourself in other people, especially when it comes to our anger problems. But this exercise of looking in the mirror through people-watching can be used to address other bad habits and parenting flaws as well. One such area is our anxiety. Everyone knows anxious parents. The mom who is always worried about strangers with candy or drugs in Halloween treats. The dad who turns into a totally different person at the airport, turning the already stressful experience of traveling into a nightmare of conflict and needlessly high stakes. There are the couples who are always fighting about money, even though they are hardly starving, and whose lifestyle and insecurities are in a vicious negative feedback loop. There are the couples who are stressed—a decade and a half before they need to be—about where their kids will go to college, or the ones whose political views have them convinced the world is about to end and are thus perpetually outraged and worked up.When these folks catch our attention, we should turn our gaze towards their children. What effect is this having on them? What kind of energy is all this anxiety and stress causing? Is it solving any problems? Is it contributing to anyone’s happiness? Is it the source of a lot of misery?The point here is not to judge. It’s to see ourselves in someone else. We are all anxious. We all have our own bundles of worry and fear. And these things turn us into a type of person we do not want to be, and someone whom our children do not deserve. Anxiety doesn’t solve problems—it compounds them. It ratchets up the tension. Not just on you, but the impressionable and innocent people who have no choice but to live under your roof. It’s hard to watch other people behave this way, which is why we are usually in denial about behaving that way ourselves. You have to catch yourself. You have to work on yourself before you become the thing you cannot stand to look at.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.