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 we hope this helps.

It's so hard. You think you've got your act together and then you have kids. You think you're

someone with a good

handle on their emotions and then toddlers and teenagers alike disabuse you of this notion. Because

that's what kids do. They stress test us, prompting many dark nights of the soul. Can I do this?

Who is this person I'm becoming? Please don't turn me into my own parents or those parents

I've seen in the park. In her wonderful book, Sorrow and Bliss, which you can pick up at the Painted Porch Bookshop,

Meg Mason has a great exchange between Ingrid, a parent of three, and Martha, her single but struggling

sister. As soon as you're a mother, Ingrid explains in despair to her sister, you realize that

every child was a baby five seconds ago. And how could anyone shout out? As soon as you're a mother, Ingrid explains in despair to her sister, you realize that every

child was a baby five seconds ago.

And how could anyone shout at a baby?

But then you shout at your own, and if you could do that, you must be a terrible person.

Before you had kids, you got to think that you were a good person.

So then you secretly resent them from making you realize you're a monster.

It might feel that way, but you are not a monster.

Let's just put that out there.

But you are struggling, as we all do, because they push and prod and challenge us in unimaginable ways by destroying some priceless heirloom or trashing their room right after you've

cleaned it, by putting themselves in danger in that parking

lot by coming home high or escorted by the police. Sometimes it's anger, sometimes it's fear,

...