Welcome to the Daily Dad podcast where we provide one lesson every day to help you with your

most important job being a dad. These are lessons inspired by ancient philosophy, by practical

wisdom, and insights from dads all over the world.

Thank you for listening, and we hope this helps.

Can you accept that you're not in control anymore?

The first thing becoming a parent teaches you, as we've talked about before, is the idea of

unavoidable reality.

Each new father, David Brooks once explained, suddenly discovers that they're not in control

anymore.

The kids are.

Or rather, the reality of having kids is You don't decide how things go anymore.

This new life you're in does. It's humbling, but it's also freeing because now you can simply be.

You can sit in the car while you wait for dance practice to wrap up. You can sit by their bedside,

soothing them back to sleep while they're sick. You can endure the endless

stories that never go anywhere. You can watch the shows they want to watch, and you can actually

somehow enjoy this because you've assented. This is what your life is these days. Well, good,

but now don't forget it, because it's never changing. Even when they graduate from school, it's still your life.

It's your job to be around for the phone calls, to answer the phone whenever it rings, to be on call.

Even when they have families on their own, it's your job to fly to their house and do the dishes and the laundry so that they can have a break.

It's your job to make all the same trips to Disneyland in the park and wait

for nap time to be over all over again. You're not in control. No, that is. Obama in the White

House wasn't even as an ex-president multimillionaire. He never will be again. And neither will you.

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