Welcome to the Daily Dad podcast, where we provide one lesson every single day to help you with your most important job, being a parent.

I'm Ryan Holiday, and I draw these lessons from ancient philosophy, modern psychology, practical wisdom, and insights from parents just like

you all over the world. Thank you for listening, and I hope this helps. Seeing your own parents now as an adult is stressful.

There's a great Rob Doss 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 now see it through the eyes of your own kids. 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.

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